Richard Harrison writes…
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Richard Harrison thefeeling writes…
This is the city of the fighting spirit, of pride, of never backing down. It is where battles have been fought and won, from a big Native American uprising, to the fort that withstood attack by the British in 1776, to a slave uprising, to the Civil War, to the Germans during WWII. This city wins. It has won, even escaped Nat Sherman’s terror, which was unleashed on nearby Columbia, instead. No doubt Sherman was fearful of a bloody battle, if he fought here in Charleston.
Charleston is gloriously historic. It has a Vieux Carre that predates the famous one in New Orleans. Its French food is similar and the style of building is similar, the French Quarter’s second story balconies that overlook the street.
The St. Michael’s Church of Charleston is a time capsule to 1761, a time when we Americans were still considered British. Its stained glass window features the angel Gabriel with a sceptre, driving it through satan’s head. The bell tower in its steeple crossed the Atlantic Ocean seven times. Its pews are in pewboxes, so that the pew has a door that you open and close to have a seat in the pew. Church of England was the original denomination, which became the Episcopal Church after the Revolutionary War, which when the Episcopal Church split up in the 21st Century renamed its denomination the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. The double-decker pulpit and lectern hangs over the pews some thirty feet, has a rounded roof that is a sound-reverberating device, that amplifies the priest’s voice like the steeples in a church echo the sound waves of singing congregation. The pinecone on the pulpit is a symbol of Charleston, symbolizing wisdom and resurrection.
Slave labor built the church. Slaves attended mass in the church. Slaves worshipped upstairs during the same service as their masters. The querulous thing about is that the Bible and the Church are supposed to be liberators, providers of a spiritual peace. How did the church preach things to slaves that made them feel the power of Christ? The southern priests would cite passages from the Bible that they would interpret as support for slavery. The northern priests had the opposite interpretation that supported abolitionism. Slaves left St. Michael’s after the Civil War, to found their own churches.
South Carolina was established as a state as part of the land grant of 1761 by the English King George III. Carolama was its name, which was then corrupted into Carolina. The City of Charleston was called Charles Land. This land grant stretched from Virginia to Florida, all the way to California, that was the land which was divvied up by a colonial ruler in a different world, no question answered to anyone else who may have laid claim to the land.
“Don’t tread on me,” are words to live by, which were emblazoned on the famed US Military flag, that exemplified political propaganda. Designed by Charles Gadsen, who was a South Carolinian. Thank South Carolina for that great allegory that stirred in the American spirit pride and fight.
There is a place there called the Gunpowder Magazine that is where all the dynamite and ammunition of the army of Charleston was once stored. This building was built in such a way to stem its explosion, if a spark should mistakenly or purposefully ignite its contents and decimate several blocks. This was thought of by the older generation of Charleston leadership, a rounded roof with metal grates over the windows. It did not prevent disastrous explosion at all. Four buildings on either side of the Gunpowder Magazine were decimated, many people died. So, the building was rebuilt on a different spot across town. It did not explode again.
The great theatre of Charleston is its British heritage. There were some real loyalist things about it. All wills and whims flow with the consciousness of one’s sense of place, a historical place, which is why such historical stuff makes such an interesting place to be a part of.
An American flag hoisted above a sea of bodies decked out in redcoats is an image that is stirred from the knowledge of Charleston’s military might. It is a former colony of the crown, which means that it is still somewhere that has those values, the crownish values.
Charleston still has a degree of snobbery, which resembles the English kind. That sounds bad, but is it? It was a great port of rice trade, even sold its rice in China.
George Washington visited Charleston, during a time when he was like the most famous rapper at any given time is, loved by all. He attended a dance, at which he danced with one hundred women. Many wanted to have their dance with the famed president. Later, a portrait was made to commemorate this by a northern painter, who eliminated the Charleston setting and replaced it with the battle of New Jersey, who when lawsuited against in response and demanded to repaint painted it in such a way that was insulting to Charleston by placing a horse’s tokus in the foreground between its legs visible the city of Charleston, its tail raised as if to make manure.
This great city is remarkable, because it is a place I desire to return to that I also know I had better just leave it be, somewhere I desire but that I feel is above my station. The women, perhaps. I will love them, when I find them again. Such lovely southern belles.