Charleston, S.C. – A Beautiful City with a Divisive Past

As part of the research for my latest novel, "Karma Nation," my son Rishi and I traveled across the American South. My previous blogs recorded our explorations of Houston, New Orleans and Atlanta. In this blog, I share my impressions of Charleston, South Carolina.

Charleston is the epitome of Southern charm—a genteel, laid-back city with friendly people who treat visitors with exceptional grace and manners. In 2016, Conde Nast, the magazine for travelers, named it the “friendliest” city in the entire world. In 2018, Travel+Leisure, another reputed magazine, awarded it the Best City in America title for the sixth straight year.

Indeed, the recognitions are well-deserved. Blessed with natural beauty, well-preserved history and a vibrant cultural life, Charleston is a great place to visit or live in. We arrived in the city after visiting Atlanta and the contrast could not be greater: Atlanta was a huge modern city rushing into the future while Charleston took pride in preserving its past. Dotted with centuries old churches and antebellum-period plantations, it certainly introduced visitors to the charms of a bye-gone age.

One of our destinations in Charleston was the Old Slave Mart Museum. Situated on a picturesque cobble-stoned street a few blocks from the harbor, the museum, an erstwhile slave auction house, presented the stories of the trade that originally established the city.

According to historians, at least 40% of all slaves imported into America first landed in Charleston. By the middle of the 1700’s, Charleston became the only major city in America with a majority-enslaved population.

The Museum at one time contained a cook-house for slaves, a barracoon (a jail for slaves) and even a slave morgue. Now, only the auction area is preserved. The history of the slave trade, mementos of the period and personal recollection of the individual slaves themselves line its walls.

In 1807, Congress passed an act prohibiting the importation of slaves. Yet, another trade took its place. Interstate slave trade grew and Charleston became the center of that industry, until slavery’s final abolition by President Lincoln. The institution of slavery implicated many—slave traders, bankers, plantation owners, financiers, politicians, lawyers, shippers and even slave insurance providers. These deep roots, and the difficulty of uprooting them, bequeathed the state and the city with one of the most divisive pasts in American history.

But the city is moving on. In 2015, the Confederate flag was finally removed from the South Carolina State House.  Last year, the city council of Charleston officially apologized for the city’s role in the slave trade. More importantly, the city is planning to build the $75 million International African American Museum on land not far from the Old Slave Mart Museum. It promises to become an important part of the fabric of the city and will go far to present an aspect of American life that is not much exposed.

My son and I truly enjoyed our visit to this beautiful city. The city and its people are beginning to fill in the missing parts of its history and are making it available to everyone. It provides one more reason to plan our next visit to this friendly and captivating city!

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "Karma Nation", a literary romance. For more information, please visit: 

www.mohanashtakala.com 

www.bookswelove.com

A Life Remembered...by Sheila Claydon

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When someone is ninety years old they have lived too much life for their story to be told in a few paragraphs, but often just a few years of that life are a story all on their own. That is the case with Imelda, a longtime neighbour and dear friend, who passed away peacefully in the early hours of this morning.

I saw her often and was frequently amazed by a new story about her life because, after many years of friendship, I thought I'd heard them all. But no, only last week she surprised me anew with a previously untold memory of how she and her husband drove across Africa with their son, then an 8 month old baby, more than 57 years ago. But this tribute to a truly redoubtable lady is not about that journey, it is about her childhood, about the time when she and two of her siblings were evacuated from Liverpool to Southern Ireland at the outbreak of WW2.

The youngest of 10, she was motherless but much loved and indulged by her widowed father and older siblings, and, until the war, roamed free in the streets of Liverpool, playing with friends or trailing her older brothers and sisters. In Ireland, however, she was left in the care of an elderly Victorian Aunt and Uncle who only allowed her and her brother to go for a sedate walk once a day. Fortunately, Barney, her uncle's Irish Water Spaniel, was allowed to go with them, and he made each walk a great deal more exciting.  First her brother had to wrap the leash around his hand and then Imelda had to hang onto his waist for grim death before they dared to open the door, and the story of their helter-skelter journey to the river where Barney dived in while they tried to avoid getting wet and thus into trouble, conjures a wonderful picture of two giggling, windblown children and a large and boisterous dog having the time of their lives.

There were other much darker things waiting for her though. She was sent to an Irish convent where every lesson was taught in Gaelic. As she only spoke English it was sometime before she mastered the language. Until then, she and the paddle (a paddle shaped board used for chastisement) saw a great deal of one another. In her words, school was horrendous, a terrible nightmare. Terrible it might have been, but before she left Ireland at the end of the war she won both a gold and a silver medal for Gaelic speaking, something that amazed the natives.

Better was each summer holiday when she and her brother were sent to another aunt and uncle who owned a farm. Although they went to help with the harvest and had to work hard, she loved it. Loved the outdoor life and the camaraderie, and loved especially the Irish dances that took place every night at the crossroads closest to whichever farm had brought in its harvest that day. All the farms worked together as a cooperative and Imelda had to help prepare food for 40 men every day, cooking in a big black caldron over an open fire. And twice a day she had to carry huge pails of tea for them, blowing a whistle as she went and then listening for an answering blast so she could locate them.

Only Fridays were different because then she and her brother had to harness up the donkey and cart and set off for the nearest town to deliver the butter her aunt had made that week. They were also tasked with bringing back sacks of flour and animal feed for many of the neighbours who lived along the route. Unfortunately, the donkey, who only had this one duty, hated it. He hated it so much that the outward journey was always a long slow plod. As soon as they turned for home, however, it was a different matter. Then, in her words, he went like the clappers and wouldn't stop, so they had to heave the various sacks out of the cart as they flew past farm gates and small holdings, hoping against hope that they had delivered the correct items to each customer.

The mother she couldn't remember was buried in her native Limerick and Imelda would visit her grave most weeks with a gift of wild flowers. The graveyard was next to what, in those days, was called The Asylum for the Insane. I don't know if it was a mental hospital or a prison, or maybe a bit of both, but whatever it was, soon some of the inmates noticed the little girl who visited the graveyard every week and began to call her. Feisty should have been her middle name because she quickly learned to scale the six foot wall using cracks in broken bricks for footholds, and sit atop it while the people below sang and danced for her. Then they would throw pennies over the wall and she would scramble down, collect them, and run across to the pub where she would buy jugs of ale. Using the local vernacular in what was now a thick Irish accent, she would ask for 'beer for the Eejits' and be served straight away. Then she would carefully deliver it back to her incarcerated friends.

What a difference from today's regulated, safety conscious and politically correct world. The only black cooking cauldron 21st Century children know is the one in the Harry Potter stories, and they play games on iPads and cell phones instead of cooking and delivering meals and tea to 40 sweating, hungry labourers.  Nor would they be set loose with a recalcitrant donkey unless they were wearing riding hats and boots and were accompanied by a responsible adult. Not that I'm saying we should go back to those days. Far from it. The language is kinder today, corporal punishment is forbidden in schools, and the exploitation of children is frowned upon...in the West at least. There are still many places across the world where children live a hard and a short life, but Imelda had an advantage. Whereas today children in poor countries are often short of food, if not starving, in neutral Southern Ireland during the war it was a time of plenty. Instead if wartime rationing there was an abundance of food, especially meat, cheese, milk, cream and butter, so despite her six years away from her Father and older siblings, Imelda grew up strong and healthy, fluent in two languages, independent and practical.

Those years stood her in good stead. At 90 she still loved her food, especially milk puddings, ate well and lived well, forever grateful for the benefits of modern life in a way that only those who have experienced something different can be.

In my book Remembering Rose there is a grandmother who is as old as Imelda. She is just as much a character and just as interesting. We must never forget that old people have a back story that is usually worth listening to. Today, as I collected some of Imelda's belongings for her son, and made sure her house was secure, I wasn't thinking about the old lady who had just died, bent and twisted with osteoporosis and arthritis. Instead I thought about the young girl she had been, carefree, sun-kissed, and full of life and laughter. Imelda I salute you for a long life well lived.

Cape Breton Island by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

Cape Breton Island

 I started my writing career as a travel writer, researching and writing seven travel books about the attractions, sites, and history along the backroads of Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. While working on them I realized what a beautiful country I live in. Since then I have switched to writing fiction but I still love to travel. 2017 was Canada’s 150^th birthday and to celebrate it my husband and I travelled in a motorhome from our home on Vancouver Island on the Pacific Ocean to Newfoundland on the Atlantic Ocean. The round trip took us nine weeks and we were only able to see about half of the sites and attractions along the roads.

       I have decided to write about the scenery, attractions, and history of my country. This post is about Cape Breton Island.
       The Canso Causeway connects Cape Breton Island to the mainland of Nova Scotia. The rock-filled causeway is 1385 metres (4345 ft) long and has a depth of 65 metres (213 ft) which makes it the deepest causeway in the world.
       The Fortress of Louisbourg is situated on the east shore of the Cape Breton Island and well worth the visit.
       In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed and France ceded its claims to present day Newfoundland, the Hudson’s Bay territories in Rupert Land, and Acadia (Nova Scotia) to the English. France kept what is now Prince Edward Island, the small islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon as well as Cape Breton Island. The settlement of Louisbourg was founded on the east side of Cape Breton Island in 1713, and between 1719 and 1745 the French built a fortified town. With its several thousand inhabitants it grew into a thriving and busy seaport in North America and was a key trading and military centre for the French in the New World. It was the base for the profitable cod fishery of the Grand Banks since salted and dried fish was an important food in Europe. The value of the settlement’s dried cod exports in 1737 was eight times higher than the value of the fur trade during the same period.

 

       In 1745, war was declared between France and Britain and the English launched an attack on Louisbourg. While the harbour was well defended, the low hills around the fortress provided cover for the attackers. The residents of the fortress held on for forty-six days before being captured. However, three years later the town was given back to the French by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
       A second attack occurred in 1758. There was no strong French navy to defend the town against the 16,000 troops and 150 ships and after seven weeks it was again taken by the English. They occupied it until 1768. Eventually, they decided that it should never return to being a fortified French base and they destroyed the fortress.

       Although the site was officially commemorated more than a dozen times with monuments, plaques, and cairns, it remained mainly forgotten and neglected until the 1930s when a museum was built and some of the streets and ruins excavated. In 1961, reconstruction began on one quarter of the fortress aided by the Government of Canada. First the area was excavated with the ruins of more buildings and walls being found as well as millions of artifacts. Since then streets, buildings, and gardens have been recreated so it looks as it did in the 1740s.
       The Fortress of Louisbourg is the largest reconstruction project in North America.
       I took a tour bus from the parking lot to the fortress. I visited with the guard at the entrance and began my tour. I walked up and down the streets of the fortress and toured through the buildings seeing the household furniture and goods of the period. There was an ice house where ice was placed during the winter and used during the summer to keep food cold so it wouldn’t spoil. I watched the fife and drum escort the cannon firers up the hill to the cannon and watched it being fired. I listened to the soldiers talk about their daily lives. I checked out the gardens and watched women doing embroidery. Throughout the site were interpreters in period clothing able to answer all questions about the fortress and its history. There is a long list of activities to do such as firing a musket or cannon, sampling some rum, learning a dance, or being a prisoner of the day.

       For those who want something to eat there are restaurants serving 1700s fare and a bakery from which you can buy a loaf of bread.
       From Louisbourg we drove the Cabot Trail, a 300 km (186 mile) scenic highway that took us through lovely villages, beside the ocean, up into the hills, and through Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The trail was named after John Cabot, an Italian explorer who landed in what is now Canada in 1497, and was completed in 1932.

 

       Alexander Graham Bell had a summer residence Baddeck. Now there is the 10 hectare (25 acre) Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site which includes the Alexander Graham Bell museum.

       In Dingwall we visited the Tartans and Treasures Shop to find the Donaldson tartan. They had the MacDonald tartans in skirts, ties, vests, and on mugs and glasses but not the Donaldson tartan. I read a write-up there about Henry Donaldson who was one of the garrison at Edinburgh Castle 1339 to 1340 so the name has been around for centuries.

       Though not on the trail we stopped at Glenora Distillery in Glenville which is North America’s first single malt whiskey distillery. The whiskey made there smells and tastes like scotch but cannot be called scotch. That name is reserved for whiskey made in Scotland.
       There is a restaurant and bar that offers half ounce samples of the whiskey and I had my first, and last, taste. Even though my heritage is Scot, scotch is not my drink.