Wednesday, May 15 – Thursday, May 16, 2019

We departed Charleston in good weather (although the tidal current makes getting out of the marina more interesting than desired). Our trip down the Cooper River had us pass a cruise ship and the historic Charleston waterfront we had walked along a couple days before. We made our way down river to Fort Sumter, then rejoined the ICW for our trip north to Georgetown.

We came across a very unusual bridge - a floating pontoon swing bridge (see photos). The floating bridge is put into place to allow vehicle traffic to pass, then uses engines to swing the bridge out of the way for boat traffic. 

Sue became a swamp fly hunter that day. Winds were light, so we she had ample opportunity to add to her trophy collection (see photo). 

Georgetown is a very small town today, but really had things going on a couple hundred years ago. We had numerous Loopers tell us that we had to go to the Rice Museum. Their advice was spot on. We toured the museum with our guide, Natalie. We were amazed to learn about rice production in the eqarly days of South Caolina - something we'd never heard of before! Rice was the big money maker of SC making them one of the richest colonies in America. The production of rice was dependent on enslaved West Africans who knew how to raise rice in tidal waters. Their knowledge combined with the tremendous amount of human labor needed to clear the land, created extremely productive rice fields. The extreme tides in the area (9 ft) provided natural “pumps” needed to flood and drain the fields with fresh water. Natalie made a point to differentiate between the word “slave” a thing, and an “enslaved African” – a person that was brought to American with a set of skills needed to support the needs of the plantation business.  Essentially the European landowners needed the enslaved Africans' expertise in tidal rice production. 

Obviously, slavery was an ugly part of American history., and often falsely represented through artwork (by whites) of the “old south” in a much better light than it was. She explained how the plantations were managed by tasks as appropriate to one's age, abilities and health, which was how the enslaved Africans worked their fields in Africa. This allowed workloads to be distributed through some level of self-management. For example, she walked us through town and explained how bricks were made in the early years of the colony. Young children, too young to work in the fields, were normally assigned the task of making bricks. Natalie took us to a couple very old buildings in town where you can see the fingerprints of young children in the bricks created as they turned them over during the drying process. 

You may not know (or remember from your history classes) that South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. This makes a lot more sense knowing that they were also becoming the richest of the states due to rice production. They also had the most to lose with the abolishment of slavery. Before the Civil War, 85% of Georgetown County population was enslaved Africans.

Many local historians believe the leaders of South Carolina thought leaving the Union would not be a big deal. There would be some sort of negotiations and they would be allowed to part ways and continue their prosperous growth. 

The Rice Museum also houses some great artifacts, including a very old boat found in a local river.

On the lighter side, Georgetown has a large paper mill on the edge of town. This provides a nice economic boost to the town, but also supplies the town with that very distinctive “paper mill funk” we experienced in Mississippi when the wind comes from the wrong direction.