TRAVEL
Walking Through
History
Photo: Charleston Area CVB.
in South Carolina
Charleston offers a new understanding of America’s past
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BY JOANNE CLEAVER
ortherners steeped in Colonial history might be forgiven for wondering what they might see and learn in Charleston, South Carolina, that’s new. The short answer is a lot. While the generally held view is that Colonial America developed in two parallel cultures—the free North and the slavery-based South—the truth is more nuanced, especially through the prism of Charleston’s historic sites. Consider this: Northern states were the first to abolish slavery, but that also means they allowed it. And the Southern economy was diversified, with only a small percentage of large plantation owners retaining a high proportion of the slave population. In any season but midsummer, Charleston offers history and botanic walks that complement a Northerner’s perspective on Colonial and Civil war events. (Midsummer is famously swampy and buggy, but from October through early May, the climate is what those in the North term “sweater weather.”)
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55+ LIFE MAGAZINE | SPRING 2022
Charleston faces its history head-on. From nearly its start in 1670, the city established itself as a Colonial powerhouse on the backs of the slave trade. The historic French Quarter encompasses the famed market, art galleries and the Old Slave Mart Museum. Pastel townhouses framed by palm trees are frosted with lacy iron gates and fences, many marked with round placards bearing the date of construction. But right to the bitter end of the Civil War, slaves built Charleston, hammered iron into its gates, crafted wood into its moldings and stitched Carolina cotton into curtains and clothes. Every visitor to Charleston has to stroll the four-block market, located appropriately enough at the intersection of Meeting and Bay streets. Sitting in open-air stalls, local artisans weave grass into baskets, some round, some boatshaped. This is the place for prints of Charlotte scenes and watercolors of magnolias. Pick up Southern spice mixes, bags of grits and sugar-crusted praline pecans. For genteel souvenirs, turn on to Meeting Street and head
