Berkeley Independent
The extensive slave community, once a part of the original Dean Hall plantation dating back to the 1780s and recently discovered during DuPont’s construction of its new Kevlar plant, has produced more than 100,000 slave artifacts and is quickly becoming one of the most significant finds of slave artifacts in the South.
Recently, DuPont and Berkeley County announced a partnership regarding Cypress Gardens and the historical artifacts unearthed on land that was originally part of Dean Hall Plantation.
“We’re going to gain a lot from this new venture,” said Berkeley County supervisor Dan Davis. “We are very excited about the partnership.”
The partnership will result in the display of these artifacts in an exhibit housed in the former reptile house on the Cypress Gardens grounds. Renovation of the reptile house is ongoing and due to be ready for public viewing by November of this year.
“Construction and renovation are proceeding according to schedule,” said Cypress Gardens director Dwight Williams. “They are installing the drop-ceiling today and work continues on the heirloom garden planned for what used to be Crocodile Isle. It’s exciting to be able to include history and archeology in with the science we have at Cypress Gardens.”
When the first artifacts were discovered last year during grading and initial construction work on the new Kevlar plant located adjacent to Cypress Gardens, officials for DuPont had no idea of the magnitude of their discovery.
“We didn’t have a clue where all this stuff was,” said Ellis McGaughy, DuPont plant manager. “We knew there used to be slave quarters out here we just had no idea as to the number of artifacts we’d find.”
McGaughy added that the site was excavated in six weeks:
“It became a great opportunity to take a look into the past. The more we dug, the more we found.”
In a presentation before a contingency of area business leaders and public officials, DuPont outlined exactly what they found and how they intended to preserve these unique treasures from the Lowcountry’s past.
“What we’re finding out is that these slaves lived very structured and organized lives on this plantation particularly,” said Charlie Phillips, Senior Historian with Brockington Associates in Mount Pleasant. “The original slave row may have resembled African villages.”
The more than 100,000 artifacts unearthed from the DuPont site represents a rare find.
“This is a unique find, an extremely large find,” Phillips said. “We’re finding artifacts dating back to the original plantation and housing structures dating back to the 1730s. What we found really surprised us as things weren’t where they were supposed to be in places on land survey maps of the area back then.”
Evidence points to the original Nesbitt House being constructed around 1790 as opposed to the 1730s as originally speculated. Evidence also showed the home was used more as a vacation retreat and often went unoccupied for months at a time.
“The early houses were built on wooden piers,” Phillips said. “We had to scrape the land to look for the wood pier stains. We’re finding structures here that weren’t included in any surveys of the area.”
Phillips also said the rice reservoirs used in the original Dean Hall Plantation were still there.
“These were the original inland rice fields that date to the 1730s,” he said. “The focus of cultivation changed in the 1790s and the fields were moved to the opposite side of the plantation. There was more earth moved to develop these 40,000 acres for rice than were included in the great pyramids of Egypt.”
Artifacts that will be displayed at the Cypress Gardens exhibit will include ceramic pottery, clay pipes, coins, buttons and other utensils used in the daily lives of slaves.
“People made do with what they had,” Phillips said. “Their lifestyle was simple and utilitarian. There was not a lot of debris found at the site which says the slave row was kept very neat.”
Phillips added that after the slaves were freed following the Civil War, many remained to work the land and cultivate rice, as this place had become their home.
“Many slaves took the last name of Nesbitt and it would not be surprising to find many descendants of these original African slaves still living in the area,” he said.
Also included in the slave row find were two marked gravesites and an elaborate pet cemetery.
“People lived here on the plantation until the early 1900s,” Phillips said. “The last family moved on from here around 1930.”
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Both of your are arguing tired, old arguments that miss the point. One of you is casting and shifting blame: who did what first to who, and who collaborated. Africans did participate actively in the selling of other Africans into New World slavery. Did that make it right or excuse Europeans/whites who initiated, transported, established legal institutions and laws, punishments, and benefitted economically in America and South Carolina from New World slavery? No. But who cares about the "blame," there is plenty enough to go around. What is more important than finger pointing, blaming and shaming, accusing and denying, defending and persecuting, is HEALING, learning from the horrific excuse, and dropping the very childish tit-for-tat (he hit me; he hit me first, etc.) and breaking the loop and cycle of blame, accusation, denial, guilt. STOP! HEAL! Whoever did what, whoever hands are dirty, Africans, Europeans, whites, blacks, slavery is and was simply wrong. Period. It was wrong to sell and own human beings. It was wrong to restrict their freedom in the land of the free. Forget blame, and admit the wrong. Can we agree--slavery was wrong? Without blaming anyone? Blame only shifts the focus from the most valuable lesson slavery can offer: It teaches us that it is wrong whether then or now. No child, woman, or adult should be sold to anyone or controlled by anyone for money. End the slavery in Africa today, and in Asia today, and in Europe today. Women are sold in Eastern Europe, forced to work as prostitutes. Children are sold in Africa, young girls as brides. Children and women are sold in Asia. Honor the past by ending slavery now. To the person who believes that whites are all powerful, he remembers that on Dr. King's national holiday, or when he eats lunch at a lunch counter, or receives a pay check from a job he couldn't have gotten forty years ago. Admit, my friend, there has been progress, even if the work of eliminating racism is incomplete. The best to eliminate it, is by doing good. So rather than raising very tired, very old, very stale accusations of blame, do something new: tutor in a school, read to the children of the neighborhood, chaprone a trip. Inform youth of black achievements--by doctors, lawyers, political leaders, business executives, and others in every field of human endeavor. Slavery nor racism held the black man back. Despite the odds, the3 human spirit, assisted by God, came forward, expressing its timeless will. There is joy, much joy, in celebrating these achievements. There is courage to be found, inspiration to be drawn, new heights to scale, new goals to met, new records to write. Looking back, complaining, doesn't move the ball forward. So be thankful that American Express, Time Warner, Beatrice Foods, Xerox, Merrill Lynch, and even Bank of America have been run by African-Americans, as chief executrives or board Chairs. Be thankful for SC State and Howard Universities, and be thankful for the teachers who taught as to read and count, to the family that cooked our dinners and taught as to love, and to the God by whose own mercy taught us to forigive and go forward by the light!
Posted by:
please !!!!!!!!!! You think the white made you a slave look back and see where you came from... It all started with your own people making you a slave
Posted by:
you people are still making money on the slaves that you have kill in you rice fields that you have work to death and still working them to death. we will always be a slave until we die because you white are still in power and have all the money that they stole Thanks Rev
Posted by: John Williams
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