It's a Plantation, Y'all!

1 Nov 09—Only 2 days to go before we head to Georgia for a week, so we decided to head to a plantation today. This is the Boone Plantation; established by a land grant back in 1681, originally started at 150 acres, but ultimately it grew to 4000 acres, or 17.5 square miles! Prior to the Civil War, almost all 4000 acres had cotton planted on them…the only other thing they sold from here were bricks made by the slaves.

If you were looking out from the house, you would see the gates, and then the 3/4 mile long length of oak trees called "The Hall of Oaks". (See pictures below, left to right). The "Hall " is made up of 88 oak trees planted by the son of the original owner back in 1742...so they are 267 years old! And if you think any of this looks familiar, it is because you have seen it in the movies or on TV. The movies "Queen" and "The Notebok" were filmed here, and the mini-series "North and South" with Patrick Swayze, too. I can still see Swayze on his horse coming down this road! For those of you who watch the "Army Wives" TV show, some of that show is filmed here also.

We started our tour here at the slave quarters shown below. These slave quarters are the actual buildings some of the house slaves and the skilled-worker slaves lived in back then. There are 9 buildings on this “street”, and there used to be 27 of them in 3 rows. You can't tell from the pictures, but they are built right outside the gate to the main house. And they were intentionally built at the entrance to the main house as a sign of the status and wealth of the slave owner. The field slaves lived quite a bit away from the main house...closer to the fields they worked in. At the plantation's peak, they had over 300 slaves here.

In each of the slave buildings they had displays about everything from the baskets they used to make, to the establishment of the 1st A.M.E. church, to uses of ocra, and the banjo. If you read nothing else, read about the ocra.

After looking at the slave quarters, we were entertained and informed by a man named Joseph, who explained a lot about the "Gullah" culture. Most of the slaves of South Carolina and Georgia came from the west coast of Africa...a lot from Angola, where "Gullah" comes from. He talked a lot about how the slaves sang songs to encourage each other to keep working, and even to tell each other that one of them was going to escape the next morning, using the "call and response" method we are familiar with in black churches today. They used the songs so that the masters wouldn't know what they were talking about...he sang a few of the songs and had a great voice for old bible-type singing.

He also told us how the tensions between light-skinned and dark-skinned African Americans that exist today go back to the slave days. He said that the slave owners routinely raped the house slaves, therefore producing an ever-lightened slave class, and even slaves with straighter hair. He refered to this as "good hair"...like a movie is titled that just came out in a theater near you!

After the Civil War, he said the house slave class even started their own churches, and anyone wanting to come in was met with someone at the door holding a comb...if it went thru your hair you could come in...if not, out you went!

After the Civil War the plantation and cotton system collapsed...the owners of this place went into the pecan business, planting 17,000 trees at its peak. But over time the land has been sold to different owners and then sold off to developers. This plantation is now only 738 acres...all the rest of the land was sold off for subdivisions...how sad.

The current owners actually live in the top floors of the house, so we were only allowed to see the 1st floor...and then they told us we couldn't take pictures...I sneaked these 2 pictures anyway. The breezeway on the right was actually made with bricks that the slaves made, but that is probably the only part of the house that has anything to do with the old days. This house, although beautiful, was built in 1935.

It is a working plantation, raising vegetables for sale, but I think they make the most of their money from tourist sales, and the several times per year festivals they have here...strawberry festival, pecan festival, etc. They even have a 2 day re-enactment of the Battle of Secessionville every year. This is the re-enactment of a real battle that took place during the Civil War, one the South won--hahaha.

And then they have a small plot of cotton, so people like me can take pictures!!!

This is Charleston as we are coming back from the plantation. I haven't see a sky like that since I left Montana.