whole of this space, and particularly from Orangeburgh, composed of
twenty houses, the road crosses an even country, sandy and dry during
the summer; whilst in the autumn and winter it is so covered with
water that in several places, for the space of eight or ten miles, the
horses are up to their middles. Every two or three miles we meet with
a miserable log-house upon the road, surrounded with little fields of
Indian corn, the slender stalks of which are very seldom more than
five or six feet high, and which, from the second harvest, do not
yield more than four or five bushels per acre. In the mean time,
notwithstanding their sterility, this land is sold at the rate of two
dollars per acre.
The extreme unwholesomeness of the climate is {275} clearly
demonstrated by the pale and livid countenances of the inhabitants,
who, during the months of September and October, are almost all
affected with tertian fevers, insomuch that at this period of the year
Georgia and the Lower Carolinas resemble, in some measure, an
extensive hospital. Very few persons take any remedy, but wait the
approach of the first frosts, which, provided they live so long,
generally effect a cure. The negroes are much less subject to
intermittent fevers than the whites; and it is seldom that in the
great rice plantations there is more than one fifth of them disabled
on this account.
{276} CHAP. XXXI
_General observations on the Carolinas and Georgia.--Agriculture
and produce peculiar to the upper part of these states._
The two Carolinas and Georgia are naturally divided into the upper and
lower country, but the upper embraces a greater extent. Just at the
point where the maritime part is terminated the soil rises gradually
till it reaches the Alleghany Mountains, and presents, upon the whole,
a ground rather irregular than mountainous, and interspersed with
little hills as far as the mountains. The Alleghanies give birth to a
great number of creeks or small rivers, the junction of which forms
the rivers Pidea, Santea, {277} Savannah, and Alatamaha, which are
hardly navigable above two hundred miles from their _embouchure_. In
the upper country the most fertile lands are situated upon the borders
of these creeks. Those that occupy the intermediate spaces are much
less so. The latter are not much cultivated; and even those who occupy
them are obliged to be perpetually clearing them, in order to obtain
more abundant harvests; in consequence of which a great number of the
inhabitants emigrate into the western country, where they are
attracted by the extreme fertility of the soil and low price of land;
since that of the first class may be purchased for the same money as
that of the second in Upper Carolina; and, as we have already said,
the latter is scarcely to be compared to that which in Kentucky and
Cumberland is ranked in the third.
In the upper country the mass of the forests is chiefly composed of
oaks, nut trees, maples, and poplars. Chesnut trees do not begin to
appear in these states for sixty miles on this side the mountains.
{278} It is only in the remote parts that the inhabitants manufacture
maple sugar for their use.
Through the whole of the country the nature of the soil is adapted for
the growth of wheat, rye, and Indian corn. Good land produces upward
of twenty bushels of Indian wheat per acre, which is commonly worth
about half a dollar per bushel. A general consumption is made of it
for the support of the inhabitants since, except those who are of
German origin, there are very few, as we have before remarked, that
make use of wheaten bread. The growth of corn is very circumscribed,
and the small quantity of flour that is exported to Charleston and
Savannah is sold fifteen per cent. cheaper than that imported from
Philadelphia.
The low price to which tobacco is fallen in Europe, within these few
years, has made them give up the culture of it in this part of the
country. That of green-seed cotton has resumed its place, to the great
advantage of the inhabitants, many of whom have since made their
fortunes by it. The separation {279} of the seed from the felt that
envelopes them is a tedious operation, and which requires many hands,
is now simplified by a machine for which the inventor has obtained a
patent from the federal government. The legislature of South Carolina
paid him, three years since, the sum of a hundred thousand dollars,
for all the inhabitants belonging to the state to have the privilege
of erecting one. This machine, very simple, and the price of which
does not exceed sixty dollars, is put in motion by a horse or by a
current of water, and separates from the seed three or four hundred
pounds of cotton per day; while by the usual method, a man is not able
to separate above thirty pounds. This machine, it is true, has the
inconvenience of shortening by haggling it; the wool, on that account,
is rather inferior in point of quality, but this inconvenience is,
they say, well compensated by the saving of time, and more
particularly workmanship.[60]
It is very probable that the various species of fruit trees that we
have in France would succeed very well {280} in Upper Carolina. About
two hundred miles from the sea-coast the apple trees are magnificent,
and in the county of Lincoln several Germans make cyder. But here, as
well as in Tennessea, and the greatest part of Kentucky, they
cultivate no other but the peach. The other kinds of trees, such as
pears, apricots, plumbs, cherries, almonds, mulberries, nuts, and
gooseberries, are very little known, except by name. Many of the
inhabitants who are independent would be happy to procure some of
them, but the distance from the sea-ports renders it very difficult.
The major part of the inhabitants do not even cultivate vegetables;
and out of twenty there is scarcely one of them that plants a small
bed of cabbages; and when they do, it is in the same field as the
Indian wheat.
In Upper Carolina the surface of the soil is covered with a kind of
grass, which grows in greater abundance as the forests are more open.
The woods are also like a common, where the inhabitants turn out their
cattle, which they know again by their {281} private mark. Several
persons have in their flocks a variety of poll oxen, which are not
more esteemed than those of the common species. In the whole course of
my travels I never saw any that could be compared to those I have seen
in England, which beyond doubt proceeds from the little care that the
inhabitants take of them, and from what these animals suffer during
the summer, when they are cruelly tormented by an innumerable
multitude of ticks and muskitos, and in the winter, through the want
of grass, which dries up through the effect of the first frosts. These
inconveniences are still more sensible, during the summer, in the low
country, through the extreme heat of the climate. The result is, that
the cows give but little milk, and are dry at the end of three or four
months. In the environs of Philadelphia and New York, where they
bestow the same care upon them as in England, they are, on the
contrary, as fine, and give as great a quantity of milk.
The horses that they rear in this part of the {282} southern states
are inferior to those of the western. The inhabitants keep but very
few sheep, and those who have a dozen are accounted to have a great
number.
The commercial intercourse of the Upper Carolines and Georgia is
carried on, in a great measure, with Charleston, which is not much
farther than Wilmington and Savannah. The inhabitants go there in
preference, because the commerce is more active, and the sales more
easy. The articles they carry there consists chiefly in short cotton,
tobacco, hams, salt butter, wax, stag, and bear skins, and cattle.
They take, in return, coarse iron ware, tea, coffee, powder sugar,
coarse cloths, and fine linen, but no bar iron, the upper country
abounding in mines of that metal, and those which are worked sufficing
the wants of the inhabitants. They also bring salt from the sea-ports,
since there are no salt pits in any part of the Atlantic states. The
carriage of these goods is made in large waggons with four wheels,
drawn by four or six horses, that travel {283} about twenty-four miles
a day, and encamp every evening in the woods. The price of conveyance
is about three shillings and four-pence per hundred weight for every
hundred miles.
Although the climate of the Upper Carolinas is infinitely more
wholesome than that of the lower parts, it is not, in the mean time,
at two hundred miles, and even two hundred and fifty, from the ocean,
that a person is safe from the yellow fever.
Eight-tenths of the inhabitants of this part of the country are in the
same situation as those of Tennessea and Kentucky. They reside, like
the latter, in log-houses isolated in the woods, which are left open
in the night as well as the day. They live in the same manner with
regard to their domestic affairs, and follow the same plans of
agriculture. Notwithstanding there are many of them whose moral
characters, perhaps, are not so unspotted as those of the western
inhabitants, it is probably altered by associating with the Scotch and
Irish who come every year in great numbers to settle in the country,
and {284} who teach them a part of their vices and defects, the usual
attendants on a great population. The major part of these new
adventurers go into the upper country, where they engage to serve, for
a year or two, those persons who have paid the captain of the ship for
their passage.
{285} CHAP. XXXII
_Low part of the Carolines and Georgia.--Agriculture.--Population.--
Arrival at Charleston._
The low country of the two Carolinas extends from the borders of the
sea for a hundred and twenty or a hundred and fifty miles, widening as
it gets towards the south. The space that this extent embraces
presents an even and regular soil, formed by a blackish sand, rather
deep in parts, in which there are neither stones nor flints; in
consequence of which they seldom shoe their horses in that part of the
United States. Seven-tenths of the country are {286} covered with
pines of one species, or _pinus palustris_, which, as the soil is
drier and lighter, grow loftier and not so branchy. These trees,
frequently twenty feet distant from each other, are not damaged by the
fire that they make here annually in the woods, at the commencement of
spring, to burn the grass and other plants that the frost has killed.
These pines, encumbered with very few branches, and which split even,
are preferred to other trees to form fences for plantations.
Notwithstanding the sterility of the land where they grow, they are
sometimes interspersed with three kinds of oaks; viz. the _quercus
nigra_, the _quercus catasbœi_, and the _quercus obtusiloba_. The wood
of the two first is only fit to burn, whilst that of the other is of
an excellent use, as I have before remarked.
The Pine Barrens are crossed by little swamps, in the midst of which
generally flows a rivulet. These swamps, from ten to forty fathoms
broad, are sometimes more than a mile in length, and border on others,
more spacious and marshy, near the rivers. {287} Each have different
degrees of fertility, clearly indicated by the trees that grow there
exclusively, and which are not to be found in the upper country. Thus
the chesnut oak, or _quercus prinus palustris_, the _magnolia
grandiflora_, the _magnolia tripetala_, the _nyssa biflora_, &c.
flourish only in swamps where the soil is of a good quality, and
continually cool, moist, and shady. In some parts of these same
swamps, that are half the year submerged, where the earth is black,
muddy, and reposes upon a clayey bottom, the acacia-leaved cypress,
the _gleditsia monosperme_, the lyric oak, and the bunchy nut-tree,
the nuts of which are small, and break easily between the fingers. The
aquatic oak, the red maple, the _magnolia glauca_, the _liquidambar
stiracyflua_, the _nyssa villosa_, the _Gordonia lasyanthus_, and the
_laurus Caroliniensis_, cover, on the contrary, exclusively the narrow
swamps of the Pine Barrens.
The Spanish beard, _tillandsia asneoides_, a kind of moss of a greyish
colour, which is several feet in length, and which grows in abundance
upon the {288} oaks and other trees, is again a plant peculiar to the
low country.
In those districts where there are no pines, the soil is not so dry,
deeper, and more productive. We found there white oaks, or _quercus
alba_, aquatic oaks, or _quercus aquatica_, chesnut oaks, or
_quercus prinus palustris_, and several species of nut-trees. The
whole of these trees are here an index of the greatest fertility,
which does not take place in the western country, as I have before
observed.
The best rice plantations are established in the great swamps, that
favour the watering of them when convenient. The harvests are abundant
there, and the rice that proceeds from them, stripped of its husk, is
larger, more transparent, and is sold dearer than that which is in a
drier soil, where they have not the means or facility of irrigation.
The culture of rice in the southern and maritime part of the United
States has greatly diminished within these few years; it has been in a
great measure replaced by that of cotton, which affords greater profit
to the planters, {289} since they compute a good cotton harvest
equivalent to two of rice. The result is, that many rice fields have
been transformed into those of cotton, avoiding as much as possible
the water penetrating.
The soil most adapted for the culture of cotton is in the isles
situate upon the coast. Those which belong to the state of Georgia
produce the best of cotton, which is known in the French trade by the
name of Georgia cotton, fine wool, and in England by that of Sea
Island cotton. The seed of this kind of cotton is of a deep black, and
the wool fine and very long. In February 1803 it was sold at
Charleston at 1s. 8d. per pound, whilst that which grows in the upper
country is not worth above seventeen or eighteen pence. The first is
exported to England, and the other goes to France; but what is very
remarkable is, that whenever by any circumstance they import these two
qualities into our ports, they only admit of a difference of from
twelve to fifteen per cent. The cotton planters have particularly to
dread the frosts that set in very early, and that frequently {290} do
great damage to the crops by freezing one half of the stalks, so that
the cotton has not an opportunity to ripen.
In all the plantations they cultivate Indian corn. The best land
brings from fifteen to twenty bushels. They plant it, as well as the
cotton, about two feet and a half distance, in parallel furrows from
fifteen to eighteen inches high. The seed of this kind of Indian corn
is round, and very white. When boiled it is preferable to that
cultivated in the middle and western states, and in Upper Carolina.
The chief part of what they grow is destined to support the negroes
nine months in the year; their allowance is about two pounds per day,
which they boil in water after having pounded it a little; the other
three months they are fed upon yams. They never give them meat. In the
other parts of the United States they are better treated, and live
nearly upon the same as their masters, without having any set
allowance. Indian corn is sold at Charleston for ten shillings per
bushel, about fifty-five pounds weight.
{291} Thus rice, long cotton, yams, and Indian wheat, are the only
cultures in the maritime part of the southern states; the temperature
of the climate, and the nature of the soil, which is too light or too
moist, being in no wise favourable for that of wheat or any kind of
grain.
Through the whole of the low country the agricultural labours are
performed by negro slaves, and the major part of the planters employ
them to drag the plough; they conceive the land is better cultivated,
and calculate besides that in the course of a year a horse, for food
and looking after, costs ten times more than a negro, the annual
expense of which does not exceed fifteen dollars.
I shall abstain from any reflexion concerning this, as the opinion of
many people is fixed.
The climate of Lower Carolina and Georgia is too warm in summer to be
favourable to European fruit-trees, and too cold in winter to suit
those of the Carribbees. The fig is the only tree that succeeds
tolerably well; again, the figs turn sour a few days after {292} they
have acquired the last degree of maturity, which must doubtless be
attributed to the constant dampness of the atmosphere.
In the environs of Charleston, and in the isles that border the coast,
the orange-trees stand the winter in the open fields, and are seldom
damaged by the frosts; but at ten miles distance, in the interior,
they freeze every year even with the ground, although those parts of
the country are situate under a more southerly latitude than Malta and
Tunis. The oranges that they gather in Carolina are not good to eat.
Those consumed there come from the island of St. Anastasia, situate
opposite St. Augustin, the capital of East Florida; they are sweet,
very large, fine skinned, and more esteemed than those brought from
the Carribbees. About fifty years ago the seeds were brought from
India, and given to an inhabitant of this island, who has so increased
them that he has got an orchard of forty acres. I had an opportunity
of seeing this beautiful plantation when I was at Florida in 1788.
{293} In the general verification of the United States, published in
1800, the population of North Carolina, comprising negro slaves,
amounted to four hundred and seventy-eight thousand inhabitants, that
of Georgia to one hundred and sixty-three thousand, and that of South
Carolina to three hundred and forty-six thousand. Not having been able
to see the private extracts of the two former states, I am
unacquainted with the proportion that there is between the whites and
blacks, and the difference that exists between the population of the
low and high countries; however an idea may be formed by the
verification of South Carolina, where they reckon in the low country,
comprising the town of Charleston, thirty-six thousand whites and a
hundred thousand negroes, and in the high country one hundred and
sixty-three thousand whites and forty-six thousand negroes.
I arrived at Charleston on the 18th of October 1802, three months and
a half after my departure from Philadelphia, having travelled over a
space of {294} nearly eighteen hundred miles. I staid at Carolina till
the 1st of March 1803, the epoch when I embarked for France on board
the same ship that had taken me to America eighteen months before, and
arrived at Bourdeaux on the 26th of March 1803.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The date given here is evidently wrong; the translation in
Phillips’s _Voyages_ gives it as August 25, which
corresponds with the arrival of Michaux in
Charleston.--ED.
[2] The piastre was the Spanish dollar, then the common
circulating coin in the United States, and the one whose
value was adopted in our dollar. A South Carolina
shilling was worth 3/14 of a dollar.--ED.
[3] The services of the elder Michaux in introducing European
plants into America, were considerable. He is said also
to have been the first to teach the frontier settlers the
value of ginseng.--ED.
[4] The History of Oaks discovered in America by A. Michaux.--F.
A. MICHAUX.
[5] Dr. Nicholas Collin was one of the most prominent members of
the Philosophical Society, elected in 1789, dying in
1831. It is a curious mistake of Michaux’s to call him
president, at a time when Jefferson held this position.
Dr. Collin was often acting chairman, and had been
chairman of the committee for raising funds for the elder
Michaux’s proposed Western exploration (1792).
Dr. John Vaughan was treasurer and librarian of the
Society for many years.
The Bartrams were famous botanists of Philadelphia, whom
the elder Michaux frequently visited. See _ante_, p. 97,
note 177.--ED.
[6] The gardens of William Hamilton were at this time the most
famous in the United States. They now form part of
Woodlawn cemetery, West Philadelphia, where some rare
trees planted by him still exist.--ED.
[7] Till the year 1802, the stages that set out at Philadelphia
did not go farther South than to Petersburg in Virginia,
which is about three hundred miles from Philadelphia; but
in the month of March of that year, a new line of
correspondence was formed between the latter city and
Charleston. The journey is about a fortnight, the
distance fifteen hundred miles, and the fare fifty
piastres. There are stages also between Philadelphia, New
York, and Boston, as well as between Charleston and
Savannah, in Georgia, so that from Boston to Savannah, a
distance of twelve hundred miles, persons may travel by
the stages.--F. A. MICHAUX.
[8] For historical sketch of Shippensburg, see Post’s _Journals_,
vol. i of this series, p. 238, note 76.--ED.
[9] Gotthilf Heinrich Ernest Muhlenberg was a brother of General
Muhlenburg of Revolutionary fame, and grandson of Conrad
Weiser. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1753, educated at
Halle, Germany, and on his return to America in 1774 was
ordained as a Lutheran clergyman. He served charges in
New Jersey and Philadelphia until 1779, when he settled
at Lancaster, where he remained until his death in 1807.
He was much interested in botany, and devoted all his
leisure to that pursuit, being a member of the American
Philosophical Society, and, as Michaux notes, in
correspondence with many scientists.--ED.
[10] The town of Columbia was situated at what was known
as Wright’s Ferry, one of the oldest crossing places on
the Susquehanna.
Michaux’s father was at York, July 18, 1789, and
describes it as “a pretty enough little town situated at
59 miles from Fredericksburg (Md.). The country appears
to me to be but little cultivated in the environs. The
inhabitants are Germans as well as in Pennsylvania. They
are generally very laborious and very industrious.” On
his later journey he does not describe this place, see
_ante_, p. 50.--ED.
[11] They give the name of whiskey, in the United States, to a
sort of brandy made with rye.--F. A. MICHAUX.
[12] Michaux travelled to Pittsburg by way of the Pennsylvania
state road which was laid out and built 1785-87,
following in the main the road cut for Forbes’s army in
1758. This was the most important thoroughfare to the
West, until the Cumberland national road was built; and
even afterwards a large share of the traffic went this
way. For a description of travel about this period see
McMaster, _History of People of United States_ (New York,
1895), vol. iv, chap. 33; and Albert, _History of
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania_ (Philadelphia, 1882),
chap. 35.--ED.
[13] Michaux refers here to the excise tax that led to the
“Whiskey Rebellion” in this part of Pennsylvania. Its
repeal was one of the first financial measures of
Jefferson’s administration, and had occurred at the
session of Congress in the spring of 1802.--ED.
[14] Michaux is in error in saying that the French built Fort
Ligonier. He was probably misled by the name. It was
named for Sir John Ligonier, commander-in-chief of the
land-forces of Great Britain (1751), and erected on
Loyalhanna Creek, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania,
during the advance of Forbes’s army (1758). Fort Ligonier
was thrice attacked, once after Grant’s defeat (October
12, 1758), and in the following June by a party of French
and Indians. During Pontiac’s War, it endured a long
siege, being relieved in August, 1763. This outpost
served to protect the frontier during the Revolution,
after which it was no longer garrisoned. General St.
Clair made his later home at this place, dying here in
1818.--ED.
[15] Professor R. A. Harper, of the University of Wisconsin,
thinks this plant may have been some variety of sumac
(_rhus_).--ED.