April 20 Boone Hall Plantation in Mt. Pleasant, South Caroline

We checked out of our hotel and headed just outside of Charleston to the Boone Hall Plantation in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.  It is a beautiful, grand old home.  It is privately owned and the two upper floors are for the owners, so we only saw the downstairs.  The recreated history there is one of the best in the area.  We heard the entire history of the home, it's owners, what happened there, what was grown there, and the slaves.  The house there was built in 1935, being the 4th home on the property. The first home burned.  The second one was destroyed by a hurricane.  The third was not cared for enough, so that it was in very bad shape when the one who build the 4th home bought it.  He was a retired diplomat and needed a nicer place.  He had the 3rd home dismantled and repurposed some of the thing from inside.  The people who own it now, are the children of a couple who were peach farmers who bought it and made it what it is today.  Her mother's antique collection is throughout the house:  some of the most beautiful pieces I've seen.

We learned about slave life, and we listened to a woman teach about the Gullah-geechee way of communication and about their lives.  Gullah was the way they said "gola", which is short for Angola.  Geechee meant one who works on a large rice plantation.  She said years ago if you called someone a geechee it was an insult, but now it is part of their heritage and they are proud of it.  She demonstrated their way of speaking and singing.  "Cum by ya" is really from them and does mean Come By Here.  The "th" sound is overemphasized, makeing if the "d" sound.  Like "dere" for "there".  Now that I know that I will never look at that language the same. A song like, "Swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home" might have been sung as a message that the underground railroad was coming through there because "home" was the code word for "freedom".

 The Gullah came from the West African nations and were particularly snagged for slavery because of the knowledge of rice growing.  The people who had these plantations and owned slaves were very, very wealthy.  In today's money it would cost you $48,000 to buy a 21-year-old male slave.  It boggles the mind.  Their plantations, crops and everything that was made would not have been possible without the slaves, which is why they were so against freedom for the slaves.

I understand the Civil War better now and what happened and why it happened.  I was impressed by the people of all colors coming to see the plantation together and enjoying one another's company.

The pictures are the Avenue of Oaks, House from the Gardens, Jerry and and oak by the river, the view from the front door, a slave tag found on the property, one of the slave cabins made from the bricks the slaves made that were considered unfit to sell, the house now, inside wall of one of the slave cabins.  All bricks were made by he slaves.