Putting the Ante in Antebellum

 

Savannah, the first planned city in America, started out with such high ideals.  Its founder, James Oglethorpe, arrived in 1733 with a boat load of English poor people willing to trade debtor’s prison for the chance to start a new agrarian life in the colonies.  50 acres and a modest house on one of the broad streets surrounding 24 leafy squares.  There was to be religious freedom - well, except for the Catholics (already established in the Spanish colony of Florida and perceived to be a threat.) There was also to be no liquor or slaves.  Or lawyers.  Bravo Mr. Oglethorpe!

Sadly none of the high ideals except for religious freedom (including Catholics) lasted very long.  Savannah became one of the busiest ports in the trans Atlantic slave trade.  Most of the grand houses surrounding the beautiful squares were built in the 1800s so you know where the money and labor came from.  The riverfront, where the largest auction of men, women and children in this country took place - referred to as “the Weeping Time” - is now a thriving tourist hub.

I had zero interest in touring any plantations but agreed to One More Guided Tour for two reasons: it promised to be told from the point of view of the enslaved African American people; and it was included in the price of admission but wasn’t obligatory.  I could bail at any time.

The Macleod Plantation is on James Island in South Carolina, famous for growing the highly prized sea island cotton. The family’s land extended to some 1600 acres, but the Macleods were considered only modestly successful and the house was not massive.  Still, there were 74 enslaved men, women and children working the fields and living in 26 cabins.

Our guide - a jaunty little fireplug of a man - jumped right in and told his group that this tour of a forced labor camp might be too much for some of us.  Okay, maybe this wouldn’t be a whitewash after all.  True, he did like to hear himself talk but at least he kept to the subject, and I was spared learning anything about him except his name (which I promptly forgot).

The most interesting thing about the house, built in the 1850s, was the fact that a Macleod granddaughter added the columns to what was the back of the house.  She also had an avenue of live oaks planted leading up to it, thereby creating a more “traditional” antebellum look.  This she did in the 1920s.  Yep.  She was the President of the Charleston United Daughters of the Confederacy and her rather modest house wasn’t matching up to the romanticized version of The South that her group was so busy propagating through various means like choosing what history was taught in schools - the Lost Cause of the Glorious Confederacy - and erecting statues to Civil War generals.

I learned a bit about Reconstruction (there’s an excellent PBS series available), a period of history I was woefully ignorant about - but then Dan, who grew up in this country, was also a bit hazy on the subject, mainly because it wasn’t really covered in any depth back when he was in school.  Perhaps we can thank Miss Macleod and the Daughters for that.

Miss Macleod, Daughter of the Confederacy

After the Civil War the Macleod Plantation was occupied by the Freedmen’s Bureau, made up of free black men and former slaves, and much of the land was granted to former slaves - the “forty acres and a mule” scheme that promised so much hope and freedom for so many, but delivered so little in the end.  South Carolina actually had a majority-black government for a brief, heady period during Reconstruction but that was an aberration not to be tolerated for long, or repeated.  Many former slaves were forced to tear up their land deeds or agree to become sharecroppers which became another way to keep generations in poverty and under control.

These cabins bear the dubious distinction of being the oldest cabins continuously occupied by descendants of slaves.

An unrestored interior.

The Macleods got the house and a good deal of their land back and rented the cabins out to their former slaves.  Some descendants lived in these remaining cabins until 1990, when the last Macleod died. Another head spinning fact to try to absorb.

Charleston is even more lovely than Savannah.  The French Quarter is simply astonishing.  It makes the one in New Orleans look like a slum.

And then you stop to take in this, located smack dab in the middle of the grand houses.  

The old slave market.

Charleston was an even bigger trading port than Savannah.  Cotton, rice and indigo - immensely profitable crops because of the slave labor that produced them for people like the Macleods.  Perhaps it’s no surprise that the first shots of the Civil War were fired in the harbor.  There was a lot at stake.  There still is.

Our tour through the South left me feeling - well, a bit like Daisy.

Onward up the coast to a week on the Outerbanks with just sand and ocean to contend with. I need a rest.