Florida Day 2

I fell asleep listening to cicadas and woke up to the call of birds. I slept well, but not very long. It was after one by the time I finished writing and finally fell asleep and it was just before seven when I woke up, tried to go back to sleep, and eventually gave up. Since it was already hot and humid I got out of the tent, grabbed my camping chair and sat outside reading National Geographic while I waited for my family to wake up. G3 looks sweaty and uncomfortable in the car. I suppose we will need to find him a cheap tent because it’s supposed to rain tonight. The car will be more of a hotbox if he can’t open the windows. The campground is even nicer now that I can see it. The flora is a mix of giant live oaks, Spanish moss and salt marsh.  Each of the campsites are spacious, not nearly as cramped as they often are in many of the state parks we’ve camped in. Of course it helps we are the only tent in the tent area which completely surprises me. A weekend in the summer. I fully expected it to be crowded.

Our first stop this morning was Wormsloe State Historic Site. It was the colonial home of Nobel Jones. He arrived in Georgia in 1733 with General James Oglethorpe, the founder of what became the last of the thirteen colonies. Georgia initially served as a defense colony and it was established in an effort to help protect Charleston, South Carolina from the Spanish in Florida. Charleston was, at the time, a vital British port.

To get to the museum site, which is a mile and a half from the visitor center, we had a choice of taking the shuttle or walking. The shuttle required us to wait for a half hour. Knowing the wait would make me restless, I decided to walk while G3 and Kati waited. I am glad I walked. The long dirt road leading to the ruins is canopied by towering southern live oak trees draped with Spanish moss. I love the Spanish moss. It is so pretty the way it hangs from the trees like shredded curtains. However, it is neither moss nor Spanish. It is an air plant—and member of the pineapple family—that relies on trees for structure but is nourished by sun, rain, and wind—the salt air especially provides nourishing minerals.The trees are called live oaks because the leaves remain green throughout the year.

When Georgia was first settled it was a called a Trust Colony and it was initially intended to be a utopian society. Poverty was rampant in England in the 1700s and in British society one was essentially condemned to the class in which they were born. The possibility of improving one’s station in life was one reason the New World drew settlers. Georgia was designed—by rich men determined to rid themselves of the poor, as the rich are apt to do—to be a colony where impoverished people, through hardworking and dedication could improve their lot without disrupting, English society in England.

Creating a utopia meant laying down rules which essentially amounted to giving desperate people a list of things they couldn’t do. Four prohibitions included: no slaves, no lawyers, no alcohol, and no Catholics. The ban on alcohol, rum specifically, and the owning (the ban apparently said nothing about leasing) of slaves was to prevent settlers from getting lazy. The rich folks running the colony wanted the settlers working hard for their God and their king. Lawyers weren’t wanted because they got in the way of people learning how to amicably get along with their neighbors. As for Catholics, well, the Spanish—the sworn enemy of the British—weren’t very far away down in St. Augustine and they were all Papists. The British feared that if they allowed Catholics into the new colony they might have too many sympathies for their religious brothers and sisters in Florida. This might spur them into aiding the Spanish in any attempt to claim more of the coast. Added to those prohibitions, colonists also weren’t permitted to purchase or own property upon arriving. Many were indentured servants who were required to work the land for twenty years before they could consider owning property.

If you are an avid reader like me and enjoy the occasional dystopian novel you know how this ends. All these rules, especially the ones pertaining to rum and slavery were not terribly popular. As a result, settlers started to escape north where rules were much more lax and the practice of holding fellow humans in bondage was already well established. Those who stayed were not silent about their discontent. Eventually, the Board of Trustees Governing the colony became concerned about the the sustainability of Georgia and relaxed the rules—ending the ban on rum and slavery—but it was too little too late.

After two decades, the utopian experiment failed. and the trustees surrendered their Royal charter.

Much of this history regarding Georgia’s early days was new for me even with my extensive background in history. Why do we learn so much about some colonies in school and virtually nothing about others. I found all of this fascinating and if I ever teach history again—and I pray that I don’t, that I can find a career more suited for me—I would most definitely share what I learned with a degree of excitement that would most definitely make most students roll their eyes. How many other people judge the success of their vacation based on how much they learn? I know I am an anomaly, but vacation would be so boring otherwise.

While I at least heard of Georgia and knew it was one of the thirteen original colonies that broke away from England and declared Independence, I never had heard of The War of Jenkins’ Ear. And I do love learning new things, especially things relating to history. In 1731, Captain Jenkins was in the West Indies when the Spanish Coast Guard had the audacity board his ship. An altercation ended with one of the coast guards allegedly amputating Jenkins’ ear. Furious, Jenkins pickled his own ear in a jar which he held onto for the right moment. That moment occurred in 1738 when he appeared before members of the House of Commons ranting about the Spanish and his severed ear. This provoked the War of Jenkins’s Ear, a war between the British and Spanish that was in reality really just an extension of the larger war raging around the world that involved both colonial superpowers.

Winslow State Historic Site, beyond the live oaks, Spanish Moss, and history of the early settlement wasn’t terribly exciting. The original house built by Nobel Jones has been reduced to ruins and there really wasn’t much else to see. G3 commented many times that he was in awe that there were no mosquitoes. We were right on a marsh, the environment where one would expect mosquitoes to thrive and we didn’t see any.

From Wormsloe we drove to Old Savannah where we saw the First African Baptist Church which in the Antebellum South was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It is also one of the oldest African Churches still in existence in North America. Unfortunately, there are no tours on Sunday so we were unable to go inside. Since we found parking—free on Sunday—we walked across the street to Vinnie Van Go Go’s Pizza. All I can say is, we’re not in Alaska anymore. The pizza was barely tolerable. But it filled us up.  We started to walked down to the Savannah River but then rain hit and we ducked into a few shops, one of which was a wine store that offered tastings of local wines. Most of them were really sweet but both Kati and I liked the white pinot noir.

When the rain stopped, Kati was too hot to continue walking so she returned to the car.

G3 and I detoured to Chippewa Square where the Forrest Gump bench scene was filmed. The bench, however, was gone so no cool pictures. As we exited the square, the sky opened again and the rain beat down on us. We sought shelter in an alcove of a nearby church where we stayed until the rain let up. Kati offered to pick us up and G3 didn’t want to walk so instead of going to the river we headed over to Fort Pulaski National Monument. The fort was named after Count Pulaski, the Polish nobleman who fought for the colonists in the Revolutionary War and died while fighting in Savannah.

After the War of 1812, President James Madison commissioned several forts to be built along the coastline in order to bulk up America’s defenses. Fort Pulaski was one of them. But building forts took a great deal of time and so the fort wasn’t finished until 1847. By then, the Mexican War had ended, we were not at war, and there were no immediate concerns about an invasion. That, combined with a lack of funds, meant the new forts were not properly manned. Only two soldiers were stationed at Fort Pulaski on the eve of the Civil War. In January 1861, the Governor of Georgia ordered Georgia to take the fort. They achieved this without a shot being fired and, shortly thereafter, they seceded from the Union. The fort only remained in Confederate control for one year. On April 10, 1862 the Union, using the new rifles cannons, defeated the Confederates.

After 1862, the fort was used as a military prison. General Hunter issued an order freeing the slaves who worked in the fort. Later, he issued an order freeing slaves throughout the state. Lincoln rescinded the order, but redeemed himself, eventually, by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.

By the time we returned to Savannah and found a parking spot by the river the sky once again looked like rain. We stated to walk anyway. Our walk brought us into a honey store where we had a chance to sample all different sorts of honey. Kati’s favorite was the tupelo honey which bees make using pollen from tupelo trees. The trees only grow in swamps in Georgia and Florida’s panhandle and they only flower ten days out of the year. The honey store also sold mead and offered mead tastings. The mead was far superior to the mead we drank in Alaska. My favorite was the pineapple habanero.

We stepped out of the store and into a torrential storm. We waited it out but it was a long wait and by the time it stopped it was getting dark. I had really been looking forward to a walk along the river but it was not to be. Each attempt was foiled by rain. I am disappointed but that’s life.

I like Savannah, especially the old part of the city, the section near the river. (I didn’t get to walk it but we did drive down the cobblestone street.) I am in love with the oak trees and Spanish moss that can be found in all the squares and along the streets. However, as much as I appreciated the experience of being here, I would not want to live here. One did not need to walk far beyond the tourist section to smell urine, a reminder that despite the history and the quaint cobblestone streets Savannah is a city, a part of Georgia filled with far too many people.

For dinner, we went to Culver’s again. Last night, we ate in one just outside the city. Today, we ate in the city, but one of the off duty workers recognized me from yesterday. (I suppose it’s not too hard since I’m wearing the same clothes.) When he asked me if I was at the other location, I said yes, then felt the need to explain that we live in a state that doesn’t have Culver’s so we need to make up for it when we are on the road.

On the way back to the campsite we stopped in Walmart to get G3 a super cheap tent. He refused to use it, opting for his hammock instead.