Land We Love, a Monthly Magazine Devoted to Literature, Military

; !' ————————— THE LAND WE LOA^E. No. VI. OCTOBER, 1866. Vol. I. Created by a uation's glee. With jest and song and revehy, We sang it in our early pride. Throughout our Southern borders wide, While from ten thousand throats rang out A promise in one glorious shout ' ' ! ' To live or die for Dixie Plow well that promise was redeemed, Is Avitnessed by each field where gleamed Victorious —like the crest of Mars The banner of the Stars and Bars ! The cannons lay our warriors low We fill the ranks and onward go •'To live or die for Dixie I'' To die for Dixie ! —Oh, how blest Are those who early Avent to rest, IsTor knew the future's awful store, But deemed the cause they fought for sure As heaven itself, and so laid down The cross of earth for glory's crown. And nobly died for Dixie. To live fpv Dixie—harder part To stay' the hand—to still the heart To seal the lips, enshroud the past , To have no future— all o'ercast To knit life's broken threads again, And keej) her mem'ry pure from stain This is to live for Dixie. ^ Beloved Land ! beloved Song, . Your thrilling power shall last as long Enshrin'd within each Southern soul As Time's eternal ages roll Made holier by the test of yeai's Baptized with our country's tears Grod and the right" for Dixie ! June 13, 1866. fanny downing, VOL. I.—NO. ri. 27 — — 882 Low Country of South Carolina. [Oct. THE LOWER COUNTRY OF SOUTH CAROLINA. WHAT IT HAS BE^;^•. Although iill were the direct and of social organization, suc- oftspring of one mother, each of cessfully resisted this tendency. the English colonies in North Of these causes of difference, the America was distinguished by chief was the great geographic some predominant trait in the or climatic fact, that the negroes, character of the emigrants, and so largely imported into the coun- in the occasions and motives that try, proved in the North valueless drove them from the old world to in bondage, and afterwards rapid- the new. Thus New England was ly died out in freedom— while in colonized by fanatic puritans es- the South they proved prolitable caping from the bigoted rule of and prolific in bondage, yet shew- the Stuarts; Avhile Virginia was ed a similar, though not so rapid settled by English subjects of a a tendency to die out when set (llfterent tcmjier, who clung to the free. royal cause after it was lost in the Although the presence of a large old country, until they too were negro population in servitude was crushed by the arms of Cromwell. a characteristic feature, common Pennsylvania was settled by Peun to all the Southern States— yet as and his persecuted Quakers; Mary- in nature no tree has two leaves land by Lord lialtimore and his exactly alike, neith; r did a social o])pressed Roman Catholics; New uniformity pervade the South. In York, originally planted by Hol- the c amtrics of the old ^world, it land, became by conquest, English is difficult to make a day's journey in character and name; and the in any direction, without remark- English colony of South Carolina, ing a diti'erent sliade of character thedomain of certain courtiers of in the country and the people; and Charles II, was early leavened even in thisntw cf)untry, althouoh by the influx of French Protest- its people are assinii'att d by thrir ants fleeing from the intolerance origin from a comuion source, and of Louis XIV, and of Rome. by the intermixture of the popula- These are but instances, not an tion by migration; yet many re- enumeration, of the differences gions and even neighborhoods, es- characterizing the English set- pecially in the South, acquired tlements on the American coast. and retained a unique stamp, As the chief connnunications which resisti.d the \vear and abra- and commercial dealings of the sion of intercourse witii the rest colonies were with the Mother of the world —but which has now country, there was no great inter- been crushed out by war, devas- course between the colonies them- tation, conqu st, and the upturning selves tending strongly to assimi- of society to its roots. late them to each other. Since Now that they have perished, then, the political union and con- Ave would preserve a trace of the sequent commercial and social in- featun-s of some of th( se provin- tercourse between the people of cial communities, while they arc the different States, for more than yet fresh in the mind's eye and eighty years, tended to stamp up- stamped on the h'.arts of some of on them an enforced similarity. this generation. The childr- n of Yet natural causes; differences of those who have fallen in defence climate, of geographical features, of their pleasant homes, now deso- — 1866.] Low Country of South (JafoUndi 383 late, and of those who have been the early history of South Caro- driven forth from their ruins to lina. John Locke, who lived seek new and remote Iiabitations-, much with Shaftsbury, as his phy- may at some future day dwell sician and secretary, drew up a with interest on the portrait, how- constitution for the colony, which ever rudely drawn, and l^e glad of seems never to have been fully the light shed on the traditions of acted upon-. their race. Such a picture may The Lords Proprietors sent out also aid him, who feels no personal their first expedition in 1670, and interest in these regions, in form- love of adventure, discontent with ing his estimate of the extent of their condition at home, and hopes the ruin that has fallen upon the of better fortune in a new country, country. of which they knew nothing and The tide water portion of Vir- imagined every thing that could ginia, the lower country of South be desired, furnished colonists in Carolina, and the parishes of Loui- abundance. The first settlement siana, settled by the French, are was begun on the waters of Port distinguished at once by their Koyal. But the open and inde- local peculiarities, and by the ut- fensible character of this port, and ter and probably permanent ruin its vicinity to the military posts in which has fallen upon them. The Florida held by the Spaniards, communities that nourished there who claimed the whole country, may seem yet to retain vitality, and looked upon the English as but truly belong to the past. Hop- intruders, led in one year to the ing that more skilful hands may transfer of the colony to the west give us representations of what bank of the Ashley river. But these portions of Virginia and the point between the mouths of Louislaaa have been —we Avill en- Ashley and Cooper rivers was deavour to draw a picture of the finally selected as the site of the lower country of South Carolina. tov^rn. The source of social peculiarities As usual in such cases the re- there must be traced from the sults of the enterprise long disap- early history of the colony. pointed the hopes of both the Eight courtiers of rank and in- Lords Projirietors and the colo- fluence obtained from Charles nists. The country was low, flat, II, a grant of all the territory in intersected by many rivei's and North America lying between lati- swamps, and covered with a dense tude 31 and 36. This charter con- forest; the climate moist, the heat veyed not merely title to the land, of the sun tropical, and the air but all the powers of government malarious. The clearing and saving the King's supremacy. draining of land required immense Among these Lords Proprietors labor before it could be brought into were three men whose names are cultivation—the ordinary grain still justly conspicuous. Edward crops of Europe did not thrive in Hyde, Earl of Clarendon—famous this region—and the European la- as a statesman, and more famous borer soon lost his health if not as an historian. George, Duke of his life from the effects of the cli- Albermarle, the General Monk so mate. It was long before enough prominent in the restoration of grain was grown to feed the colo- the Stuarts—and Antony Ash- nists. The trade with the Indians ley Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury, a in skins and furs, and the naval man of vast abilities, which he stores obtained from the pine used most unscrupulously in a forests long furnished the chief long and versatile political course. exports. Through his influence, a yet great- The colony had to be sustained er name became connected with by frequent detachments of emi- — 384 Low Coimtvy of S(Aith (Mrolinri. [Oct. grants from England. Among tion to the Huguenots or reformed these Avere man}- indented sser- religionists in France—the drag- vants—needy men at a loss for the onnade, by Avhich Louis XIV, means of living at home—who had sought to drive this portion of his been induced by want to sell their subjects back into the bosom of services for a period in payment the Romish Church, drove a mul- of the expense of bringing them to titude of the boldest and most n new countr}'. Many of them conscientious of them out of the were mere boj'S, not a few of whom countrv. Many of them sought had been kidnapped, and were sold a refuge in Protestant England by the masters of vessels to the and her colonies.

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