Africans in America; 101; The Terrible Transformation; Interview with Charles Duell, Founder and President of the Middleton Place Foundation

this is a first term it's called ask about the role of the middleton family in cell phone history we really have to go back to the last quarter of the seventeenth century at the to middleton brothers arrived here from barbados and seven and sixteen seventy eight and subtle and there's great which was now up really about north charleston and before the latter part of the seventeenth century and that was the first half of the eighteenth century recession located there the role they were of course roles were of

course that if the settlers very soon on planters that they were merchants but became very much involved in trying to find the ideal crops to profit from and therefore settled quite a large acreage of land because of that and their involvement in the middleton family that early on very much involved in politics they came at from an english tradition that knew about parliamentary procedures and governmental practices more able to get through and function comfortably in trying to find the bus was at eight the proprietor a column a literal comment could be run and really increasingly right up until the time of the american revolution and vermont

and the outcome of commerce and insight into the garage and a bunch of course when it in center what is it well when we asked the question why are the middle since left anyone we have to remember first of all that under the the british social system at the time tom a juncture dictated til the sun's unheard essentially inherited all of the family possessions and the cadets sons the younger sons were

given the option of joining the military or law or the ministry or going to college and for reasons that we don't know precisely sometime in the middle of the seventeenth century the two little twin brothers arthur and edward went to the colored barbados that had been sold and was prospering produce and regular sugar again at the relatively small island cultivated in the last quarter it is consider the arrival of the middleton is from barbados in the south carolina passed remember first that charles townes first permanent settlement was in sixteen seventeen perhaps they waited going to

slow enough to measure readings all right and there were the opportunities there that the expected there would be forthcoming so strong until sixty and seventy eight that the first edward and then his brother arthur so from our most to south carolina ended up settling here ruderman sure together in the same spot jointly given a grant of a sizable acres of land that they continue to get onto them were in the process of searching for what could be that economic winning crop that could add to their fortune to essentially bad but then perhaps more involved in and trading in shaping early on and i think it was so moved here south carolina literally got them involved in and becoming

landowners and then looking for lawyers to explore the line you are talking so it's interesting to see you know it's basically in their power to wondering how you view this era pursuit of land area was going to sing what watson's <unk> and land ownership became in a measure of wealth in the carolinas fairly early on but you have to look really one land ownership right and i'm not sure that that that in the in the early settlement that acreage really amounted to much i think that came a little bit

later and certainly toward the end of the seventeenth century was once sought to to find a location that was signed out on a river because the rivers were the highway so many ways of moving products but also moving people and so grams of land were often have only a few hundred acres but i think those acres were warm were more measured in terms of the the distance that presented along the cooper river and ashley river oregon seven hundred billion and i think oftentimes it was assumed that one's land holdings were the worst if you were on the west that's pressure there's the river for instance and cooper was a little different because you were used to where the but certainly to the west they extended to infinity and now those early maps of the colonies at that that show the carolinas go into the mississippi river in fact even the west coast

one in barbados sure can was of course a major cultural crop and i'm sure that was tried here or are dave also i think came to the college the models who stood well aware of what the needs were in barbados what markets there might be for products from this colony of the carolinas end food supply certainly weren't among them naval stores lumber the possibility of producing meat and o i think all of these

were considered an experiment worth until until rice really at the turn of the century became for important then it became realized that the cultivation of risk and in fact did become very important dr greiner what i'm thinking it means and they know that's what do you think americans thinking was in terms of other time oh arthur middleton became a hit a young man yeah it's really early in the eighteenth century the production of rice

and developed and become a very essential cash crop and it was it was difficult to cultivate in the beginning because land had to be cleared to raise that rice was first grown back in in the interim year the cypress swamps away from rivers because our rivers or brackish year and they couldn't tolerate the salt water but an end back in the swamp so there are a lot of cypress trees and tupelo or not they had to be here very difficult lay out laboriously cleared and then the water which is truly for weed control more than anything and that was really until much later american century that rice production ten to the shores of the rivers as we think of them and now and then later congress rice fields that had banks around them and so on that technology was devoted

to bring freshwater and panda the brackish water or what right right so that for me ms very systematic violation he was working most indians this is basically his best thinking instance

is that but the cultivation of rice to the middleton family which very important really early on became increasingly important during the eighteen century i will say that one aspect of the economics of rice production and the wealth that that was brought at that time i can inside the oversubscribed over ascribed to it to rice cultivation shipping itself also is a very important part of the economy and the record show that was a the port arthur middleton and and and his successors acquired increasing amounts of land for cultivation also inquired require increasing the number of golf holes so that ships

to head there that part of their well right it's better i think we should talk about the participation of slave labor and abetting the rice production i don't think that dr that the immigrants from our writers came here with any precise formula how

the book the land archive contribution would be made of labor contributions would be made but but once they really latched on to rise to realize that they're not going to require a lot of labor to work the land but also certain skills that were brought skills that were brought here from africa and many of the year they're up on the methodology just fit in perfectly into an experience of africans who were brought here as slaves and i think with the increase of arts' production and increase love exploration others that they certainly can be the largest exporter of rice in the world and interviewed his country the increase in you need for labor coming one hand in hand with that

it was a very arduous task to start with the clearing of the land and it involved the planning of rice planting the seed and the other the necessity of keeping the bird predators from taking to the way a monetary their growth to the right issuing levels of water that needed to be they intend to do that to maximize the production to keep down the competition and for fun we age and of course the harvesting process and finally the alarming the public a lot in japan the rest major richards any

problems right right oh no i think for the middle teens as well as for all of the early settling from lawyers and carolina that the life must have been extremely arduous it was a

difficult life both for the slave and the worker and for the european zone and the planter class innovate very large families of ten and twelve people often you know we see it the tombstones that green zone so dive in and the three for whatever of her twelve children live to survive her and there were so many children lost in their early years and the life expectancy of course was was shorter than it has today at it one one one has to wonder why are the englishman might you know leaves a relative comfort that we might present in the city of london are to come

out to the road of wilderness and the pioneering but i think also if you go back to london you find that that there was a lot of sadness and partly it was so you know in many ways their difficult lives near end up with they must've not you think had a dream or something really grand could happen and they are they're forging this new life the of finding an economic viability and really not making on their own something even during it listen when the surge in violence has this morning and then went what do you imagine is going to be in terms of you

know what is making them why it is so stained soviet union's stage all that and as as time progressed and we moved right into the eighteenth century and we get into the first the second quarter second century were great part prosperity comes that that the system of the plantation cultivation kind of gets figured out and people realize that that that the months of the summer months so out in the wilderness up river is so to be avoided and so cultivation and production really focused more during the the wetter monson and then the production was left

to grow and then comeback of planning fans would come back and check on things and what for for harvest mean more than that i think they really that perhaps is as many people through out on what kind of for an audio white star they they they sought to leave in the summertime when it was particularly buggy and of course mario became a great threat but to do a more temperate climate center chris mancini on a loan if you want i can tell you they want an important point to north carolina where all of the older set one up for america just a moment after tiller one

of the art it is soon as says so things got well established that there is no question that the plan are families trying to find coins in the summertime they're more comfortable or the swamps the river brett the banks of this for the world and the awesome summertime went to north carolina to the that holds in fact the city of newport was partially founded by people from from charleston to repackage them up and down the coast in and in newport became a very important place for sale through an instant to go in the summertime or little turn her house there the donor song and then of course you're going to come into this city

and certainly it when the little things laughter for plantation residences and went to north carolina or jimmy porter simply too and overseers trust and particularly trust have encountered people who kind of took over for the most as managers and i think that in the case of russia establishing their gardens that the sellout that growth the old arthur son with in middletown eldest son of course children and seventeen thirty years and her little complicit in seventeen forties that it also gave an opportunity for cultivation to go on in and gardening to be taking care of this is a very fast growing climate in her saliva furman work

related to be done to keep things can turn in order for this platter families to return to where they lived on in the fall and wonder they did make trips we know frequently in the summertime in and do you have it's some accounts of what the houses were like when they came back they pretty much been stripped of a lot of the everyday materials in the wintertime a cooler this ripple out in the middle of the room mosquito netting of course recuse profusely the board of the charleston restaurant would be removed and just a drop in an inlet response for us

and for the life of the plant are families in goose creek certainly had many aspects to it that we do know about well we know it was it was challenging they had this is virgin territory that they were spied an opportunity to develop into plantations was also they had a very rough and difficult life that must have been in full of anxiety with the knowledge that they're there were still empty and stretch there were threats from spaniards and french and i think for both beausoleil families and european families it that it was very physically hard but at the

helm medical problems were severe injuries than a disease that also that the religious life was very important in the anglican parents churches were all begun in this part of the low country and seventeen of sex and an important one was established of this group that was st james parish this great then we give accounts by the first director amanda moore show who wrote diaries and memoirs of his experiences with those families there the many of the city's parish churches also interesting lee had had services based on the tides because we have to remember that the rivers were the main highways transporting people as well as goods and the charges were typically established downstream from the majority of their parishioners up strength and they were simply come down on monday

at todd ao were inadequately that were there barges originally were assisted by through for nasa current go to the church service at low tide and then with the flood of combat and the assist of a russian turncoat climate change there was security but when we think about the year and a relationship between the white population and the african population that had in common with an insurer to i don't know exactly when

the white population became a minority probably much later than most people would suspect but at some point in time there were certainly more slaves and there were white people and as that developed it well into the eighteenth century there were concerns about the slave insurrection see them banned even been promoted by third parties and and yet half they were for the most part for a short lived and i believe that it probably is relationship of the entire plantation community as a developed became a day closer and closer relationship with people carrying very much about the the livelihood and being sensitive for the most part there are of course he has exceptions but for the most part i think people are really realizing their mutual and that

interdependence and developing into it get to more more of a partnership of fuel a political ad this is big we don't really run

your hand but i don't always want a year to realize is when you talk with stone and thirty miles away and tissue from a measure through most readers critic and even that in the second quarter of the eighteenth century was a very long distance was a particular long distance over land this week as we get into the second quarter of the eighteenth century we really see the ownership of land coming more important and as i think i said earlier they the involvement in the political process congress hand in hand with land ownership because it has to do with that their relationship of politics and economics in the whole picture out for the author middleton who is to become the acting governor

in in the seventeen twenty eight ten years earlier he had been very much involved in the process of removing the proprietary system from the carolinas where we are for the fifteen years prior to seventeen twenty from that for some south carolina lowcountry was really a good business operation was much like the east india company became later much later in history so that the citizens were we were kind of like clasp be citizens should reporting through the horse proprietors back to the ground and they appealed and seventy nineteen and a council of which show arthur middleton was present and appeal directly to the crown saying that they wanted to and proprietor ruin become class a full fledged english and succeeded in that so that opera parker rule which and this half century of

existence came to a screeching halt certainly from the involvement of a planter there's no show in shipping entrepreneurial people in the political life of the county became increasingly important and arthur miller himself of course was to play a role and the succeeding generations as i said to the american revolution center in abortion opponents pled are also that really when we study the young the middleton family both those involved in the economy of the column in the politics the economy and after the time a revolution really becomes a microcosm of american history because we go through with them the revolution where another henry middleton was president first panel congress another as a model and sonner and then

almost a hundred years later their grandchildren and great grandchildren party to destroy and the union that arthur emma thompson had out to create they destroyed by signing the ordinance of secession participate in the civil war which goes beyond every the true focus and do it thank you after the death of governor middleton of course his eldest son and after the girl governor of a real time and of course his eldest son his name was

william and herded the majority that the largest share of his property and the way but as his eldest son because i'm a janitor was still very much and go out but at his second son and removal in his own right required a considerable amount of oil's in the shipping and noble stores in production of riots in experimenting with indigo and so on so that by the end of that first kind of coalition period in the seventy percent and forties he moved from goose creek over to the ashley river because in his marriage to marie williams he acquires her dowry the land didn't belong to the williams family that was to become adult in place by the time he got to hear and they moved into this house that were simply on a bluff overlooking the ashley river

it's a television that the that this home of theirs could be at every brand statement we don't know early on in exactly what his land holdings were but during his life he was to acquire over twenty plantations the total more than fifty thousand acres and remove janice it there's a young bridegroom to williams pouch it was aligned with a stretch of the ashley river that was to become the main axis of that grey gardens it was to begin laying out soon after he moved here took about ten years and that ball off from the house down to the river was molded into to rolling terrace of sweat butterfly likes lakes in shape of olive oil and put the bottom of them and off of this great obvious axis and god given by the for today's turn of the river and it created this great central axis opportunity

he created transfer sachs's and in fact a very large triangular plan was to include a series of gardens laid out some forty acres a very formal gardens under the influence of the style of on a lark very on manmade making the statement that the man was controlling nature that this was kind of this almost a psychological planning to do with them everything they need to metric and just wright also very much an immense control and he laid out these gardens that the core of the garden club of america are not only today the oldest surviving in the united states but the most interesting most important gardens in america for two hundred and fifty six years in the history of when we when we think

about why he would have gone to the trouble to lay out such a splendid the grand garden and i think we can we can speculate that he may well have been trying to make a statement that that their colony is now established well enough and we can live as his grand late as so our conscience in another country and comer show the year that the relatives of those who had stayed and then of course it was all part of them still in their are going back and forth all the time but here they could live or just a splendidly issue coordinator in the british isles in mecca and also remember was an art form that was say here that it was an entertaining form and therefore fit into the whole political process and the process of accumulating wealth in stature and social

position powers at they had at the time of the american revolution and the older generation that that on who is having little tune who started little complacent laid out the garden chair was certainly a relatively conservative me he was a very very large land owner overlord slave owner abdo what was perhaps the third largest lumber in colonial carolina chemical in america after george carla carlton and george washington and now on

it and now it is he was of course selected to many offices within the state over its governing bodies and councils of safety and so on but no one to philadelphia and seventy and seventy four to the continental congress and was elected to succeed at randolph in december of that year as a us president carter's we don't know all the details of the circumstance but circumstances but i think that as revolutionary fervor mounted hand given the seventy five and seventy six that the he was succeeded by his son because his son was clearly on more of a revolutionary firebrand and i think the father kind of step back and then wanted to let him take over so that arthur middleton who spoke out fervently for the revolutionary cause in fact are

published many of the propaganda treatises under the name amanda marvel under the pen name and tomorrow but then arthur middleton worst terror incidents intersections a lot to become sign of integration and then that the the continuing involvement of the middleton family over the succeeding generations really it it is something of a microcosm artistry because we won from the revolution through the prosperity in the early nineteenth century was a little town's oldest son became governor south carolina eighteen ten and then the announcer versus congress and making toys was appointed the strip of adventure to russia where you served in the court in st petersburg for a decade

from that in twenty ten thirty and death his is his life and time was perhaps that the golden era of prosperity and mounting us to the climax of the civil war and his son who did stem cell phone his eldest son decided that europe was more fun than south carolina a younger son stayed here and became the owner of middleton plays the time of the civil war in and was a sign of the ordinance is to session and destroying our with his peers and contemporaries the union that there grandfathers and great grandfathers had established at the time of the revolution so i had it done that it very much became full circle hand but at the end of the civil war of course the invocation was shot against sergeant like oregon senator ensign secession and that also happened with

little complacent and began a period following the civil war of about fifty years of going back to a total poverty and in fact that judge neglect of what had been established here how was unstable when the system works and i think that both there are a lot of parallels between milton involvement in the american revolution and the story because if you think about it as as landowners and that people who acquired a great deal of wealth that a lot to luge and they should have a lot looser the time of the revolution saying that we're going to go along

with their quest for american independent cinema not have the protection of the british crown of enjoying previous to that and similarly at the time of the soul or it was still a bold thing to the fire on a year union bastian at fort sumter and other say we want out of this steel and we want it in the pan so they were and so and so do from a self destructive maybe two wars and the damage has been middleton plays house was so even proposed to be expanded because at one point out windows middleton who is here then felt that the most three hundred feet long had everything they must've felt

that the odds were going off in favor of the south that there might have been a time for the expansion and we have plans actually drew that shows never interesting what a shock it must have been only two years later and to to come with a screeching halt and it did but when sherman's army marched to the sea there was a out riding group of the art fifty six volunteers who came and burnt middleton place only less than two months before the end of the war and far more at sixty five but the whole thing to the torch and now they had done a lot of the stuff from inside carted out that he was one of the militants return after the war there were it's essentially just a burned out show except for one is the present middleton plays house and i've simply been the least badly damaged so it was repaired in the family reduced its scale moved into the south like her of them out of the houses

today the middleton plays have re rooted again and a fragility so that the devastating earthquake that hit charleston twenty years after sort of august thirty first at eighty six that devastating essay was about to sell a seven point two on the richter scale felt a freestanding walls of the main part of the house in the north like her but let the restored and repaired and we were south weicker survive the store and serve today is the middleton place house where it's been able to what the treasurers have combat extended middleton family and supported it it's true well so certainly took them it's taken a very rock form a change from a period of that golden era of prosperity

into a period of really abject neglect and poverty that was not solved by that so called reconstruction period really wouldn't solve for a hundred years until about the time of this report of the summer and you know it's the it's that the russian for one of the top russian following of the financial success and a survivor a homeland within a given and universal terms of her time is that your own papa now this job college sorority pulled out in an entire state for monday