The Santee Delta region was once the heart of rice production in the New World.
Beginning in the late 1600s and continuing through the late 1800s, the Santee Delta was extensively developed primarily for tidal rice production. Tidal rice was perfected in the Santee Delta Region by generations of enslaved labor- and remnants of those fields can still be seen today. Little is known of the rice culture, enslaved workforce lifeways, and the plantation task system in South Carolina. There is a gap in current scholarship regarding enslaved people who were living and working in the Santee Delta.
Rice Harvesting, U.S. South, 1859", Magazine Illustration 1859. Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora. http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1168
Climate change is one of the primary reasons for the Santee Delta Project
Climate change will adversely affect the Santee River historical landscape, and the loss of resources will be catastrophic. Recent studies on the effects of sea level rise due to climate change indicate most of the Southeastern coastline will experience at least a 4–5-foot rise in sea level by the turn of the next century.
Sea level rise and coastal flood exposure predictive map of the Santee River Delta and surrounding coastal areas between Mount Pleasant and George town. Areas in dark blue are predicted to be below water and areas in green are predicted as isolated areas below water by the year 2100.
(Image courtesy of Climate Central 2016).
Over the next 5 years...
The Santee Delta Project Team will conduct a systematic cultural survey over 55,000+ acres of land, and the ancillary waterways of the Santee River.
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Through the work of documenting this landscape, the Santee Delta Team seeks
to answer questions such as:
● What was daily life like for a slave on the Santee Delta? Hundreds if not thousands of
enslaved people lived and worked on the Santee Delta. Very few of these villages or settlements were located on land that was not subjected to regular tidal inundation. The vast majority lived behind dikes meant to prevent tidal inundation.
● Was their tasking in the Delta, between the rivers, seasonal or year-round? What were the regional variations of the Task System in the Santee Delta?
● Where did their food come from and how? It seems unlikely that any high ground food crops could have been planted under these circumstances.
● What were the social and interpersonal relationships between enslaved workers? What sort of social and labor hierarchy regulated their lives? How often did they see other people, free or enslaved, black or white, and under what circumstances?
Research Questions
Research Partners
