Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 by Various

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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 deg., 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
brands[C] 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 palmetto[D] 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,[E] 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,[F] Heywards, Rhetts[G](formerly
called Smiths,) Stuarts, Means, Sams, Fullers,[H] Elliots,[I] 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!

* * * * *

THE ANTE-NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA.

I. THE MYTHICAL ERA.

Who were the first settlers in America?

Within a few years our school-books pointed to Cristoval Colon, or
Columbus, and his crew, as the first within the range of history who
'passed far o'er the ocean blue' to this hemisphere. Now, however, even
the school-books--generally the last to announce novel truths--say
something of the Norsemen in America, though they frequently do it in a
discrediting and discreditable way. However, the old Vikings have
triumphed once more, even in their graves, and Professor Rafn can prove
as conclusively that his fierce ancestry trod the soil of Boston as that
the Mayflower Puritans followed in their footsteps. It is a dim old
story, laid away in Icelandic manuscripts, and confirmed by but few
relics on our soil; yet it is strong enough to give New England a link
to the Middle Ages of Europe, with their wildest romance and strangest
elements. It is pleasant to think that far back in the night there
walked for a short season on these shores great men of that hearty
Norse-Teuton race which in after times flowed through France into
England, and from England through the long course of ages hitherward.
Among the old Puritan names of New England there is more than one which
may be found in the roll of Battle Abbey, and through the Norse-Norman
spelling of which we trace the family origin of fierce sea-kings in
their lowland isles or rocky lairs on the Baltic.

But there are older links existing between America and Europe than this
of the Norseman. Of these the first is indeed buried in mystery--leading
us back into that sombre twilight of 'symbolism,' as the Germans
somewhat obscurely call the study of the early ages whose records are
lost, and which can only be traced by reflection in the resemblances
between mythologies which argue a common origin, and the monuments
remaining, which seem to establish it. Yes, America has this in common
with every country of Asia, Europe, and Africa: she has relics which
indicate that at one time she was inhabited by a race which had perhaps
the same faith, the same stupendous nature-worship, with that of the Old
World, and which was, to reason by analogy, _possibly_ identified by the
same language and customs. What _was_ this race, this religion, this
language? Who shall answer? Men like Faber, and Higgins, and Lajard,
with scores of others, have unweariedly gathered together all the points
of resemblance between the religions and mythologies of the Hindus and
Egyptians and Chinese, the Druids and the Phenicians, the Etruscans and
the Scandinavians, and old Sclavonic heathen, and found in and between
and through them all a startling identity: everywhere the Serpent,
everywhere the Queen of Heaven with her child, everywhere the cup of
life and the bread and honey of the mysteries, with the salt of the
orgie, everywhere a thousand fibres twining and trailing into each other
in bewildering confusion, indicating a common origin, yet puzzling
beyond all hope those who seek to find it. So vast is the wealth of
material which opens on the scholar who seeks to investigate this common
origin of mythologies, and with them the possible early identity of
races and of languages, that he is almost certain to soon bury himself
in a hypothesis and become lost in some blind alley of the great
labyrinth.

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