4/6/2023 0 Comments The wanderer charleston![]() Lamar and his group believed the South had every right to expand its economic power by importing more Africans directly from their home continent. Slavery had long existed in the North, but it drove the Southern economy. These were Southern men of high station who hated the idea of the North dictating anything to the South, especially regarding the institution of slavery. Lamar associated with a band of pro-slavery advocates, which author Erik Calonius dubbed “the fire eaters” in his book The Wanderer: The Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy That Set Its Sails. The story of how Lee and the other Africans came to Jekyll on November 28, 1858, is a journey that began in the minds of some of the South’s most vocal proponents of slavery, including Charles Lamar, one of Savannah’s most influential businessmen. It was also one of the last such ships to drop anchor on American shores before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863-but long after the United States Congress outlawed the importation of enslaved Africans in 1807. Lee and the others had been the human cargo on the Wanderer, the last ship to bring enslaved Africans to Georgia. Lee, whose real name was Cilucängy, and the other captives had been part of one of the most notorious chapters of American history, one that left a lasting mark on Jekyll Island and the nation. He knew the chill of ocean water against raw skin in November as he, still a child, trudged barefoot and naked onto the south shore of Jekyll Island with about 400 other Africans. He knew the stench of nearly 500 bodies, including his own, packed like spoons in a cramped, stifling ship hold for six weeks. He knew the ache of young muscles that could not be stretched out because they were chained in place. Lee knew what it was to be ripped away from his family when he was a boy. What Higgins’ grandmother never told him was the reason Lee wanted so desperately to keep his descendants close. “She said he always talked about how we had to keep the family together,” Higgins said. But above all, Lee believed in the importance of family and having a place of your own. He was a skilled artisan who took pride in his creativity. Sometimes, when his grandmother would touch it, she’d tell Higgins about her grandfather, Ward Lee, the man who carved it: he’d cradled the curved handle in his hand as he walked for so many years that the wood was burnished from the caress of his palm. ![]() This is the story of Georgia’s last slave ship and its enduring legacy.įor as long as Michael Higgins could remember, the old hickory walking cane stood sentinel at his grandmother’s house in Aiken, South Carolina. ![]() On November 28, 1858, more than 400 enslaved Africans arrived on the shores of Jekyll Island, leaving behind one deadly journey and beginning another. ![]()
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