Gullah History Articals

The Last to Leave (McLeod's Plantation)

In the year 1671, the Council of Province ordered a town to be established on James Island. McLeod's Plantation (not called McLeod's at that time) became a part of James Island around 1696. The property was first owned by Morris Morgan in 1696 and had about 617 acres. There was no formal building on the property except for a few slave quarters. Duel residency existed, and most plantation owners had homes elsewhere, usually in the city. From the Colonial period well into the 20th century, most of James Island consisted of blacks. Around 1720, St Andrews Parish records reported around 215 white taxpayers and nearly 2500 slaves. The slaves were left to oversee and cultivate the property. Dual residency allowed the slaves to practice and perpetuate many African traditions, cultures, and languages. For example, sweeping the yard to keep the snakes away is still a common practice in some of the rural areas of the low country. The Gullah language survived and can still be heard today among friends and families, young and old. Charleston and Beaufort form the nucleus of the Gullah speaking area. The practice of root medicine is still used by many blacks and whites. It is a practice that was br/ought with the slaves from Africa. Benin, West Africa is still known today for its practice of root medicine and witchcraft. Root medicine was used for good and bad, but evil and greed made it more bad that good. Except for a few white doctors who would secretly help slaves before and after freedom, there were many blacks who knew the art of root medicine. These blacks who used their knowledge for good were not feared and would be considered as "herbalist" today.

The main activity on the Island was the raising of beef, which gave this plantation a different financial advantage when everyone else was struggling with cotton. Cotton and rice were planted here but not on the large scale as other plantations. McLeod's Plantation was mainly known for beef. The slaves from the Gambia River region were expert horseman and cattle herders. They were America's first cowboys. Indigo was also a major crop at the plantation, but the process of changing the indigo plant into the blue dye made the slaves sick and many died of cancer. The rivers were the major modes of transportation, and these Africans were highly prized for their skills as boatsmen. The job as a boatsman gave a measure of independence to a slave.

Not much is known about McLeod's Plantation during the early colonial period. Morris Morgan is listed as the first owner of the property in 1696. Six hundred and seventeen acres of land became a Royal Grant to Captain David Davis in 1703, and in 1706 Davis sold the land to William Wilkins. In 1741, Wilkins sold the property to Samuel Perronneau. It is believed that Perroneau was the only one to have cultivated the property. None of the previous owners, including Perronneau, ever lived on the property, but they did have slaves living there. In 1770, two hundred and fifty acres was either sold or given to Edward Lightwood II, Perronneau's son-in-law. It was Lightwood who built the first main house and outbuildings. The house was approached from the South by an oak alley that extended northward to Wappo Creek.

Lightwood was a "broker" in slave trading and owned 53 slaves. Lightwood's daughter married William McKinzie Parker I in 1796. When Parker's mother-in-law died, he purchased the estate. Parker was involved in the slave trade industry and owned several vessels. Like Perronneau and Lightwood, Parker also worked the plantation. In 1851, the plantation was sold to William Wallace McLeod. By this time, the property had increased to 914 acres of land and 779 acres of marsh. McLeod built the present house around 1854-56. Exactly what happened to the Lightwood house is unknown. Speculations are that it was either destroyed or pulled down. Around 1860, McLeod owned approximately 74 slaves and 23 slave cabins that were located around the plantation. The five remaining 20' by 12' wooden slave cabins, the diary, and the kitchen building are believed to date from the Lightwood/Parker period (1770-1850). The old slave bell, used to call in the slaves from the field, still hangs from the giant oak tree near the "big" house.

William Wallace McLeod served in the Civil War and moved his family to Greenwood, South Carolina. He left Steven Forrest, a slave, in charge of the plantation. McLeod died in the war in 1864. Shortly after, Mrs. McLeod dies leaving a boy, still in his teens, and two young girls as owner of the plantation. During the war the house fell to the Federals. The house was used as a Federal Office Headquarters and a hospital for the Black units of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiment. After the war, the house was the Headquarters for the Freedmen's Bureau. Freed slaves from all over the island pitched pineburough shelters and camped on the plantation in order to be within easy reach of their free rations and "their forty acres and a mule." Unlike other parts of the South, tenancy was preferred to share cropping. It gave the black farmers freedom from white exploitation and the hope of accumulating money to purchase their own land. This plan proved to be very successful for blacks, well into the years after slavery.

Young, McLeod Jr. Arrived back at his father's home in 1879, after congress failed to pass Sherman's "Field Order #15" (Mule & forty Acres of Land Concept). It was said that McLeod Jr. was forced to apply for an escort of Union Soldiers to lead him through the crowd of insolent Negroes who thronged around the house.

After greedy carpetbaggers dismantled the Freedmen's Office, black families continued to maintain quarters in each room of the house. They took possessions, and used the house as they chose, with no regard for owners or property. McLeod later was able to establish ownership and dispose of the blacks. In 1895, Dr. Bert J. Wilder, who had been a surgeon for the Union Army, visited Charleston and told McLeod that the drawing room of the house served as his operating room for the blacks soldiers of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments. Those who died were buried in the slave graveyard. (A site behind the fire station near the James Island br/idge).

Willis Ellis McLeod, who was born in 1885, became owner of the property in 1918 and lived there until his death in 1990 at the age of 105. The McLeods continued to sell and rent properties to blacks long after the war. The slave quarters which dates back to the Lightwood/Parker period and are some of the oldest original wooden slaves quarter in the south. Blacks continued to occupy these slave quarters until around 1990 (not a misprint). Of all the plantations in the South, the blacks at McLeod were the "last to leave."

The plantation is owned by the Historic Charleston Foundation. The Foundation is planning to open the plantation to the public in the near future. Until then, Gullah Tours is one of the few tour companies authorized by the foundation to show the plantation.

The Brown Fellowship Society

By Alphonso Brown

No Where To Lay My Body Down. The early history of Charleston's black citizens is filled with mystery, intrigue, and many unanswered questions. For example, what does a black cemetery on upper Meeting Street and the parking lot of the former Bishop England High School (now College of Charleston) have in common and what important role did they play in Charleston's black history?

To answer these questions, a good place to start is at the old slave mart on Chalmers Street and the many other slave marts that dotted the streets of Charleston, especially the water front area. It was at these sites where many Africans were held captive and sold into slavery. But the story is actually about the descendants of those slaves and their white slave masters. Through the bloodline of their Caucasian fathers, affectionately referred to as "friends," many of these offspring were able to escape some of the horrors of slavery. While the mulattos (a first-generation offspring of a Negro and a white), octoroons (a person of one-eighth Negro ancestry), and quadroons, (a person of quarter Negro ancestry) were often granted their freedom, they were still considered sub-human. These new classes of African Americans were accounted among their own people as privileged.

Our story takes us to St. Phillips Episcopal Church where many of free blacks, whites, and slaves, worshiped together. Of course, the slaves often sat in the balcony or some other obscure place. The free blacks were given the privilege of maintaining their own pews. While they enjoyed this special treatment, they were at the same time denied many other rights and privileges of the white members. One of the denied privileges was the right to be buried in St. Phillip's cemeteries. The Rector of St. Phillips, Thomas Frost, persuaded these free "br/own" (light complexion) men to organize themselves, buy some property for a burial ground, and have a meeting house to transact their business. This unity would aid them in their political, social, economic, religious, and educational endeavors.

In 1790, James Mitchell and four other mulattos organized the Brown Fellowship Society, the "brown" referring to their almost white complexion. It is the oldest of the Negro friendly societies in the state. The society prohibited the discussion of religious or political matters. They were cautious of "ruffling the feathers" of the white society. The Brown Fellowship Society was opened to free blacks of color, very light color, and maybe those who were a few shades darker but with naturally straight hair or "blowing in the wind hair." Unlike other benevolent societies started by free Negroes, the Brown Fellowship did not help the slave community. Some of them were slave owners. Many of the free black organizations that were later started, purchased slaves and manumitted them.

The first order of business for the br/own Fellowship was to purchase property for a meeting house and a burial ground. The chosen site for the meeting house was on Liberty Street. The site chosen for the burial ground was located between Boundary (now Calhoun), Pitt, Coming, and Bull streets, now the parking lot behind the former Bishop England High School. It was in this area, when in 1794 the cemetery was consecrated by the rector of St. Phillips, Thomas Frost.

The society provided for more than the burial of members. It cared of members' widows, provided a prima school for their children, and supported members' business endeavors. Another important function of the society was the lobbying of their white "friends" in power to maintain their privilege status. The society never would have gotten involved in anything like the Denmark Vesey's insurrection. As a matter of fact, it was William Penceel, a member of the society, who persuaded Peter Prioleau (later changed to Desverney) to inform his master of the impending slave revolt planned by Vesey.

The Brown Fellowship Society's admission policy (which was tied to the white bloodline of former masters) denied membership to many blacks in Charleston. In 1843, Thomas Smalls, a free black man, applied for membership in the society and was turned down because of the darkness of his skin and possibly because his hair was not straight enough. Smalls, a member of the Circular Congregational Church, organized his own society calling it The Society for Free Blacks of Dark Complexion and later renamed the Brotherly Society. In a spiteful move, this group purchased property adjacent to the Brown Fellowship Graveyard that extended from the middle of the parking lot (separated by a fence) to Coming Street and opened their graveyard and named it, MacPhelah. To be a member of this society and to be buried in the graveyard members had to be of pure African descent. Thomas Smalls also opened another cemetery for the black members of the Circular Congregational Church and named it, Ephrath. Most of the Ephrath cemetery is still intact with the exception of larger headstones which have been pushed over and lined up as a walkway into the garden that is now on the property. Most of the deceased buried in Ephrath were black members of the Circular Congregational Church on Meeting Street. The Plymouth Congregational Church (now on Spring Street) gradually separated in a friendly manner from the Circular Church around 1867. They worshipped at 41 Pitt Street and used the old Ephrath graveyard until around 1950 when it was abandoned.