Charleston: Charm and Cheer with a Challenging History
“In Xanadau did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”
Kubla Khan – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
I don’t know where Xanadau is, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it is nestled somewhere along the harbour of South Carolina’s magnificent Charleston.
It is almost suspicious how gorgeous Charleston is. Each wood paneled home is pristine, the public buildings magnificent, domineering and reminiscent of Santorini at sunset. It is as if even the sun itself has been painted in the sky, so perfectly do its rays cascade down the cobblestoned street which in turn invites gasps and crooning admiration. They wind through this stunning city which I’m delighted to report is more than just a pretty face. A fascinating, and often troubling, history awaits beyond the city’s daintily adorned wood-paneled homes.
Primus inter pares on that count is the Old Slave Mart Museum. It ceased operation in 1863 but Charleston was the largest slave port in North America when it was in use. The museum wheels you through the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the move towards Civil War and the central role Charleston played at each step. In fact, the mart was only established to try and limit the amount of slave dealing that was done on the streets of Charleston, such was the genteel reputation of the city even back then. Of the 15 masters in the United States who owned more than 100 slaves in 1860, 8 were in South Carolina. Within the mart, slave dealers would ‘coach’ slaves to make them easier to sell, fatten them up to make them look stronger and of course ultimately sell them to masters from across South Carolina and beyond. Many were put to work in the fields of Boone Hall Plantation which sits outside the city limits and is open to tourists today.
Boone Hall is a 738 acre farm outside Charleston, although it was once in excess of 4,000. Slaves worked in its huge grounds to grow, rice, cotton, indigo and pecan trees at different times throughout its history. All of the mud huts that the slaves lived in have since been destroyed by the elements, although some meagre brick ‘houses’ do remain. This afforded the slaves better conditions, (in the same way Carlsburg is ‘better’ than Tuborg) but their main purpose was to signal to visitors the immense wealth of the master. Using brick, rather than wood and mud, to house slaves was considered lavish and excessive, although it hardly made life bearable in the horrendous damp and brutal winds they faced year round. Each ‘house’ was for two families and so in total about 8 – 14 people. And they made the bricks themselves, of course. Clearly the masters of Boone Hall cared little for their wellbeing, but Mr. Abraham Lincoln did. Upon his election as US president in 1860, 11 southern states seceded from the Union in response to his widely broadcast intention to outlaw slavery in the United States. The first state to secede was South Carolina on 20 December 1860. And the first shots of the Civil War that ensued were fired in Charleston Harbour 4 months later. The target was Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter is a 30 minute ferry away and was the only site of the entire harbour held by the United State’s forces when the war began. The first shots, fired on 12th April 1861, heralded a merciless barrage of fire on their positions until they were forced to abandon the Fort, and thus Charleston as a whole, to the Confederacy. Charleston would become the heartbeat of the Confederate war effort, facilitating the export of cotton and import of much needed war supplies. In years before the war, cotton accounted for 59% of exports from the United States and so became central to the Confederate war-time economy. It ran into supply issues almost immediately. Thanks to the Anaconda Plan of the Union Navy and its associated blockade on Confederate ports, imports declined precipitously. As of 1860, the Confederacy had 4.5 million bales of cotton and 70% of its economy was driven by exports. By 1864 just 2% of its economy was export orientated – and its cotton bales inventory was negligible. The confederacy was broke and their forces surrendered on May 26th 1865. The war left behind a South ravaged by disease, poverty and despair and Charleston’s experience was emblematic of this. Indeed, the museum at Fort Sumter today shows pictures of Charleston from 1865 alongside those of Dresden post WW2. The similarities with the devastation of the infamous Allied bombing raid, which some consider a war crime, are harrowing. It was pretty uplifting to return to Charleston after the tour and be reacquainted with the vibrant and cosmopolitan Eden that it is today.
Although, is it really? It certainly isn’t a very diverse city. Particularly by US standards. There is a nagging sense that it is a city of rich white people doing tremendously rich white people things. The shops along King street are straight out of the one percenter playbook, where people readily part with small fortunes to look like the centrefold of a Ralph Lauren catalog. By the same token, there are cafes aplenty but it is noteworthy how readily and drastically substance is scarified for style and, at times, a suffocating level of conceit. One such French cafe was so clean it felt rude to not remove my shoes upon entry. I quickly lost faith when I realised that they only served coffee in 16oz or 20oz cups. That’s a pint of coffee, minimum. Ensuring every last bean was burned before serving was another unfortunate insistence and the pastries were hardly of a caliber to rescue the situation. All the staff wore starch-white aprons however, and there were myriad French expressions written on the walls reminiscent of how Irish bars overseas laden themselves with ‘My Goodness My Guinness’ posters in a limp attempt to garner credibility. It was only after leaving that I realised I hadn’t seen a single McDonald’s since my plane landed and, while one may argue that’s a good thing, it’s undeniably extremely unusual. I’d imagine that the locals are jolly delighted although it is a fact that only underlines the elitism and ostentation of the place.
On my last night in Charleston, I saw Chris DiStefano do stand-up at the Riviera Theatre. It’s a sumptuous theatre, and excellent stand-up venue, although it did feel like a conference centre that had dressed up as a theatre for the night. The decor was questionable, the bars makeshift and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was likely a conference on banking reform or pandemic preparedness scheduled for Monday morning. When mid-flow in a bit around diversity, and the apparent lack thereof in Charleston, DiStefano beckoned any Asians living locally to shout out and what followed was the most deathly silence of the entire show.
“Way to go, Charleston” he said.
