It was a Thankful Sunday, a Learning Sunday, and an Emotional Sunday!

Today has been an excellent day! We left around noon and headed to Mt. Pleasant SC to tour the Boone Hall Plantation. What a gorgeous place..I'm thankful that I was born white and free, I learned first hand (although we always knew) about slavery, and I was emotional to even think that there is a remote possibility that my ancestors back many generations may have 'owned' slaves. Reading, schooling, and watching movies pertaining to slavery is one thing. Visiting where they lived and worked is definitely another. I could almost feel the 'era' today. It was like an affirmation that it truly did happen. Those poor poor human beings. Brought over on boats from Africa to be a slave. On this particular plantation there were 5,000 acres of land to be worked. Originally there were 36 slave houses but due to hurricanes etc only 9 remain today. The crops they grew were cotton, and rice- mainly. They had a foundry on site~and brick was a big big business and quite the money maker from what I understand. It was emotional for me to walk the land they walked, and stand in the houses they lived in. We all need to take a moment and realize just how lucky we truly are to live where we live, and to be free to live how we want to...They worked from sun up to sun down~they were beaten for not working fast enough, they were bought, sold and traded, and they had a bounty put on their heads~dead or alive~if they tried to escape..$20.00 dead or alive-imagine $20.00 being the price of a life.

Slave's houses

Another shot of the slave houses

Nice road into the Plantation beautiful oak trees line the whole road !! Gorgeous

The current plantation house~it is not the original -apparently the original was not nearly as big and was just a 2 storey farm house. The current owners built this~the grounds are beautiful. Nobody lives in this house..the plantation is now owned by the 'son and daughter' of the last owner (I think there were 3 owners) they do stay there when they visit ; on the second floor if the guest house is occupied.

This is a slave cabin where the slaves worshiped.

The congregational area: I must add the slave houses are original but there were no windows or actual doors in them and absolutely no furniture. They had dirt floors-after 'freedom' some of the slaves chose not to leave ; they still stayed and worked..but worked as 'free slaves' - where would they go? especially the older ones~

At times upwards to 15 people plus children lived in this slave house. Can you imagine...there could be up to 3 different families living there. The picture makes the house look bigger than it actually is. Packed in like sardines.

Some of the artifacts archeologists dug up from under the dirt floors. Apparently this is how the slaves hid their wares so they wouldn't be taken from them.

 A bed and cradle used by free slaves

The Man who said "Enough" "no more slavery"..it took a few years after his declaration for the slaves to be finally freed. 

A final shot of the remaining Slave houses

The story of the slave quilts...it took them years to have enough material to construct the quilts..the quilts also carried 'secrets' to the underground~

The finished product with encoded secret messages~the tops were all sewn by hand and tied

Beautiful Azaleas~they just grow everywhere

 This is one of the many many mature Oak trees I stood under it to take a picture~moss hangs from all the branches.

Cotton on the stock not picked

From the Plantation we toured Georgetown..what a gorgeous little town..nice marina, beautiful homes, very heritage area.

Beautiful homes in Georgetown all built on stilts due to hurricanes and storm water levels which can rise 9' notice the storm shutters..

Pawley's Island very nice summer place with gorgeous summer homes - sadly every second one or so is for sale due to the economy.

So all in all we had a great 'touristy' day, visiting the different areas. We came back had a nice supper~then visited with Beth and Barry, toured around the resort on the golf cart...had some wine, and then home and off to bed..another fun filled day.

ta ta for now yall have a super week. Be sure to click on the pictures to see the details of each one.