Charleston Named 2nd Most Romantic U.S. City! (North, Santee: sales, real estate)
Charleston areaCharleston - North Charleston - Mt. Pleasant - Summerville - Goose Creek
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That's good news, But Ive gotta say it,,,, whats so romantic about smelling horse urine while walking through the streets of Charleston?
Ill admit,,its a nice city. But that smell just don't get it when your talkin "Romantic".................................
Charleston is (and has been) a traditional setting for the so-called, "Torn Bodice' genre of romantic fiction; female porn to be quite honest.
Anyway, what happens is some author gets off a plane and spends a weekend or so on the Battery or at Hilton Head.
They see the houses, smell the gardenias, and write some stuff (quality varies) which glosses over the facts.
See those ornate mansions were owned by either plantation owners who used them as their townhouse to escape from the boredom of their rice plantations and confines of a wife, or by merchants who snuck out on the old ball and chain for a shadow life in the exclusive clubs of the day.
'Wenching', a nice way of putting it, was a major pursuit of SC's aristocracy. One author who chronicled the real scene back then said that in order recapture the spirit of those halcyon days it is necessary to be stinking drunk.
Both groups also made their geetus- paid for those lovely homes- by working 14 year-old black kids to death.
And that is romance, or what passes for it, 'In such a graceless age', to quote a lyric from a Don Henley song.
Well, Paris is usually considered the most romantic city in the world. But I suppose Paris' charms--the architecture, the food, the lights, the sights, the ambiance, etc.--would be lost on someone who walked around just thinking about the horrors of the French Revolution or some such.
Almost every built up place will have its history of oppression, cruelty, injustice, moral lassitude, etc. Why should that prevent us from enjoying it today?
Needless to say, the romance of a place depends a large part on whom one is with.
And here I was just thinking DH and I would enjoy a lovely meal at a fine restaurant and then walk along the beach....
Well, Paris is usually considered the most romantic city in the world. But I suppose Paris' charms--the architecture, the food, the lights, the sights, the ambiance, etc.--would be lost on someone who walked around just thinking about the horrors of the French Revolution or some such.
Almost every built up place will have its history of oppression, cruelty, injustice, moral lassitude, etc. Why should that prevent us from enjoying it today?
Needless to say, the romance of a place depends a large part on whom one is with.
And here I was just thinking DH and I would enjoy a lovely meal at a fine restaurant and then walk along the beach....
You don't walk around thinking about it all the time, to the exclusion of weverything else. But you don't gloss over it, either.
For example, everyone- including the boomtowners- knows 'The Market'. Thirty years ago, if you said 'The Market', people would have said, 'Oh, you mean the Old Slave Market.'
Cause that was its primary use. And the description is far more accurate.
Tourism is a funny thing. I was once in a Latin American town where the local native tribe put on an yearly festival which commemorated their ancestors' slaughter by the Portuguese.
You don't walk around thinking about it all the time, to the exclusion of weverything else. But you don't gloss over it, either.
For example, everyone- including the boomtowners- knows 'The Market'. Thirty years ago, if you said 'The Market', people would have said, 'Oh, you mean the Old Slave Market.'
Cause that was its primary use. And the description is far more accurate.
Tourism is a funny thing. I was once in a Latin American town where the local native tribe put on an yearly festival which commemorated their ancestors' slaughter by the Portuguese.
Anything for the tourists.
Actually, the "Slave Market" description is not far more accurate it is far more misleading. People think that is where slaves were bought and sold, that is false, the fact is the slave market is where slaves went to sell their stuff. They should call it the "Slave sold their stuff here market"
Actually, the "Slave Market" description is not far more accurate it is far more misleading. People think that is where slaves were bought and sold, that is false, the fact is the slave market is where slaves went to sell their stuff. They should call it the "Slave sold their stuff here market"
Interesting article on the forgotten "Third Class" of Colonial SC. I believe if you genetic testing of the older families, you'd find the majority have some 'African' genes. This was a natural selection process in response to malaria.
" An 1856 city ordinance prohibited this practice of public sales, resulting in a number of sales rooms, yards, or marts along Chalmers, State and Queen Streets."
Where most were sold in that period, including the site on Chalmers Street.
"Lowcountry planters purchased slaves at public auctions on the streets of Charleston and used them to cultivate crops on their plantations."
Including the site that the Pinckney's gave (with stipulations to the city in 1841) that is today the 'Market", and was traditionally called "The Old Slave Market", for that was what happened on the site.
Last edited by Geechie North; 08-05-2010 at 10:42 AM..
"By1696, however, the status of enslaved Africans in South Carolina had been degraded to chattel property in law and in practice."
Slaves selling "Their stuff" is an interesting idea, and a patently wrong one. 'Chattel property' does not own stuff to sell, it is 'stuff'.
The modern mulatto: a comparative analysis of the social and legal positions of <b style="color:black;background-color:#ffff66">mulattoes</b> in the antebellum <b style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99">South</b> and the intersex in contemporary (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gjXPcM_A3HYJ:www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-151440570.html+mulattoes+in+colonial+south+carolin a&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us - broken link)
Interesting article on the forgotten "Third Class" of Colonial SC. I believe if you genetic testing of the older families, you'd find the majority have some 'African' genes. This was a natural selection process in response to malaria.
" An 1856 city ordinance prohibited this practice of public sales, resulting in a number of sales rooms, yards, or marts along Chalmers, State and Queen Streets."
Where most were sold in that period, including the site on Chalmers Street.
"Lowcountry planters purchased slaves at public auctions on the streets of Charleston and used them to cultivate crops on their plantations."
Including the site that the Pinckney's gave (with stipulations to the city in 1841) that is today the 'Market", and was traditionally called "The Old Slave Market", for that was what happened on the site.
We are talking about two different areas there my friend. The Old Slave Market is located on Chalmers St, Salves were sold at that building, even today its called the Old Slave Market
The Market or City Market on Market St which is also referred to as the Slave Market was not a location where slaves were sold.
"Locals and tourists find the City Market a fascinating place today, but they often aren't as familiar with its history as with the histories of other Charleston landmarks. Visitors often incorrectly assume that slaves were sold there.
Plans for the market began to take shape in March 1788 when six prominent citizens gave real estate to the city to build the street where it would be located. Much of the property was a canal created by building up the banks of a tidal creek that ran from the Cooper River to Meeting Street.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney gave the property, according to the deed kept by the office of the Register of Mesne Conveyance. But city council minutes that would shed light on how the donors came to provide the property, why the space was suitable or how pressed city leaders felt to build the new market have not survived. Available newspaper articles from that time have not provided the information."
As you can see from that article and your post, you are referring to City Market because your article refers to Pinckney donating the land as does my copy and paste.
We are talking about two different areas there my friend. The Old Slave Market is located on Chalmers St, Salves were sold at that building, even today its called the Old Slave Market
The Market or City Market on Market St which is also referred to as the Slave Market was not a location where slaves were sold.
"Locals and tourists find the City Market a fascinating place today, but they often aren't as familiar with its history as with the histories of other Charleston landmarks. Visitors often incorrectly assume that slaves were sold there.
Plans for the market began to take shape in March 1788 when six prominent citizens gave real estate to the city to build the street where it would be located. Much of the property was a canal created by building up the banks of a tidal creek that ran from the Cooper River to Meeting Street.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney gave the property, according to the deed kept by the office of the Register of Mesne Conveyance. But city council minutes that would shed light on how the donors came to provide the property, why the space was suitable or how pressed city leaders felt to build the new market have not survived. Available newspaper articles from that time have not provided the information."
As you can see from that article and your post, you are referring to City Market because your article refers to Pinckney donating the land as does my copy and paste.
Familiar with both locations: The Old Slave Market, on Market Street and the Chalmers Street Slave Mart.
I believe in the first article I linked, the history of where and when slaves were sold in Charleston (#2 POE for human traffic in ther new world, after Salvador, Brazil). Enterprise started out on ther N. side of the Customs House, then spread to what today are State, Chalmers, and nearby streets- including Market. My great-great grandfather (6 generation from me) owned a house on what was then Amen Street; family history says he stayed there in order to buy the best ones from the Rice Coast for re-sale to his father's plantation on the N. Santee.
The land seems to have ran with the Pinckney family until about 1841, when they gave the land to the city, contingent on the usage being municipal.
Were slaves ever sold out of that building? Well we know that SC- the Lowcountry had such a large slave population that after the Stono Rebellion of 1739, the Turner plot in Va somewhat later, local whites in Charleston lobbied the Gen. Assembly to forbid the importation of slaves.
That was in 1800 (or so, going off memory) so there would be a 41 year lapse betwixt the imported slave sales and the Market St. building.
However, we also know that slaves were sold in Charleston up until 1860- after that everyone was too busy dodging Federal shells for such commerce to continue.
So there is at minimum a 16 year span when slaves were sold in Charleston while the Slave Market (Meeting St) was in operation, and before the Chalmers St Slave Mart opened (1859).
And we know that despite the Chalmers St. Slave Mart, slaves were still sold at other locales in the immediate area. So, the overwhelming probability- even a given- is that slave sales also occurred there.
I know there is some confusion on this issue: City Fathers- and families associated with the sale have long said (or ever since it wasn't cool to promote segregatation and be a tourist destination) that covenants running with the land forbade slave sales.
Nobody's ever been able to produce such a document. If you know where a site is that references same, I'd love to know because I'm a distant relative to them what sold the land, so I'm intensely interested, and have been for about 25 years- trying to run such paper down.
Local and family history/bickering and all that, ya see.
Last edited by Geechie North; 08-05-2010 at 12:51 PM..
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