Route Canal and Plantation Visitation

The last is best, in terms of our day of southern exposure.  A late afternoon visit to Old Santee Canal State Park was magical, if short-lived.  We arrived late enough that there was only time for an hour canoe trip ($6 for both of us!).  We hopped in our trusty canoe and started paddling through the florescent duck weed, past cypress trees, hanging with moss and filled with nesting birds, down the old canal.

We thought it unwise to take our cell phones out into a tippy canoe, so this image above is "borrowed", but gives good idea of the environment.

We entered the beautiful world of the shaded, black water canals, with a look out for turtles, venomous snakes and alligators (good reason to keep the canoe steady and sit low). We quietly glided along, sometimes just skimming some shallow canal bottoms, coming upon tiny floating flowers, strange cypress trees and fish sliding underneath us.  The natural world is busy overtaking the manmade - the canals were once a vital shipping link between rivers.

Speaking of man-made, earlier in the day we had visited Middleton Place, a former rice plantation, now preserved as gardens and museum.

In 1741 this plantation was begun by a Middleton, whose family, before and after, exemplified the landed gentry who morphed over time into American revolutionaries and later into Secessionists.  Rice  became their golden cash crop and required the work of 800 slaves.  The Middletons were essentially Southern Aristocrats who envisioned, and with lots of cheap human labor built, elaborate gardens and pools to surround their houses (burned to the ground by a rowdy New York brigade immediately after Confederate surrender).

The grounds are beautifully maintained and docents roam around to help visitors understand the complex history of plantations and their uneasy relationship with slavery.  With slaves outnumbering their masters, 10 to 1, you can imagine how necessary it was for the owners to maintain control. 

This illustration shows slave women grinding the bran away from rice to produce valuable white rice, so desired by the English market.  A woman was required to produce 7 pestle-fulls of rice or risk 12 lashes for failure to do so.

Here I am in Ghana this summer, learning how to pound fufu, with a similar mortar and pestle.  I was able to give the fufu paste about 3 limp blows before I was happy to turn it back over to my friends.  The pestle was heavy!  Note that while in Ghana I also visited the Elmina slave castle where the slave trade was in full swing exporting human misery, back in this era. 

This gargantuan oak is called the Middleton Tree.  Ben noted that the old tree has been cabled up to try to keep it together.  He also commented that he sees no effort at Middleton to plant new oaks for the future.

Middleton Place is huge!  It is difficult to get your bearings, the gardens and walks are extensive.  

The restaurant on the plantation is great with truly gracious service.  Ben immediately settled on a South Carolina IPA.

He was feeling virtuous and ordered their locally sourced vegetarian dish, which was fresh and light.

I, on the other hand, gave in to the Devil on my shoulder and ordered the pecan-smoked pulled pork and hoppin' john.  I am going to have to go on such a strict diet after this trip!

As we left Middleton Place, we stopped to pet June and May, the latest occupants in chains.