The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862

The soil of these islands is composed mostly of a fine sandy loam, very easily cultivated. In most of them are swamps and marshes, which serve to furnish muck and other vegetable deposits for fertilizing; but the idea of furnishing anything to aid the long over-worked soil seems to these proprietors like returning to the slave some of the earnings taken from him or his ancestors, and is seldom done till nature is at last exhausted, and then it is allowed only a few years' repose. Situated under the parallel of 32°, there is scarcely a product grown in our country, of any value, that can not be produced here. Previous to the Revolution the principal staple for market was indigo, and that raised in this district always commanded the highest price. It was from the proceeds of this plant that the planters were enabled for a long period to purchase slaves and European and northern American productions. Soon after the Revolution their attention was turned to cotton; but the difficulty of separating it from the seed seemed to make it impossible to furnish it in any profitable quantity, for so slow was the process then followed that, with the utmost diligence, a negro could not, by hand labor, clean over a few pounds per day. The genius of Whitney, however, opened a new era to the cotton planters, who were much more eager to avail themselves of his invention than to remunerate him. It was soon perceived that the cotton raised on these islands was far superior to that produced in the interior, which is still called Upland, only to distinguish it from the 'Sea Island.' It was also noticed that while the common variety produced a seed nearly green with a rough skin, the seed of the islands soon became black with a smooth skin; the effect entirely of location and climate, as it soon resumes its original color when transported back to the interior. The cultivation of this variety is limited to a tract of country of about one hundred and fifty miles in length, and not over twenty-five miles in breadth, mostly on lands adjacent to the salt water, the finest 'grades' being confined to the islands within this district. It is true that black-seed cotton is cultivated to some extent along the coast from Georgetown, S.C., to St. Augustine, but a great part of it is of an inferior quality and staple, and brings in the market less than one-half the price of the real 'Sea Island.' This plant seems to delight in the soft and elastic atmosphere from the Gulf Stream, and, after it is 'well up,' requires but a few showers through the long summer to perfect it. It is of feeble growth, particularly on the worn-out lands, and two hundred pounds is a good yield from an acre. An active hand can tend four acres, besides an acre of corn and 'ground provisions;' but with a moderate addition of fertilizers and rotation of crops no doubt these productions would be doubled. If the yield seems small, the price, however, makes it one of the most profitable products known. The usual quotations for choice Sea Islands in Charleston market has been for many years about four times as great as for the middling qualities of Uplands,—probably an average of from thirty-five to forty-five cents per pound; and for particular brands3 sixty to seventy cents is often paid. The writer has seen a few bales, of a most beautiful color and length of staple, which sold for eighty cents, when middling Uplands brought but ten cents per pound. It is mostly shipped to France, where it is used for manufacturing the finest laces, and contributes largely to the texture of fancy silks, particularly the cheaper kinds for the American market. After passing above the flow of the salt water, but within the rise of the tide, there is a wide alluvial range along the rivers and creeks, which, by a system of embankments, can be flowed or drained at pleasure. This is cultivated with rice, and, if properly cared for, yields enormous crops, sometimes of sixty bushels to an acre. The land is composed of a mass of muck, often ten feet deep and inexhaustible, and never suffers from drought. This land is very valuable, one hundred dollars often being paid per acre for large plantations. Much rice land, however, remains uncleared for want of the enterprise and perseverance necessary to its improvement.

Farther in the interior the land is principally of a sandy formation, most of it underlaid with clay. Very little effort is, however, made by planters to cultivate it, although it is very easily worked, and with a little manuring yields fair crops of corn and sweet potatoes. The cereal grains are seldom cultivated, but no doubt they would yield well. A large portion of the main-land is composed of swamps, of which only enough have been reclaimed to make it certain that here is a mine of wealth to those gifted with the energy to improve it. The soil is as fertile as the banks of the Nile, and nowhere could agricultural enterprise meet with such certainly profitable returns. Recurring again to the agricultural capacity of the islands, it is certain that good crops of sugar-cane can be grown on them. During the war of 1812, the planters turned their attention to it, and succeeded well, since which time many of them have continued to plant enough for their own use; but this plant soon exhausts such a soil, unless some fertilizer is used, and they therefore prefer cotton, which draws a large part of its sustenance from the atmosphere alone. The sweet and wild orange grows here, and some extensive groves are to be seen. Figs are produced in abundance from September till Christmas. Gardens furnish abundant vegetables, yielding green peas in March and Irish potatoes in May, while numerous tribes of beautiful flowers hold high carnival for more than half the year.

This seems to be the true home of the rose, which is found blooming from March until Christmas. Many of the rare climbing varieties of this flower, which we see at the North only as small specimens in green-houses, grow here in wild profusion. The grape is represented by many species indigenous to this State alone, and could, no doubt, be cultivated and produced in greater variety and perfection than elsewhere on this continent, as the climate is more equable. A species of Indian corn, called 'white flint corn,' and which when cooked is very nutritious and white as snow, seems indigenous to these islands. It is much superior to the common varieties.

Of the sylva we will only say, it is equal in value and variety to that of any section of our country. Here is the home of the palmetto4 or cabbage tree, the only palm in our wide country. The live oak, once so abundant, has, however, been largely cut off, mostly to supply our navy-yards, and some of the ships built from it are now blockading the very harbors from which it was carried. The pitch pine is the common growth of the interior, and under a new system would form a valuable article of commerce as lumber, and as yielding the now so much required turpentine. Of wild animals and birds, here are to be found a large variety. The Hunting Islands and others are well stocked with deer. During the winter wild, geese and ducks abound, and a variety of fish, with fine oysters, can be had at all seasons.

We now come to consider the present inhabitants of this district. The whites are almost entirely the descendants of the earliest settlers of this State, who were English,5 Scotch, and Protestant Irish, with a slight infusion of the Huguenot and Swiss elements. A century and a half has rendered them homogeneous. As there has never been any interest here other than agriculture, and as every man may be said to own the plantation he cultivates, there has been as little change of property or condition as possible, and therefore the same land and system of cultivation has passed from father to son through four or five generations. Had there been any emigration or change of population, some alterations, and most likely new enterprise and vigor, would have been infused, and more modern and national feeling have been instituted for their narrow and sectional prejudices. No doubt our national character has been much influenced by the division of land. Where this has been nearly equal, as in our New England towns, a republican form of government has been almost a necessity. But at the South an entirely different arrangement has prevailed. Land was at first distributed in large bodies fitted to accommodate a state of slavery; and the consequence was that a feudal system was inaugurated from the settlement, which has continued with increasing power. This has been one of the permanent causes of Southern pride and exclusiveness.

The inhabitants of South Carolina and Virginia previous to the Revolution were very supercilious towards the North, and even to their less opulent neighbors of Georgia and North Carolina; a feeling which was often the cause of much antagonism among the officers and soldiers during the war. Charleston and Williamsburg gave the tone to good society, and it was haughty and aristocratic in the extreme. While Virginia has for the last half century been in a state of comparative decay, South Carolina has, by its culture of cotton and rice, just been able to hold its own; but the pride and exclusiveness of its people have increased much faster than its material interests. Although the Constitution of the United States guarantees to every State a republican form of government, no thinking person who has resided for a single week within the limits of South Carolina can have failed to see and feel that a tyranny equal to that of Austria exists there. The freedom of opinion and its expression were not permitted. Strangers were always under espionage, and public opinion, controlled by an oligarchy of slave-holders, overruled laws and private rights. Nowhere, even in South Carolina, was this feeling of hauteur so strong as in that portion of the State which we are describing. On the large plantations the owners ruled with power unlimited over life and property, and could a faithful record be found it would prove one of vindictive oppression, productive oftentimes of misery and bloodshed. Most of the wealthier planters in the district have residences at Beaufort, to which they remove during the summer months to escape the malaria arising from the soil around their inland houses. This place may be considered the home of the aristocracy. Here reside the Barnwells,6 Heywards, Rhetts7(formerly called Smiths,) Stuarts, Means, Sams, Fullers,8 Elliots,9 Draytons and others, altogether numbering about fifty families, but bearing not more than twenty different names, who rule and control the country for forty miles around. This is the most complete and exclusive approach to 'nobility' of blood and feeling on our continent. Nowhere else is family pride carried to such an extent. They look with supercilious disdain on every useful employment, save only the planting of cotton and rice. Nothing in any of our large cities can equal the display of equipages, with their profusion of servants in livery, exhibited on pleasant afternoons, when the mothers and daughters of these cotton lords take their accustomed airing. So powerfully has this feeling of exclusiveness prevailed that no son or daughter dares marry out of their circle. For a long series of years has this custom prevailed, and the consequence is that the families above named are nearly of a common blood; and it needs no physiologist to tell us the invariable effect arising from this transgression of natural laws, on the physical and mental faculties of both sexes. In such a state of society is it strange that the present generation should have grown up with ideas better suited to the castes of India than to those of republican America? As a consequence they consider their condition more elevated than that of their neighbors in the adjoining States, and of almost imperial consideration. But no language can express their bitter contempt for the people of the North, more particularly for those of New England birth.

In perusing the history and progress of any portion of our country, the statistics of population become an interesting study. Let us glance over a brief table, showing what the increase has been in this district for the past forty years, and its miserable deficiency in physical means of strength and defense. In 1820 the district contained 32,000 souls, of which there were 4,679 whites and 27,339 slaves, and 141 free blacks. In 1860 there were 6,714 whites and 32,500 slaves, and 800 free blacks, making a total of 40,014,—an increase of whites of 2,035, of slaves 5,161, of free blacks 650:—total increase 7,855 in forty years. Here we have nearly the largest disproportion of whites to slaves in any part of the South. Of the 6,714 whites, about 1,000 are probably men over twenty-one years of age, and it is not to be presumed that an equal number are capable of bearing arms. Is it possible to find anywhere a community more helpless for its own protection or defense? It is one of the truths of science and philosophy that nature, when forced beyond its own powers and laws, will react, and again restore its own supremacy. So we here find a magnificent space of country, rich in all natural requisites, and unsurpassed in its capabilities of producing not only the necessaries of life, but its luxuries, having an exclusive right to some of the most valuable staples of the world, which has been for a century and a half the abode of an imperious few, who have, by tyrannical power, wrung from the bones and muscles of generations of poor Africans the means to sustain their luxury, power, and pride. They have also robbed from the mother earth the fertility of its soil to its utmost extent, leaving much of it completely exhausted. This state of things has reacted on them; it has made them proud, domineering, ambitious, and revengeful of fancied injuries. It has hurried them into rebellion against the best government the world ever saw,—and this has at last brought with it its own punishment and retribution. It has placed their soil, their mansions, their crops and poor slaves in the possession of the hated men of the North, and under the laws and control of the government they affected to despise. When the last gun had sounded from the ramparts at Port Royal, and the Stars and Stripes again resumed their supremacy on the soil of South Carolina, a new era dawned over these beautiful islands and waters, and the day that witnessed the retreat of the rebel forces should hereafter mark, like the flight of Mahomet, the inauguration of a new dispensation for this land and its people. Let us, therefore, in continuing our chronicles, cast the horoscope, and, without claiming any spirit of prophecy, show the duties of our nation in this contingency, and the beneficial results that must flow from it, if carried out with the energy, perseverance, and practical Christianity due to our country and the age in which we live.

The accession to any government of new territory brings with it new duties, which it is always important should be performed with energy and decision, so that the greatest good, to the greatest number, may be the result. A good Providence has placed the domain under consideration in our possession. Its political condition is to us unique, and almost embarrassing. If the question is asked, 'Can we hold and dispose of a part, or whole, of a sovereign State as a conquered province?' the answer must be in the affirmative. Government is supreme, and must be exercised, particularly to protect the weak, and for the general good of the whole nation. Here is a region, as fair as the sun shines upon, now in a great measure deserted and lying waste. What is to be done with it? and what is our duty in this exigency? The first want is a government, for without a proper one no progress can be made. Let Congress then at once establish a territorial government over so much of the State as we now have in our possession, and over what we may in future obtain;—not a government to exhibit pomp, and show, but one practical and useful, with a court and its proper officers. Let every large unrepresented estate be placed in the hands of a temporary administrator, who should be a practical and honest man, and held to a strict account for all properties entrusted to his keeping, and who should act also as guardian to the slaves belonging to the estate. Then enforce the collection of a tax; and if the owner comes forward within sixty days, pays the tax, takes the oath of allegiance, and agrees to remain in the territory and assist in enforcing and executing the laws, during that and the succeeding year, let him resume his property, and be protected in all his rights. But in default of any loyal response from the proprietor, the property should be disposed of, in moderate quantities, to actual settlers, who should be bound to do duty for its defense, whenever called upon.

But then comes the great difficulty, the disposition of the slaves,—the great question which has so long been discussed as a theory, and which now has to be met as a practical measure. Let us meet it as men and patriots, and, rising above the clamor of fanatics, or the proclamations of new-fangled and demagoguing brigadiers, look at the permanent result to our whole country, and the real good of the African race.

Humanity, society, and property, all have claims and acknowledged rights; let them all be considered. It is well known that the slaves on these islands have always been kept in a state of greater ignorance of the world and all practical matters than those inhabiting the border States, or where there is a larger proportion of whites, with whom they often labor and associate. To emancipate them at once would be to do a great wrong to the white man, to the property, in whatever hands it might be, and a still greater injury to the slave. There can be but one way of disposing of this question which will satisfy the nation, and quiet the fears of the conservative, and preserve the hopes of the radical, which is, to pursue a middle course—a policy which shall as nearly as possible equalize the question to all parties. Let the slave be retained on the plantation where he is found; and, as no race are so much attached to their own locality, so let them remain, place them under a proper system of APPRENTICESHIP, with a mild code of laws, where every right shall be protected, where suitable instruction, civil and religious, shall be given, and where the marriage rite shall be administered and respected. Under such laws and beneficent institutions, this territory would soon be settled by men from the West, the North, and from Europe, intelligent, enterprising, and industrious, who would retrieve its worn-out fields, and introduce new systems of culture, with all the modern labor-saving utensils. With kind treatment and new hopes, the simple sons of Africa would have inducements to labor and to await with patient hope the future and its rewards. Then would Beaufort District become what the Giver of all good designed it to be—the abode of an industrious, peaceful, and prosperous community. The production of its great staple, 'Sea-Island cotton,' would be immensely increased, and its quality improved, till it rivaled the silks of the Old World. The yield of rice would be doubled, and its gardens and orchards would supply the North with fruits now known only to the tropics.

So soon as the new government was fairly inaugurated, and the condition of the land and its future cultivation settled, a movement would of necessity be made to found here a city which would be the great commercial metropolis of the South.

Charleston was 'located' at the wrong place, simply with the object of being as distant as possible from the Spanish settlements, and has always suffered from an insufficient depth of water on its bars to accommodate the largest class of merchant ships. It has barely sixteen feet of water at high tide, and ships loaded as lightly as possible have often been obliged to wait for weeks to enter or leave the port. A decrease of one or two feet in its main channel would, in its palmiest days, have been fatal to its prosperity. The sinking of a dozen ships loaded with stone has no doubt placed a permanent barrier to the entrance of all but a small class of vessels. The ships themselves may soon be displaced or destroyed by the sea-worm, but the New England granite will prove a lasting monument to the folly and madness of the rebellion. The destruction of the best part of the city by fire seems also to show that Providence has designed it to be ranked only with the cities of the past.

The productions of South Carolina have always been large and valuable, and since the completion of their system of railroad facilities they have greatly increased; therefore a commercial city is a necessity, and Port Royal must be its locality. Here is the noblest harbor south of the Chesapeake, with a draught of water of from twenty-five to thirty feet, enough for the largest-sized ships, and sufficient anchorage room for all the navies of the world. Our government should here have a naval depot to take the place of Norfolk, since there is no more suitable place on the whole coast. In this connection the name, Royal Port, is truly significant.

The precise locality for the new city can not now be indicated, but we would suggest the point some two miles south-west of Beaufort, which would give it a position not unlike New York. It would have the straight Broad River for its Hudson, with a fine channel on the south and east communicating with numerous sounds and rivers. Its situation on an island of about the same length as Manhattan completes the parallel.

The value of the produce conveyed over the sounds and rivers connecting with Port Royal, by sloops and steamers, must be counted by millions of dollars. We may estimate the crop of Sea-Island cotton at about fifteen thousand bales, or six millions of pounds, and of rice about fifty million pounds. Yankee enterprise would soon double the amount, and add to it an immense bulk of naval stores and lumber.

But this is but a moiety of what the exports would be. A branch railroad only ten miles long would connect this port with all the railroads of South Carolina and Georgia, which, diverging from Charleston and Savannah, spread themselves over a large part of five States. This road would make tributary to this place a vast district of country.

Savannah, which has for the last few years competed with Charleston for this trade, will soon feel the power of the government, and it must yield up a large part of its business to the more favorable location of the new city.

A few short years, and what a change may come over these beautiful islands and the waters that hold them in its embrace! A fair city, active with its commerce and manufactures, wharves and streets lined with stores and dwellings, interspersed with churches and schools, inhabited by people from every section of our country, and from every part of Europe, all interested to improve their own condition, and all combining to add strength and wealth to the Union which they agree to respect, love, honor, and defend!