Author Archives: chasebaker

Blog 2: An Old and Beautiful Map

by Chase Baker

I am obsessed with maps. I find them incredibly interesting, especially old ones. After looking through the Digital Public Library of America for some time, I ended up coming across this beautiful map from 1755 of British and French territories in North America. The great thing about this map is that we are shown the differences in territories when compared to today. For example, South Carolina and North Carolina have essentially the same borders as today in the North, East, and South. But out West, it is all different. Their borders seem to extend all the way to the Mississippi river which is essentially where French Louisiana was. This makes complete sense considering that Louisiana was not acquired by the United States until the Louisiana purchase.

Another interesting aspect of this map is where Georgia is. Georgia is incredibly small compared to what it is today. This seems to be because of Spanish Florida which cuts off a lot of what Georgia is today. Throughout the Western section of the map there are also indications of where certain Native American tribes are. The map is also incredibly detailed with a huge amount of information written throughout such as longitude observations and cities in towns being identified all along the Eastern territories.

The legend of the map tells all the information it contains. It is as follows: cities, capitals, towns, villages, Indian villages, Indian towns, Indian forts, roads and their distances, waterfalls, and rivers. We also see the majority of French territories up north towards Canada. This map puts a lot of history into perspective since it shows us three world powers who no longer hold any of the territories shown on the map. However, I do think that there is still a French overseas territory in Canada that is shown on this map. But that is tiny and almost not worth mentioning. This illustrates to the average viewer of this map how much the world has shifted since the colonial period and also the failure of colonial powers to maintain their hold on their colonies.

But the most interesting thing to me about this map is how it is truly a work of art. Modern maps are very bland and have the objective of only presenting information. However, this map, like most old maps, has extensive decoration and designs throughout. The main drawing is located on the bottom right corner. The best way I can describe it is as a mixture of enlightenment art and tropical themes with nude women and cherubs. The letters are also incredibly ornate and flowery.

Altogether, I love old maps such as this one because they are not only filled to the brim with information but also pleasing to look at due to them essentially being works of art as well.

 

 

 

One of my many visits to the Provost Dungeon

By: Chase Baker

The Provost Dungeon underneath the Old Exchange building is arguably one of the most unique historic sites of our city which in Charleston is saying a fair bit. The dungeon seems to be directly out of a European castle. Its walls and floors are constituted by 18th century brick formed into double-barrel-vaults which support the dungeon. In the south, buildings that hold a large significance to the Revolutionary War are rare and the ones that do exist are generally not well preserved. Because of this, the Provost Dungeon is unique.
During its history, the dungeon saw a fair bit of notable prisoners chained in its confines. Many of them are Revolutionary figures. For example, Son of Liberty Christopher Gadsden was imprisoned in the dungeon. You see his influence today with the flag he designed during the revolution known as the Gadsden flag. The flag, commonly seen on the back of large trucks, is best described as being the yellow flag with a snake on the front above the words don’t tread on me.
For context, the British occupied Charleston for around two years during the Revolutionary War and during that time they turned the Provost Dungeon into the area they used for American prisoners of war. Because of this, many other revolutionary figures had to unfortunately call the dungeon their home. The conditions for prisoners were poor. They were for the most part chained to the walls or chained together. Their daily rations were awful. Because of these poor conditions, many of the prisoners died from either malnutrition or disease.
Likely one of the most interesting historical stories from the Provost Dungeon has to do with the hiding of at least 10,000 pounds of rebel black powder in its walls. Directly before the British successfully sized Charleston, the revolutionaries had a problem other than just losing the city. Revolutionaries had been storing up black powder for their cause but when the British were about to seize the city, many of the revolutionaries decided to evacuate to avoid capture by the British. The problem they ran into was that they couldn’t take all the black powder with them during their hasty evacuation. Now, they couldn’t just leave the black powder out and about for the British to get their hands on. It would help them out immensely. At the same time, the revolutionaries didn’t want to simply discard this valuable resource in the harbor of Charleston. So, the most senior officer at the time, a man by the name of Col. William Moultrie came up with a plan. They were going to hide this black powder in the dungeon. The revolutionaries went down to the dungeon and hid all the black powder in its walls. It was completely unnoticeable. Note, that many today believe that it was 10,000 pounds of black powder, however the writings of Col. Moultrie say that it was actually 15,000 pounds but only 10,000 pounds was usable.
The interesting thing is that when the British occupied Charleston, they looked everywhere for the black powder but never found it. The amusing thing is that during the British occupation of Charleston, British officers utilized the building on top of the dungeon, the Old Exchange as their headquarters. So, they were sitting on top of it the entire time but never new.