Nature's Return

An Environmental History of Congaree National Park

Mark Kinzer

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781611177664
• eBook ISBN: 9781611177671
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Biological Sciences

From exploitation to preservation, the complex history of one of the Southeast's most important natural areas and South Carolina's only national park

Located at the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers in central South Carolina, Congaree National Park protects the nation's largest intact expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest. Modern visitors to the park enjoy a pristine landscape that seems ancient and untouched by human hands, but in truth its history is far different. In Nature's Return, Mark Kinzer examines the successive waves of inhabitants, visitors, and landowners of this region by synthesizing information from property and census records, studies of forest succession, tree-ring analyses, slave narratives, and historical news accounts.

Established in 1976, Congaree National Park contains within its boundaries nearly twenty-seven thousand acres of protected uplands, floodplains, and swamps. Once exploited by humans for farming, cattle grazing, plantation agriculture, and logging, the park area is now used gently for recreation and conservation. Although the impact of farming, grazing, and logging in the park was far less extensive than in other river swamps across the Southeast, it is still evident to those who know where to look.

Cultivated in corn and cotton during the nineteenth century, the land became the site of extensive logging operations soon after the Civil War, a practice that continued intermittently into the late twentieth century. From burning canebrakes to clearing fields and logging trees, inhabitants of the lower Congaree valley have modified the floodplain environment both to ensure their survival and, over time, to generate wealth. In this they behaved no differently than people living along other major rivers in the South Atlantic Coastal Plain.

Today Congaree National Park is a forest of vast flats and winding sloughs where champion trees dot the landscape. Indeed its history of human use and conservation make it a valuable laboratory for the study not only of flora and fauna but also of anthropology and modern history. As the impact of human disturbance fades, the Congaree's stature as one of the most important natural areas in the eastern United States only continues to grow.

1
	Managing the Presettlement Landscape

This day the Governor arrived with some on horseback (although few) at the town [on the Congaree] that is called Himahi, and the army remained two leagues back, the horses being tired. He found in this town a barbacoa of corn and more than two and a half cahices of prepared pinol, which is toasted corn. And the next day the army arrived, and they gave out rations of corn and pinol.

Roderigo Rangel, Account of the Northern Conquest and Discovery of Hernando de Soto, post-1540

HUMANS HAVE BEEN MODIFYING THE LANDSCAPE of the American Southeast for thousands of years. In the lower Congaree Valley the first evidence of human occupation dates back to the Paleoindian period—that is, from 12,000 B.C.E. (before Common Era) to 8000 B.C.E. Evidence of occupation continues through and beyond the first arrival of Europeans, confirming that indigenous people occupied the lower Congaree during the Archaic (8000–1000 B.C.E.), Woodland (1000 B.C.E.–900 C.E.), and Mississippian (900–1520 C.E.) periods.¹ Throughout much of this time, human impacts to the land stemmed principally from the use of fire to drive game and improve habitat for preferred food species. Eventually people across the region began to supplement traditional hunting and gathering with the cultivation of domesticated plants on cleared ground. As populations grew, community reliance on agriculture steadily increased, and the imprint of human activities on the landscape became more and more pronounced.

At first, agriculture was associated with temporary camps and villages, where people grew crops in small garden plots concentrated in alluvial bottoms and mountain coves. As time passed, people lived increasingly in stationary settlements near major streams, supported by ever more expansive bottomland agriculture. By the height of the Mississippian period, American Indian impacts were concentrated along the corridors of most major southeastern rivers, as well as many intermediate-size streams. For Mississippian people, survival itself depended on maintaining extensive agricultural fields near their villages and towns.²

Although archaeological studies have shown that humans occupied the Congaree valley at various times from the Paleoindian through the Woodland and Mississippian periods, the timing and extent of cultivation along the Congaree River has yet to be investigated in any detail. Most of the prehistoric settlements identified to date on the Congaree were concentrated just below the fall line near Columbia or on high ground south of the river. A particularly good example of the latter is the state Congaree Bluffs Heritage Preserve, located across the river from the park in Calhoun County. Situated on a high, north-facing bluff just upstream from Devil’s Elbow (map 1), the preserve has sites with archaeological components dating from 8000 B.C.E. to 6000 B.C.E., 200 B.C.E., 500 C.E., and the Mississippian period. In later years the preserve may have been the location of one or more long-term Indian settlements. The impact of any of these occupations on the local environment is not known.³

Very little in the way of serious archaeological investigation has been done on the lands that now make up Congaree National Park. As a result, it is not possible to describe with any confidence the land-disturbing activities that may have taken place in the floodplain before European settlement. The discussion that follows therefore relies heavily on studies conducted at nearby sites, particularly sites along the Broad and Wateree Rivers. The attempt here is to draw reasonable inferences about land use in the Congaree floodplain based on both the available archaeological evidence and the findings from similar sites in South Carolina’s inner coastal plain.

Table 1 Recognized Periods of Human Occupation in South Carolina prior to European Settlement

PERIOD	YEARS
Paleoindian	12,000–8000 B.C.E.
Archaic	8000–1000 B.C.E.
Woodland	1000 B.C.E.–900 C.E.
Mississippian	900–1520 C.E.

Land Use in the Woodland Period

Apart from using fire to drive game or modify habitat, it is unlikely that humans engaged in significant land-disturbing activities in the Congaree floodplain until sometime toward the middle or end of the Woodland period (500 B.C.E.–900 C.E.). Little clearing would have occurred during the earlier, Archaic period (8000–1000 B.C.E.) because this was primarily a time of nomadic hunting and gathering. In contrast, the Woodland period was characterized in many areas by a gradual shift from a nomadic existence to a more settled existence in permanent or semipermanent villages.

In the Early Woodland period (1000–500 B.C.E.), the people of South Carolina’s inner coastal plain were starting to become more sedentary, but they still migrated to base camps to gather specific resources. Settlements were located primarily in inter-riverine areas, with base camps sited along streams and rivers to facilitate resource gathering. In the Congaree River valley, Early Woodland occupations often consisted of resource extraction sites or upland settlements occupied by single-family units. Campsites apparently conforming to this pattern have recently been found above the north arm of Bates Old River in the U.S. 601 corridor. However, these sites have not been intensively studied or even dated to a particular phase of the Woodland period. Little is yet known about the nature of these sites or the uses their inhabitants made of the surrounding landscape. Somewhat more is known about the Fork Swamp area to the south, in the far eastern end of the park. Archaeological investigations at Fork Swamp in 2007 and 2014 found a high frequency of Late Archaic and Early Woodland ceramics in an ancient sand ridge known as Sampson Island. The age and distribution of these artifacts suggests that Sampson Island saw prolonged stretches of seasonal occupation during the Late Archaic and Early Woodland periods.⁴

In the Middle Woodland period (500 B.C.E.–500 C.E.), subsistence patterns generally followed those of the Early Woodland. People of the inner coastal plain gravitated increasingly to riverine areas at this time, establishing seasonal camps on terraces above the river swamps, where they could exploit the great variety of resources offered by the floodplain environment.⁵ By the end of the Middle Woodland, many of the seasonal camps located on major rivers had developed into more permanent villages, and one or more Middle Woodland villages likely existed along the Congaree. One such village may have been located south of the river on the bluffs overlooking the Fork Swamp area. The investigation at Fork Swamp in 2007 found a number of decorated sherds at Sampson Island consistent with styles from the Early and Middle Woodland periods (1000 B.C.E.–500 C.E.). However, no evidence of a settlement has yet been found on the sand ridge, so the presence of decorated pottery, which has also been recovered from other sand ridge interments in the Congaree valley, raises the possibility that the ridge was a ceremonial burial ground associated with a seasonally occupied village on the bluff across the river.⁶

The Middle Woodland period is especially noteworthy for an intensification of regional and interregional trade in exotic goods. Much of the trade in the Southeast during the Middle Woodland period took place with people of the Hopewellian tradition, a dispersed set of related populations centered on the Ohio River valley. Often associated with the construction of earthen mounds and related structures, the Hopewellian tradition may have influenced the construction of oval- or dome-shaped mounds in South Carolina during this period, including one or more in the Congaree floodplain. A Woodland period mound (“Congaree Swamp Woodland Mound” 38RD327) has been identified in the park about midway between the Norfolk Southern railroad track and U.S. Highway 601. The oval-shaped mound is approximately 40 feet (12 meters) wide and 270 feet (83 meters) long, and rises about 5 feet (1.5 meters) above the surrounding floodplain. Initial archaeological work has placed the mound site in the Early to Middle Woodland period. Other Woodland period mounds may also exist in the park, including Starling’s Mound and one or more of the so-called “cattle mounds” typically attributed to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landowners and their slaves. Some of the latter may actually be Indian mounds that were adapted or augmented at a later date to provide cattle a place of refuge from floods.⁷

The purpose of Middle Woodland–period mounds is uncertain. Many mounds and mound sites appear to have been used on a recurring rather than continuous basis, which may indicate that they were intended to exert some type of control over the supernatural world. Clearly, mounds could only have been built in areas cleared of woody vegetation; but Middle Woodland mounds were not necessarily associated with areas of significant habitation, and the presence of a mound does not in and of itself denote the site of a large village or extensive fields. The people of the Middle Woodland period still relied primarily on game animals and gathered plants, and the archaeological evidence they left behind differs little from that found at Archaic sites. Thus, to the extent that Middle Woodland mounds exist in the park, their presence is not necessarily evidence of extensive land disturbance in the precincts surrounding the mounds.⁸

Unlike the more concentrated settlement patterns of the Middle Woodland period, settlement in the Late Woodland (500 C.E.–900 C.E.) was more dispersed. People lived in smaller but more numerous village sites, reflecting an overall growth in population. As populations increased, competition for resources may have become more pronounced, increasing the pressure to supplement game and gathered plants with cultivated foods. Indeed, throughout the Late Woodland period a more systematic, though by no means uniform, approach to horticulture was evolving in parts of the eastern and midwestern United States. Intensive pre-maize-dominated agriculture was concentrated primarily in the Midwest and Midsouth—specifically, north of the lower Mississippi valley and west of the Appalachians.⁹ Archaeological work in South Carolina has turned up very little in the way of seed remains from this period, suggesting that intensive pre-maize agriculture was not practiced in the midlands during most of the Late Woodland period. Even at this relatively late date, subsistence practices in the inner coastal plan appear to have been essentially a continuation of Archaic ways. Why this should be so is not entirely clear, but it has been hypothesized that the area’s mild climate and long growing season may have limited the need to rely on stored food.¹⁰

Much is still being learned about the transition from the Late Woodland to the Early Mississippian period in central South Carolina. During this time new groups from the Mississippian cultural tradition may have migrated into the area from the west, bringing with them new cultural beliefs and practices, as well as a dependence on the cultivation of maize. A complementary possibility is that Mississippian cultural and agricultural practices spread into the major drainages of South Carolina as a result of trade or other cultural interactions with Mississippian settlements to the west. Throughout this transitional period—and in some places much longer—people of both cultural traditions lived side by side while continuing to practice their respective customs. Mound building appears to have increased at this time among some Late Woodland people, with mounds being used both as burial centers and as areas for food preparation and the production and display of ritual objects.¹¹

Toward the end of this period, Late Woodland and Early Mississippian communities may have responded to the continued growth in population by increasing the scope and intensity of pre-maize agriculture. Evidence from the Belmont Neck site on the Wateree River indicates that Early Mississippian people were clearing fields below the fall line as early as 950 C.E., growing maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana), chenopod (Chenopodium sp.), maize (Zea mays), and tobacco (Nicotiana sp.).¹² If the Congaree valley was likewise inhabited at this time, it is conceivable that clearing was taking place there as well. In any event, it seems likely that by the beginning of the Mississippian period (ca. 900 C.E.) agriculture was gradually increasing in importance as a source of sustenance for native people in central South Carolina, with maize poised to assume an ever-greater role in cultural and economic life.

Development of Mississippian Culture

Mississippian culture emerged when people of the Southeast began to cultivate maize for a substantial portion of their diet. In time the production of maize led to a significant increase in population, causing people to become increasingly dependent on it and other cultivated crops for survival. The result was that cultural practices in many parts of the Southeast evolved to facilitate the production of maize on a large scale. These changes transformed the egalitarian, tribal societies of earlier periods into what many have interpreted as the hierarchical chiefdoms of the Mississippian period. The elites of these chiefdoms maintained dominance over others in large part via their control of the flat-topped pyramidal mounds that lay at the center of Mississippian religious life.¹³

The chiefdoms of the Mississippian period were not dispersed randomly across the landscape but were concentrated near the scarce soils most suitable for growing maize. Maize is a demanding plant that requires rich soils and large amounts of labor to generate high yields. The best areas for prehistoric maize production were the rich soils of alluvial bottomlands, especially the elevated natural levees along the region’s major rivers. Not only were these light soils particularly fertile, but they were also conducive to tilling with the hoe and hence could be made more productive than those in adjacent upland areas. These soils had the added advantage of being periodically enriched by overbank flooding, making it possible for floodplain fields to withstand repeated cultivation.¹⁴

Natural levees are the pro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Chronology
• Introduction
• 1 Managing the Presettlement Landscape
• 2 First Settlement, Land Clearing, and the Open Range
• 3 The Rise of Plantation Agriculture
• 4 Early Park Plantations
• 5 Reclaiming the Floodplain
• 6 The Location and Extent of Historic Clearing
• 7 Industrial Logging: First Inroads, 1870–1918
• 8 Logging after 1920
• Conclusion: The Impact of Human Disturbance
• Appendix A: Selected Floodplain Cultural Features
• Appendix B: Biographical Sketches
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author