View allAll Photos Tagged Sumter
In late February 1864, Union prisoners began arriving at the Confederate prisoner of war camp, Camp Sumter, located in Andersonville, Georgia. Most entered by the Main Gate which has been rebuilt for the modern visitor to the prison site ans is visible in the left center of this photo. By June the prison population numbered over 20,000. The Confederate jailers decided that a larger prison was needed and started in the middle of June to enlarge the prison. The walls were that originally encompassed 10 acres were expanded to include 26.5 acres over the period of 14 days. Prisoners did the work. The prison designed to hold around 10,000 POWs held 33,000 by August.
The Stockade Branch of Sweetwater Creek was the source of drinking water as well as all water used by the prisoners. With the overcrowding it soon became polluted by human wastes and other pollutants. As a result Diarrhea and dysentery spread throughout the camp. These conditions along with other diseases and malnutrition resulted in a high mortality rate. Prayers were offered through out the camp by those who were suffering, According to eyewitness accounts passed down to relatives and written in journals, a group of prisoners decided they would pray to God for pure water and would not stop until their prayers were answered. The group prayed for hours. The result was what many men that were there saw as a miracle and a direct answer to prayer. On August 16,1864 witnesses report a deafening noise like thunder or an earthquake that shook the earth, At a spot where some of the men were kneeling, a freshwater spring burst out of the ground. That spot is marked by the stone house shown in the center right of the photo. Considering this phenomenon a providential act of God that was a direct answer to prayer, both prisoner and jailer called the spring and stream Providence Spring.
Some say it was a spring that had been buried during construction of the prison, others hold it was a new spring but regardless it was in the minds of many a direct answer to earnest prayer. Consider the testimony of S.E. Lookingbill of Company C 6th Maryland Vol., Inf., 2nd Brigade 3 Division, 6th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, who was a eyewitness to the miracle: "There has been a great deal written about Providence Spring and what caused the water to come out of the earth at this place. I will state that I was there at the time God gave this spring to us, and this spring came through prayer for water.
The water furnished the stockade by the branch became so unfit from the filth on the outside and from the cook house and stables that there was a general cry for water from all over the camp and God heard the cries of his people and gave them Providence Spring. The Confederates at the time, and even to this day, call this Providence Spring, and say that God answered the soldiers' prayer for water."
The sudden appearance of the spring at the western wall of the stockade in the summer of 1864 was a treasured and sacred memory of many Union survivors of the prison. By the 1880s, visiting the site of the spring was an important Memorial Day tradition. Following the initial preservation of the prison site in the 1890s by the Grand Army of the Republic, the Woman's Relief Corps arranged for the Spring House (shown in the photo) to cover the site of the spring. The Providence Spring House was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1901. These are some of the inscriptions on the walls of The Spring House : "The Prisoners' cry of thirst rang up to Heaven; God heard, and with His thunder cleft the earth and poured his sweet water came rushing here." "God smote the hillside and gave them drink, August 16, 1864. These inscriptions reveal how the inmates felt about the spring and why it was such an important place to them even after the war.
Andersonville was designated a National Historic Site and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
Fort Sumter( a short cruise away) and the Start of the Civil War.
This National historic site is the spot where the Civil War began. The Sth Carolina militia, under the command of the first Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire and bombarded the Fort on 12th April 1861. Had Lincoln “forced” the South into starting the Civil War? Upon secession he had advised Southern states that federal property would be defended and the mails sent through. Sumter was a federal fort. Major Anderson had run out of supplies and Lincoln advised Anderson that he would re-provision the fort with supplies but no troops. Major Anderson advised the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis that he would evacuate the fort on 15th April if new supplies had not arrived by then. The Sth Carolinians got itchy. At 4:30 am on April 12th they bombarded the fort. It continued for 40 hours until Anderson surrendered. The war had begun. Southerners expected it to be over by September.
Boone Hall Plantation.
What is special about Boone Hall? It has a wonderful Virginian Live Oak alley which was planted from 1743 to 1843. The plantation has been continuously producing crops since 1681. It especially focuses on Gullah culture and the slave quarters with presentations by black Americans. Eight slave cabins (1790-1810) depict different aspects of Gullah culture and history. The plantation style homestead was only built in 1936 but the original house was built around 1700. It has beautiful flower gardens and the azaleas should be at their best. In the 1850s the plantation had 85 slaves with many involved in red brick production. Its main crops in early years were indigo and then cotton from the early 1800s. Its structures include the round smokehouse (1750); and the cotton gin factory (1853).
Gullah Culture and Language and Blacks in Charleston.
Gullah language is recognised as a distinct language and the black American population of coastal Sth Carolina and Georgia recognise themselves as Gullah people. But where did this culture originate? American historian Joseph Opala has spent decades researching the connections between Sierra Leone in Africa and Sth Carolina. A majority of the coastal black slaves arriving in Sth Carolina in the 1700s came from Sierra Leone where the area was known as the “Rice Coast” of Africa. The slaves brought with them the knowledge and skills for rice cultivation in Sth Carolina; their rice cooking methods; their West African language; their legends and myths; and their beliefs in spirits and voodoo. The Gullah people are thought to have the best preserved African culture of any black American group. Few have moved around the USA and black families in Charleston are now tracing their family history (and having family reunions with relatives) in Sierra Leone and Gambia, despite a break of 250 years in family contact! Many can trace their family links back to the Mende or Temne tribal groups in Sierra Leone. The Gullah language is a Creole language based on English but with different syntax more akin to African languages and with many African words and a few French words. The word Gullah is believed to be a mispronunciation of the African word Gora or Gola which came from several tribal groups in Sierra Leone. The direct links with Sierra Leone have been supported by the discovery of an African American funeral song which is identical to one sung by villagers in Sierra Leone.
The Gullah women in Charleston are also known for their weaving- the Sweetgrass basket sellers who can be found in several locations around the city. The skill and tradition of basket making came directly from Africa. And although they do not usually use the term voodoo the Gullah people believe in spirits and the power of roots, herbs or potions to ward off evil spirits or to snare a reluctant lover. If a spell is cast upon you can be “rooted” or “fixed” by this witchcraft and unable to resist the spell. This spiritual tradition is still strong and even whites in Charleston paint the ceilings of their piazzas blue to ward off old hags and evil spirits (and the colour is also meant to deter mosquitoes.)
In the city of Charleston about 18,000 of its residents were slaves in 1861. Large households often had 10 to 20 slaves to do gardening, the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, the food serving, caring for the horses etc. Some households hired out servants to others for short periods and some households sold products produced by the slaves - dresses, other clothing, pastries, shoes, hats, horse shoes etc. Some slaves were musicians and played for their masters or were hired out for social functions to other houses; others were hired out with horse teams for transportation of others etc. So not all slaves worked as domestic servants. But there were also free blacks in Charleston. Often illegitimate children were freed upon their white father’s death and some slaves received small incomes if they had special skills and they could saved enough to buy their freedom. Eventually some free blacks became slave owners themselves by either purchasing slaves or by inheriting slaves from their white fathers. One of the wealthiest free blacks in Charleston in the Antebellum period was Richard DeReef who owned a wharf where he ran a timber business. He also owned a number of rental properties in Charleston. Richard was not a former slave. His African father with his Indian wife had migrated to Sth Carolina in the late 1700s when this was still possible. As his business grew Richard purchased slaves of his own. Despite his wealth Richard DeReef was considered a mixed race or coloured man and was never accepted into Charleston society. After the Civil War when the Radical Republicans from the North were overseeing/controlling Southern governments Richard DeReef was elected as a city councillor in 1868. That was the year that the new federally enforced state constitution allowing blacks to vote came into force. DeReef probably only served for a year or two. By 1870 the Ku Klux Klan was active and blacks disappeared from elected positions. When Northerners left Sth Carolina to its own devises in 1877, with the end of Northern Reconstruction, Sth Carolina stripped blacks of their right to vote by new state laws. Ballots for each of the usual eight categories of office had to be placed in a different ballot box. If any ballot was placed incorrectly all votes by that person were illegal. Later in the 1880s southern states brought in grandfather clauses- you could only vote if your grandfather did. This meant that slaves were not eligible to vote.
Manassas National Battlefield
Manassas. Bull Run. The first major battle of the Civil War, plus a second battle a little over one year later. Manassas Junction, just twenty miles west of Washington, D.C., became the site of two struggles to solve the split in the Federal government started with South Carolina secession and the bombardment of Fort Sumter. It was a struggle that many thought would be over quickly, so much so, that when it was learned that a battle was brewing along the edge of the stream known as Bull Run, picnics were packed and bonnets were tightened amongst the political class and aristocracy of the city. By the end of one hour amongst the hail of bullets, cannon fire, and the shrieks of the wounded and dying, it was pretty clear that the callousness and lack of seriousness that the citizens of the city thought about the strife, would be gone forever. Fours years later and over 700,000 citizens and soldiers dead would make the first day at the first battle of Bull Run, in Manassas, Virginia, far from a quick and easy problem to solve. Remember, that those casualties caused on the fields from this suburb of the District of Columbia to Vicksburg and Atlanta, to Gettysburg and Shiloh, came in a nation not of three hundred million residents, but one of thirty-one million people as of the 1860 census in all the states and territories.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston,_South_Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley, Cooper, and Wando rivers. Charleston had a population of 150,277 as of the 2020 U.S. Census. The 2020 population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties, was 799,636 residents, the third-largest in the state and the 74th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States.
Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles II, at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River (now Charles Towne Landing) but relocated in 1680 to its present site, which became the fifth-largest city in North America within ten years. It remained unincorporated throughout the colonial period; its government was handled directly by a colonial legislature and a governor sent by Parliament. Election districts were organized according to Anglican parishes, and some social services were managed by Anglican wardens and vestries. Charleston adopted its present spelling with its incorporation as a city in 1783. Population growth in the interior of South Carolina influenced the removal of the state government to Columbia in 1788, but Charleston remained among the ten largest cities in the United States through the 1840 census.
Charleston's significance in American history is tied to its role as a major slave trading port. Charleston slave traders like Joseph Wragg were the first to break through the monopoly of the Royal African Company and pioneered the large-scale slave trade of the 18th century; almost one half of slaves imported to the United States arrived in Charleston. In 2018, the city formally apologized for its role in the American Slave trade after CNN noted that slavery "riddles the history" of Charleston.
Known for its strong tourism industry, in 2016 Travel + Leisure Magazine ranked Charleston as the best city in the world.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter
Fort Sumter is a sea fort built on an artificial island protecting Charleston, South Carolina, from naval invasion. Its origin dates to the War of 1812 when the British invaded Washington by sea. It was still incomplete in 1861 when the Battle of Fort Sumter began the American Civil War. It was severely damaged during the war, left in ruins, and although there was some rebuilding, the fort as conceived was never completed.
Since the middle of the 20th century, Fort Sumter has been open to the public as part of the Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, operated by the National Park Service.
The Battle of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, marked the beginning of the long-fought war between the North and the South, as the South Carolina militia attacked the Union fort. It ended with the surrender of the fort by the United States Army, marking the beginning of the American Civil War.
Lake Sumter is in The Villages, Florida. These photos were taken along the boardwalk. I particularily liked the nearly circular clouds in the sky and reflections.
Carte de visite by an unidentified photographer. Civil War history is filled with anecdotes of how the bonds of Masons were stronger than the political parties and military organizations that divided the Northern and Southern states. This portrait reminds me of the various stories I’ve read or researched that involve Confederate and Union soldiers coming to each others’ assistance once it was known they shared the Masonic connection.
This man, wearing a sash wrapped and knotted around his waist and a hat with plume and tassel, posed for this portrait in the studio of an unidentified photographer during the 1860s. Though his name is currently lost in time, his distinctive accouterments and a pencil inscriptions along the bottom of the card stock mount, “Knights of Virginia,” are clues to his identity. The Knights Templar of Virginia were a sect of the Masons, sharing the same moral and ethical teachings, an emphasis on brotherhood, and symbols and rituals rooted in medieval and religious traditions. But the Knights Templar required its members to be professed Christians, which was not required in the larger Masonic fraternity.
Was this man a soldier during the war? If so, did he ever have the need to call on his Masonic connection to help himself out of a tough spot on a battlefield? Or, did he hear the call of a fellow Mason on the other side and did a good deed for him?
Until he is unidentified, we cannot know.
However, in researching the Knights Templar of Virginia, I learned that the Masonic ties between brothers on opposite sides of the conflict were frayed between the national and state organizations that governed Templar Masons across the country.
Virginia is a case in point.
The middle of the 19th century was a period of strife for the Knights Templar of Virginia. From its earliest days in the first quarter of the century until the 1850s, Templar Masonry evolved into a national organization with member states as the nation expanded from coast to coast, and agricultural to industrial. In the late 1850s, a flurry of name changes and related actions further unified national and state organizations. They include the titles “Grand Master” for organization leaders and “Encampment” for the chapters.
When civil war divided the country, the separation between the states played out among the national and state Templars. On April 18, 1861, less than a week after the bombardment of Fort Sumter shocked the nation, Grand Master Benjamin Brown French, the head of the Knights Templar of the United States of America, distributed a circular reminding all Knights of their historic fidelity to each other. Nine days later, on April 27, a letter from Sir Knight Edward H. Gill, the leader of the Virginia Templars, announced Virginia’s secession from the national organization.
French’s circular and Gill’s letter parallel what was happening in the national conversation in the disunited states.
Here’s is French’s circular:
Office of the Grand Master of Knights Templar of the United States of America:
To all True and Patriotic Templars:
Brotherly Love, Peace, Honor.—An awful fratricidal conflict seems to be impending. He alone who rules the destinies of Nations can prevent it. He works through human instruments. I implore every Templar Knight on the Continent of America, after humbly seeking strength and aid from on High, to exert all the means at his command to avert the dread calamity, which, to human vision, seems inevitable.
Let each templar to whom this may come, remember how often we have stood at each other’s side, and raised our voices in prayer for the prosperity of a common country and a common cause. Let us call to mind how the Knights of Virginia, mingling in fraternal brotherhood with those of Massachusetts pledged themselves to each other, on Bunker Hill, only a few brief years ago; and when another hear had passed away, the same noble bands stood together in the city of Richmond, in the state of Virginia, the birth-place of Washington, and with mutual vows bound their souls in an everlasting covenant! Let them remember these things, and, with hearts on fire with love for each other, and for their countrymen, go forth among these countrymen and implore the arbitrament of peace, instead of that of the sword.
I ask no one to surrender a principle that has become dear to his heart, but I ask every one to labor and to pray that such counsels may take place between the contending parties who have for so many years acted with a common impulse, as to restore harmony and kind feeling, and avoid the course of having fraternal blood crying to Heaven from the ground, and bringing down its maledictions on our children’s children through all future time! Labor and pray that hostilities may be suspended until the mild counsels of peace can be appealed to, and that the appeal may not be in vain.
Casting aside every political feeling, every political aspiration, and asking every Templar to do the same, let us, as one man, unite in one grand effort to prevent the shedding of fraternal blood, and to inaugurate here that blessed result which our Lord and Master initiated: “Peace on earth and good will to men.”
Templars! you count in this land by tens of thousands. Each one has his influence in the circle about him. Never, no never was there an opportunity to exert that influence in a more holy cause, or to a more sublime purpose. Forward, then, to the rescue of your country from fratricidal war!
But, if war must come — which dread calamity may God, in His infinite mercy, avert — then I call on every Knight Templar to perform that sacred duty which so well becomes our Order, of binding up the wounds of the afflicted, and comforting those who mourn.
Dated at the city of Washington. on this 18th day of April, in the year of our Lord, 1861 and in the year of our Order 743.
B. B. French, Grand Master.
Here is Gill’s reply:
Justice.
]office of the Grand Master of Knights Templar of Va.,
Lynchburg, Va., April 27, 1861.
Hon. B. B. French. Grand Master Grand Encampment Knights Templar of the United States.
M.E. Sir Knight:—Your Circular of the 18th instant., relative to the “awful fratricidal conflict which seems to be impending” between the citizens of the North and the South, has been received; and as the people of the South are merely acting on the defensive in this conflict, those of the North, regardless of that “Brotherly Love, Peace and Honor” alluded to in your circular, having trampled upon their constitutional rights, and being now about to invade their soil, their homes and their firesides, and desecrate their altars, I am at a loss to understand why you should send such a circular to the Knights Templar of Virginia.
Residing as you do, at Washington, you cannot be ignorant of the fact that Virginia has exhausted every honorable means to avert this conflict. “Casting aside every political feeling, every political aspiration,” she has plead to prevent the “shedding of fraternal blood;” she has plead for “Peace on earth and good will to men,” and she has plead that her constitutional rights, and those of her sister States of the South, should not be trampled upon; but her pleadings have been disregarded, and conscious of the justice of her cause, she now appeals to the “God of Battles,” confident that Heaven will smile approvingly upon her efforts in resisting unto the death this Cain-like and marauding attack of the vandals of the North; and I thank God that the valiant Knights Templar of Virginia unanimously participate in this feeling of resistance, and are prepared to welcome their invaders “with blood stained hands to hospitable graves,” designated by no “sprig of evergreen.”
For the reasons stated, I now, as the Grand Master of the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar of the State of Virginia, give you notice that that body is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Grand Encampment of the United States, and will no longer regard or obey any orders or edicts emanating from it or its officers.
E. H. Gill, Grand Master.
I encourage you to use this image for educational purposes only. However, please ask for permission.
On November 9, 10, & 11, 2014, after my car broke down, I spent 3 days at a Motel in Wildwood, Florida waiting for my car to be repaired. During my stay in Wildwood, I photographed various subjects within walking distance of the Motel such as the CSX Wildwood Yard, the Conrad Yellvington Masonry (gravel, sand, Cement,, etc.) Products Plant & Switching Locomotive, Trackless Trolleys, Fire Engine & the EMS Ambulance shown here.
The Towing & Repair Shop where my car was repaired also services Sumter County EMS Vehicles and Fire Engines.
Charleston in the Antebellum Era.
Also in the central square is a statue of Senator John Calhoun high on a stone column. It is said the statue is so high to prevent the former slaves from defacing it! But who could blame them as Calhoun was a rabid racist. He was one of many racist slave owners who dominated the Sth Carolina legislature. It enacted new slave codes in 1800 and 1820 to make manumission (freeing so slaves) almost impossible. Calhoun in Washington was the one who led the crisis about secession in 1832. Sth Carolina threaded to secede from the Union over a tariff bill. Sth Carolina and its politicians were always champions of slavery and states’ rights. Then in 1822 Denmark Vesey, a slave who had purchased his freedom before the new laws of 1820, planned a major bloodbath in Charleston. Thousands of slaves in Charleston knew about the planned uprising but eventually two ratted on Vesey and he was arrested before the uprising began. 131 slaves were charged with conspiracy and 35 hung, including Vesey. His little house in Charleston (probably not the actual one) is now a National Landmark. It was also a Sth Carolinian Congressman in 1835 who got the “gag rule” passed in Congress to stop Abolitionist pamphlets and mail going to the South. It passed in 1836 and was known as the Pinckney Resolution. It was finally rescinded in 1844 when the Northern Democrats got control of Congress. Later in 1856 it was Congressman Preston Brooks of Sth Carolina who led the attack on the pro-slavery Northerner Charles Sumner on the floor of the US Senate. Sumner (a Republican like Lincoln) was bashed with a cane whilst pro-slavery Southern friends of Brooks protected him from irate Northern Senators who could do nothing to help Charles Sumner. Sumner took over three years to recover from this attack. This was one of the finale events that polarised anti-Southern and pro-slavery abolition support in the North. Sth Carolina always led the vanguard of propaganda against the Abolitionists and against the North. But they also had much to fear. In coastal Sth Carolina slaves outnumbered whites and when the white planters retreated to Charleston for the summer season, many rural counties became 98% black slave. In the 1850s Sth Carolinians became more and more militant and not surprisingly they were the first state to vote for secession upon the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. They wanted to protect their privileged and gracious life style of which we can see remnants today in Charleston –the beautiful mansions and public buildings. In this antebellum period Charleston was extremely wealthy as the major importing and exporting port of the South. It handled the cotton from upstate and a large part of the slave market. The international slave trade was banned from 1808 but many shiploads of black slaves still entered American illegally after that date. The wealthy planting class imported their chandeliers from France, their fine furniture and porcelain from England and their silk fabrics for the ladies ball gowns from Paris. In your free afternoon you can enter some of these mansions and see theirs and their slaves’ living conditions especially at the Aiken-Rhett house.
Charleston during the Civil War.
The first shots of the Civil War were fired in Charleston Harbour by the Confederates but few shots were fired at Charleston by the Union forces. A small battle outside the city in 1862 saw the Confederates being victorious and the Unions forces retreating. That ended any immediate threat of land invasion of Charleston. Charleston Harbour had always been well protected with forts in addition to Fort Sumter in case of Spanish or British attack. The Confederates used these forts to protect the city. But the Anaconda Plan meant that from the start of the Civil War the Union naval blockade was reasonably successful. Gun runners still managed to bring supplies into Charleston from France but goods were limited. In the latter stages of the Civil War, Charleston like other areas of the South was basically without food for whites or slaves. People were starving. Yet despite this in the final year of the Civil War the Charlestonians still had their grand balls for the season with French ball gowns smuggled into the city when some were starving. At the same time General Vance with his North Carolina Army was enduring the freezing winter of northern Virginia with his troops in thread bare uniforms and worn boots. But resources from Sth Carolina were not advanced to help the troops from North Carolina. They were kept aside for Sth Carolina. This was one of the many great weaknesses of the Confederacy- blind obsession with states’ rights. The continuing extravagances of the Charlestonian elite also angered starving Southerners and added to the decline in morale in the South. In February 1865 when General Sherman advanced towards Charleston from Savannah the Confederate General Beauregard, ordered the evacuation of Confederate troops from Charleston. The Mayor of Charleston was then able to surrender to Sherman and avoid the city being bombarded or destroyed. We must be thankful for that and the decision of the ladies of Charleston to preserve as many historic houses as they could. They began this around 1955.
Fort Sumter( a short cruise away) and the Start of the Civil War.
This National historic site is the spot where the Civil War began. The Sth Carolina militia, under the command of the first Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire and bombarded the Fort on 12th April 1861. Had Lincoln “forced” the South into starting the Civil War? Upon secession he had advised Southern states that federal property would be defended and the mails sent through. Sumter was a federal fort. Major Anderson had run out of supplies and Lincoln advised Anderson that he would re-provision the fort with supplies but no troops. Major Anderson advised the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis that he would evacuate the fort on 15th April if new supplies had not arrived by then. The Sth Carolinians got itchy. At 4:30 am on April 12th they bombarded the fort. It continued for 40 hours until Anderson surrendered. The war had begun. Southerners expected it to be over by September.
Boone Hall Plantation.
What is special about Boone Hall? It has a wonderful Virginian Live Oak alley which was planted from 1743 to 1843. The plantation has been continuously producing crops since 1681. It especially focuses on Gullah culture and the slave quarters with presentations by black Americans. Eight slave cabins (1790-1810) depict different aspects of Gullah culture and history. The plantation style homestead was only built in 1936 but the original house was built around 1700. It has beautiful flower gardens and the azaleas should be at their best. In the 1850s the plantation had 85 slaves with many involved in red brick production. Its main crops in early years were indigo and then cotton from the early 1800s. Its structures include the round smokehouse (1750); and the cotton gin factory (1853).
Gullah Culture and Language and Blacks in Charleston.
Gullah language is recognised as a distinct language and the black American population of coastal Sth Carolina and Georgia recognise themselves as Gullah people. But where did this culture originate? American historian Joseph Opala has spent decades researching the connections between Sierra Leone in Africa and Sth Carolina. A majority of the coastal black slaves arriving in Sth Carolina in the 1700s came from Sierra Leone where the area was known as the “Rice Coast” of Africa. The slaves brought with them the knowledge and skills for rice cultivation in Sth Carolina; their rice cooking methods; their West African language; their legends and myths; and their beliefs in spirits and voodoo. The Gullah people are thought to have the best preserved African culture of any black American group. Few have moved around the USA and black families in Charleston are now tracing their family history (and having family reunions with relatives) in Sierra Leone and Gambia, despite a break of 250 years in family contact! Many can trace their family links back to the Mende or Temne tribal groups in Sierra Leone. The Gullah language is a Creole language based on English but with different syntax more akin to African languages and with many African words and a few French words. The word Gullah is believed to be a mispronunciation of the African word Gora or Gola which came from several tribal groups in Sierra Leone. The direct links with Sierra Leone have been supported by the discovery of an African American funeral song which is identical to one sung by villagers in Sierra Leone.
The Gullah women in Charleston are also known for their weaving- the Sweetgrass basket sellers who can be found in several locations around the city. The skill and tradition of basket making came directly from Africa. And although they do not usually use the term voodoo the Gullah people believe in spirits and the power of roots, herbs or potions to ward off evil spirits or to snare a reluctant lover. If a spell is cast upon you can be “rooted” or “fixed” by this witchcraft and unable to resist the spell. This spiritual tradition is still strong and even whites in Charleston paint the ceilings of their piazzas blue to ward off old hags and evil spirits (and the colour is also meant to deter mosquitoes.)
In the city of Charleston about 18,000 of its residents were slaves in 1861. Large households often had 10 to 20 slaves to do gardening, the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, the food serving, caring for the horses etc. Some households hired out servants to others for short periods and some households sold products produced by the slaves - dresses, other clothing, pastries, shoes, hats, horse shoes etc. Some slaves were musicians and played for their masters or were hired out for social functions to other houses; others were hired out with horse teams for transportation of others etc. So not all slaves worked as domestic servants. But there were also free blacks in Charleston. Often illegitimate children were freed upon their white father’s death and some slaves received small incomes if they had special skills and they could saved enough to buy their freedom. Eventually some free blacks became slave owners themselves by either purchasing slaves or by inheriting slaves from their white fathers. One of the wealthiest free blacks in Charleston in the Antebellum period was Richard DeReef who owned a wharf where he ran a timber business. He also owned a number of rental properties in Charleston. Richard was not a former slave. His African father with his Indian wife had migrated to Sth Carolina in the late 1700s when this was still possible. As his business grew Richard purchased slaves of his own. Despite his wealth Richard DeReef was considered a mixed race or coloured man and was never accepted into Charleston society. After the Civil War when the Radical Republicans from the North were overseeing/controlling Southern governments Richard DeReef was elected as a city councillor in 1868. That was the year that the new federally enforced state constitution allowing blacks to vote came into force. DeReef probably only served for a year or two. By 1870 the Ku Klux Klan was active and blacks disappeared from elected positions. When Northerners left Sth Carolina to its own devises in 1877, with the end of Northern Reconstruction, Sth Carolina stripped blacks of their right to vote by new state laws. Ballots for each of the usual eight categories of office had to be placed in a different ballot box. If any ballot was placed incorrectly all votes by that person were illegal. Later in the 1880s southern states brought in grandfather clauses- you could only vote if your grandfather did. This meant that slaves were not eligible to vote.
I think this was the flag style flown just before Major Anderson surrendered the fort to Confederate forces.
Sumter County (GA) Copyright 2008 D. Nelson
Plowed field adjacent to the Plains, GA Visitor Center. Not sure what will sprout here, peanuts, I assume.
Sumter County’s Denzil Dees was elected to serve as the 2025 Alabama Farmers Federation State Young Farmers Committee chairman. Dees raises catfish and cattle.
My whole world lies waiting behind door #3. (Extra points if you can name that tune!)
Is that the remains of haint blue I see on the doors?
Sumter County’s Denzil Dees was elected to serve as the 2025 Alabama Farmers Federation State Young Farmers Committee chairman. Dees raises catfish and cattle in Epes.
It got so hot last night, I swear
You couldn't hardly breathe
Heat lightning burnt the sky like alcohol
I sat on the porch without my shoes
And I watched the cars roll by
As the headlights raced
To the corner of the kitchen wall.
RIP John Prine
The view from the top of Fort Sumter, the site of the first battle of the American Civil War. If you look closely at the distant background you can see the city of Charleston, SC. It's a beautiful area filled with a lot of interesting history. My wife and I really enjoyed our trip to the area.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston,_South_Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley, Cooper, and Wando rivers. Charleston had a population of 150,277 as of the 2020 U.S. Census. The 2020 population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties, was 799,636 residents, the third-largest in the state and the 74th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States.
Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles II, at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River (now Charles Towne Landing) but relocated in 1680 to its present site, which became the fifth-largest city in North America within ten years. It remained unincorporated throughout the colonial period; its government was handled directly by a colonial legislature and a governor sent by Parliament. Election districts were organized according to Anglican parishes, and some social services were managed by Anglican wardens and vestries. Charleston adopted its present spelling with its incorporation as a city in 1783. Population growth in the interior of South Carolina influenced the removal of the state government to Columbia in 1788, but Charleston remained among the ten largest cities in the United States through the 1840 census.
Charleston's significance in American history is tied to its role as a major slave trading port. Charleston slave traders like Joseph Wragg were the first to break through the monopoly of the Royal African Company and pioneered the large-scale slave trade of the 18th century; almost one half of slaves imported to the United States arrived in Charleston. In 2018, the city formally apologized for its role in the American Slave trade after CNN noted that slavery "riddles the history" of Charleston.
Known for its strong tourism industry, in 2016 Travel + Leisure Magazine ranked Charleston as the best city in the world.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter
Fort Sumter is a sea fort built on an artificial island protecting Charleston, South Carolina, from naval invasion. Its origin dates to the War of 1812 when the British invaded Washington by sea. It was still incomplete in 1861 when the Battle of Fort Sumter began the American Civil War. It was severely damaged during the war, left in ruins, and although there was some rebuilding, the fort as conceived was never completed.
Since the middle of the 20th century, Fort Sumter has been open to the public as part of the Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, operated by the National Park Service.