Back to Georgia

by Doctor Science

I'm back from our Thanksgivukkah trip to Georgia, to get together with my husband D's 3 siblings and their children (there are 2 each). We haven't been all gathered as a family since their mother passed away almost 10 years ago, so this was quite a big deal.

Though they grew up in the Atlanta suburbs, we didn't gather there -- we rented a couple of cottages on Tybee Island for the holiday. Our nuclear family flew into ATL on Tuesday, and back on Sunday; we rented a car and drove down to Tybee.

Neither D nor I had ever been to coastal Georgia before, and I'd only been as far south as Macon (D's late father's home town) once.

As I've said before, I love seeing how the landscape -- the forms of land, vegetation, and houses -- changes as you travel. The trip from Atlanta (in the Piedmont) through Macon (on the Fall Line) to Savannah and the Georgia coast is naturally parallel to the familiar trip from central New Jersey to the Jersey shore, but with many interesting differences.

ATL to Macon to Tybee, on bing.com aerial view with no labels. I find that if Google and Bing have the same level of magnification in their satellite maps, I usually prefer Bing. People who aren't familiar with this part of the US may wish to pull up a map for their own location at a similar magnification, to compare.

In the first place, the segment from ATL to Macon was much less agricultural than I expected. There were also a number of patches of forest on either side of the road that seem to have burned within the last few years -- I hadn't realized Georgia had this much of a wildfire problem.

If you compare Georgia's terrain to a similar trip across NJ, from Bridgewater (Piedmont) to Trenton (Fall Line) to Brigantine (ocean), you can maybe see that the area just oceanward of the Fall Line in NJ is extremely fertile, with a dense checkerboard of farms -- a mix of maize, soybeans, and vegetables, for the most part. As you get closer to the shore, you hit the sandy-soiled Pine Barrens, where farms do poorly and wildfires are indeed a hazard.

Bing map of route through NJ, for comparison.

In Georgia, in contrast, it was only after we'd been past Macon for a bit that we began to see lots of agriculture. At first I couldn't figure out what I was seeing, because it didn't look like any of the crops I'm familiar with:

The sort of thing I'm talking about. source.

Yes, those were cotton fields, which had probably just been harvested. The plants seem to be much shorter than historical photos had led me to expect. Also, mechanical pickers sure seem to leave a lot of cotton in the field.

What I didn't see was recognizable fields of corn, soybeans, or vegetables, nor did I see any peach orchards. There might have been peanut fields, I don't really know what they look like.

But I did recognize at least *one* plant I'd never seen before: Spanish Moss! Though at very first glance I thought it might be some kind of insect problem, I quickly realized what I was seeing. I hadn't known that Spanish Moss would be so very gray and dusty-looking in reality, nor had I realized that Live Oak trees are all so naturally dark and twisty. When we drove through Savannah, the family agreed that Southern Gothic fiction is a natural response to this environment. A+ creepy, would haunt again.

I do *not* trust those trees to not be lying in wait for unsuspecting travelers. source.

On Friday afternoon we all went to Savannah for sight-seeing and random shopping -- which the participants mostly spent at Goodwill. The four of us in my nuclear gang went to Colonial Park Cemetery, where we were dumped by the cemetery non-lovers, but we had a *great* time. D talked about Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow designs, as we found examples of all the forms. We also had fun finding and deciphering the most interesting inscriptions, speculating about the lives of the people they memorialize. Jacob R. Taylor (died 1811) was one of our favorites:

Image by D, contrast enhanced by myself.

who in the 19th year of his age
when unarmed and peaceably walking the streets of
Savannah
was on the evening of the 11th of November, 1811,
attacked and inyhumanly decimated
by an army of banditi
belonging to the crews of the French Privateers
La Vengeance and La Franchise.

Rest infinite youth far from thy friends inurnd
by strangers honourd and by strangers mourned.
Though thy lone turf no kindred drops can lave
Yet virtue hallows with her tears thy grave.

Good stuff! They don't write 'em like that any more.

Sprog the Younger was surprised at how young the buildings in the Savannah Historic District are. She hadn't really appreciated that she grew up in an area of NJ with many 19th-century buildings (we're currently renting a house that dates to around 1850) and a scattering of 18th-century ones, where many churchyards are sprinkled with the graves of Revolutionary War veterans. So "historic Savannah" to her seemed kind of ... cute, not ancient. But then, that's pretty much the case for everything in the US, if you've ever been to Europe.

Speaking of history, before we went I knew that the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina were the homeland of the Gullah/Geechee people, a Black American group that has a distinctively African culture and their own language. I was very surprised, then, to see no non-white people on Tybee, despite that history and its proximity to Savannah.

Tybee itself is *extremely* flat -- golf carts are a common mode of transport. It's not at all like Block Island, RI, where my natal family normally vacations, which is extremely New England: white houses, some steep-ish hills, some Victorian architecture, so low-key that *bars* have been known to go out of business. Yes, the year-round population of Block Island is pretty damn white, but the summer population and even the tourists are becoming less so every year, even though it's a little upscale because you can't drive there.

Tybee is more like Seaside Heights, NJ with its flatness and the main street that seems hyper-wide in the off-season. But it's much more colorful than NJ (much less staid New England), with houses in pastels.

Not to mention actual palm trees! We were quite definitely not in the Northeast anymore. At first I was confused, thinking that I was seeing two different palm species, one with a smooth trunk and one basketweave:

but no, it's the same plant, the Sabal Palmetto. I also got to know Crape Myrtle and Sago Palm, too, but there were still lots of plants that were unfamiliar to me.

But back to the human landscape. Tybee and Seaside Heights feel different not just because of the house colors and the plants, but in what you might call an economic way. Compared to Seaside Heights and the rest of the Jersey Shore (before Sandy, anyway), Tybee feels a step poorer -- much poorer than we expected for the closest beach to Atlanta. It seemed as though the infrastructure, the signs and the side-streets, were not as welcoming and easy-to-use as I expected for a tourist trap. It's hard to pin it down, but it felt to me as though you were already expected to know where things are, where to go and what to see. It's easier and cheaper to park in Seaside Heights than in Tybee, with more options for all-day parking.

This is where I get really impressionistic, but I felt as though I'd passed into a zone with a different balance and expectations about privately-owned and public spaces. Wondering where the rich tourists go, I looked up Hilton Head Island, and was less surprised than I would have been before this visit to find that "Approximately 70% of the island, including most of the tourist areas, is located inside gated communities." "Less surprised" means I'm still boggled, though -- it goes against all my expectations for a major tourist destination near a large city to be gated like that.

How much of what I saw -- or didn't see -- in Georgia is the fruit of slavery, I can't say. It feels like it, though: or rather, it feels as though not-talking about slavery (and race, and their heirs down the years) means I'm hearing only half the music. There are all kinds of "Haunted Savannah" tours to take, but they don't talk about the truly haunted places of the slave trade that was at the city's heart. I don't know how much privatized Hilton Head Island is a remnant of Jim Crow, if not a way of achieving a similar result by different means, but I don't see why I should expect there to be no remnants of customs so long-enduring.

Do I want to go back to Savannah and Tybee, if the relatives decree? Sure-- the history is fascinating, and the bird-watching!!! -- outstanding.

But that would be another post.

Comments

[hairshirthedonist]

I'll have to get you a picture of my grandmother's Crape Myrtle, located in Gloucester County, NJ. She told me someone from Longwood Gardens once came to speak to her about it because it was an unusually large specimen for the area, larger than anything even they had.

[geographylady]

Wonderful post - I <3 geography!
I haven't been to Tybee Island, but have driven through Hilton Head - its beautiful, and sure exclusive. Savannah has a great cemetery, but for the real thing you should visit Charleston, SC. The city is much more beautiful than Savannah, more European and still Southern at the same time, and they acknowledge the slavery that built the place. Gullah women selling their beautiful woven sweetgrass baskets on the street corners, the old market, Rainbow Row. The Old Church cemetery is so full of history,the old slave market is somewhat preserved, the harbor, the Battery...
Nice beaches, too, at Isle of Palms and Stewart Beach.
Plus, its where the war began.

[bobbyp]

Interesting trip. Did you come across any Sherman's neckties along the way?

[worn]

When I was growing up down in the Peach State, the Fall Line was just as often called the "Gnat Line", for the millions of reasons that you'd guess from the moniker. Playing outside at my uncle's in Macon was a fair site more pleasant than doing so at my other uncle's house in Cordele.

[Annmarie Mudge-Buckley]

For all Tybee Islands tourist trappings, the locals don't actually want people on their island and make it as unwelcoming as possible. As for Hilton Head while outwardly it appears to be all gated it really is very open and welcoming and they charge gate entrance fees for parking. We live on Wilmington Island, the one you cross to get to Tybee and travel to HHI to go to the beach. Finally, a much under used and friendly beach is Jekyll Island and the Golden Isles area of Georgia coast.

[Doctor Science]

Annemarie:

But *why* is Tybee tourist-unfriendly? I mean, how does that work? Who hates money that much?

[Doctor Science]

geographylady:

Other people agree with you, that Charleston is much more honest about its slave-trading past than Savannah is. Do you have any sense of *why*?

[Slartibartfast]

Cotton is not raised or picked anything like how it used to be. For instance: cotton is generally killed and allowed to wither fully before it is machine-picked.

I had assumed that machine-picking cut or broke off the tops of the plants, but it's possible that the type of cotton itself has changed, causing a change in plant height.

[Slartibartfast]

Interesting (or trivial, if you already know) trivia:

Sago palms are not palms; they're cycads:

Often considered a living fossil, the earliest fossils of the genus Cycas appear in the Cenozoic although Cycas-like fossils that may belong to Cycadaceae extend well into the Mesozoic.

Common cycads in this part of the country include the cardboard palm (also not a palm) and the coontie (the latter two of which are more closely related), of which we have several. There is a species of butterfly that uses some of these plants for both egg-laying and food; the caterpillars of which are large (my recollection) and crimson in color. Some of the Florida natural cold springs have abundant plantings of these and at the right time of the year you really have to watch where you step.

2) Live oaks were prized for use in shipbuilding in Colonial days; the USS Constitution made extensive use of live oak wood in its frame. It's very strong, very hard and very dense. It's not an extreme in any of those areas, but it's arguably the strongest wood available in North America. Live oaks are some of the oldest, if not the oldest, surviving tree specimens in this part of the country. I lived within rock-throwing distance of a specimen that was (still is) over 450 years old. When hurricanes strike, other oak trees are broken or uprooted, while live oaks more or less survive undamaged. It's not unusual to see very large, old live oaks; there's one on Valencia Community College's East campus that rises to (guessing) 50 feet in height and three times that in width of the canopy.

Anyway. Carry on.

[geographylady]

Doctor Science,
I am not sure why SC is more open to acknowledging the slave culture. It may be that because slaves were such a high percentage of the population that they had no choice. In 1860 44% of Georgia's population were slaves; in South Carolina that number was 60%. (figures from here, here, and here). There is still a relatively large proportion of African-Americans living in SC - 28% according to the Census Bureau. But not as large as GA's 31% (although GA's black pop grew 43% in the last 20 years). So I really don't know. Maybe it has to do with the different background and settlers of the 2 cities. The Low Country is a strange place.
I haven't spent more than a few months there over the past several years - my son-in-law is stationed at the NNPTC in Goose Creek. I just know I love being there (although part of that could be because of the grandkids).

Also, cotton used to be picked by hand every week or so as it grew and bloomed over the course of a season, hence the phrase "easy pickin'" and "he's in tall cotton,"toward the end of the season when it was tall and not so back-breaking to pick. Now it grows to a certain height and all blooms at once, so machines can strip it.

[CharlesWT]

Putting aside the native population, until the early 1800's, Africans were the largest population in North America. Whether North or South, 17th and 18th century buildings and infrastructure was built in part, if not in whole, by African hands.

[Priest]

I live in Atlanta and have the good fortune to have a friend with a house on Tybee, so for the last 7 years I've gotten to go once or twice a year. What follows is random information.

The burned patches of trees were probably mostly part of the path where a wide and powerful tornado passed a couple years ago. It is an odd and random patch of desolation.

As for the absence of Gullah, I would speculate that the combination of Tybee's small size and it's location near Savannah and resulting military uses are among the causes. Gullah communities are generally more remote, allowing for cultural isolation and continuity.

If you didn't go and you make it back for another visit, the Tybee History Center/Museum next to the lighthouse is worth checking out, as well as the lighthouse and grounds area. Ft. Pulaski is also interesting, particularly for anyone into military history.

To a fair extent Tybee is Savanah's beach (and for a time was actually named Savannah Beach), so a significant fraction of the visitors are semi-locals or regulars, which makes it less "touristy" than some beach towns. For example my friend rents her house out from April up to Labor Day, with the off-season reserved for her and her family's use, maintenance and upkeep, etc., so she might be down there a half dozen times a year (or more). Aside from Hilton Head, the other place that well-heeled Atlantans are likely to go or own time-shares and the like is St. Simon's Island, further south on the coast.

Hope you made it to the Breakfast Club and Doc's Bar (home of Sammy the black bar cat) during your stay.

[worsel]

Why would you take rte 206? Wouldn't the Parkway be faster?

[CharlesWT]

..., but it's possible that the type of cotton itself has changed, causing a change in plant height.

Cotton plants may have been breed to reduce height, but growers also use chemical treatments, plant growth regulators, to more or less freeze plant growth.

[geographylady]

CharlesWT
Where did you get the info on African population? The highest % I can find says 19.3% in 1790, and it decreases percentage-wise from there. By region, its 3% in the NE, and 35% in the South, in 1790.

[CharlesWT]

In the colonies, the African population may have peaked at about one-third of the total population in the mid 1700's. In North America, including Mexico, they outnumbered Europeans quite a bit for some period of time. In the Americas, as a whole, Africans greatly outnumbered Europeans for a long period of time.