Summertime… Then and Now
Balmy breezes fresh from the sea dance along Charleston’s cobblestone streets, bringing sweet relief in the sultriness of her legendary summer heat. Long, humid days are whiled away by young and old alike at Charleston’s fabulous local beaches. Families build sand castles on Sullivan’s Island, beach comb or swim on the Isle of Palms; friends and co-eds surf the waves at Folly Beach. Fishing and scuba diving charters are available at local marinas; eco-tours of the barrier islands replete with delicious Lowcountry boil all beckon to adventurers. In the Historic District, air-conditioned shops along Market and King streets welcome visitors into their cool embrace, and a cold drink enjoyed at one of our famous local restaurants bring to mind the famous tag line from the American opera Porgy and Bess: “Summertime…and the livin’s easy…”
While modern life and amenities make summer a fantastic time to be in the Carolina Lowcountry, in the past Charleston was a difficult, often dangerous place in the summer months. Arriving settlers were met by a myriad of blackwater tidal creeks and marsh that bred sickness through mosquitoes and other parasites, though at the time it was believed to be “bad air,” or malaria. The natives referred to the near-constant breeze over the tiny peninsula as chicora, a native Kiawah word that means “land of healing winds.” The original settlers had landed up the Ashley River, but the move to the peninsula was recognized as both more strategic as well as more comfortable. The site was, as Joseph Dalton recorded in 1671, “very healthy, being free from any noisome vapors and all the Sumer long refreshed with Coole breathing from the sea.”
However, the quickly growing settlement was still bisected with many marshy creeks, and with waste runoff and lack of sanitation the whisper of trouble soon became a roar. Stagnant lots, many of which were filled over time due to the “poisonous” water, ran along the westerly side of the city. In 1785, one visitor reported that he would count himself “fortunate” if he was able to leave “before some…disorder rages.” Citizens continually appealed to the city that the low-lying areas of marsh must be drained, as it “must be highly injurious to the health of the inhabitants.” Because of this, as well as extension of the seawall on numerous occasions, the streets in Charleston have a noticeably asymmetrical layout. A modern map compared to the original settlement shows a line-up of streets to old rivers, including Market Street, Water Street and lower Church Street. A portion of the original seawall is still visible nearly three blocks inland on Limehouse Street.
Rife with influenza, smallpox and scarlet fever, the port city saw many harrowing outbreaks of these epidemics as well as other various ailments, such as the devastating summer of 1738 when approximately ten percent of the colony’s population succumbed to yellow fever. The rector of St. Philip’s Church recorded “4 to 12 Funerals a Day & many sick to Visit.” Charleston earned a sordid reputation in the colonial days as an unhealthy place, and in later years this reputation would hurt the economy as others feared to trade in the port, believing—not without merit—that sickness would follow the ships to their destination. Doctors, however, were attracted to the rumors of good wealth and bad health, and the saying among many was “Carolina is in the spring a paradise, in the summer a hell and in the autumn a hospital.”
For the planter, wealthy elite of Charleston, summer was the time to abandon the city in pursuit of a cooler, healthier clime in the North. For the pampered classes, the balls and gaieties of the winter and early spring season were begrudgingly given up in favor of summer country retreats, such as the mountains of North Carolina or the refreshing seacoast of Newport, Rhode Island. In the 1760s and 1770s, so many people from the Lowcountry traveled to Newport that the city became known as the “Carolina Hospital.” At the first press of lasting heat in May, trunks were stowed and passengers crowded upon packet boats to make the coastal journey, not returning until late October. Still others made the voyage to England in an attempt at restoring vitality and remained there, as Charleston continually had “want of health.” While fourth in population behind Philadelphia, New York and Boston at the time, Charleston ranked first in health problems. Between 1800 and 1860, there were twenty-five epidemics of yellow fever alone. In 1807, John C. Calhoun wryly commented that the constant fever in Charleston was “a curse…for their intemperance and debaucheries.”
Slaves, indentured servants, poor free whites and blacks were not as lucky as the ruling classes. Escape from the raging swelter was not for them; only long, arduous days in the hot southern sun. These people labored daily, even in the press of blazing August. The plantations deeper inland from the coast were stifling hot and muggy; yet work continued to produce rice, cotton, tobacco and indigo crops. Severe cases of dehydration and heatstroke were common.
Very quickly, the use of West Coast African slaves surpassed the use of all other labor on Charleston area plantations. Slaves from Angola and Ghana, for example, were more highly prized than European slaves for many reasons, as the Africans held many skills the Europeans did not. Primarily, they were experienced farmers in the cash crops that dominated the colonial and antebellum periods. Having introduced the ability to grow rice in Carolina, they knew how to plant and clean the rice, how to kill an alligator that lurked in the fields. Yet equally important was the Africans’ ability to survive the violent “fever and ague” that ran so rampantly. The sickle-cell is a natural, defensive mutation against malaria. Because of this, the black slaves were able to survive the swamp fevers of summertime while white and native slaves perished by the dozen.
So take a break this summer and reflect…for in contrast to summers of old, the livin’ truly is easy!