Georgia was named after King George II in 1733. Savannah was co-founded by James Oglethorpe as a bulwark between the thriving British metropolis of Charleston and the Spanish enemies. Considered America’s first planned city, the idea was to give debtors a new lease of life but the utopian plan wasn’t realized. By 1750, slavery arrived with a vengeance. Between 1761 and 1771 alone, some 10,000 slaves were sold in the markets near the wharfs, where boats loaded with suffering human cargo would arrive from the Caribbean and Africa. It was through this area that hundreds of thousands of slaves were brought through during the 1700 and 1800's. The enslaved were unloaded from the ships and marched into the buildings along River Street. The sorrow and helpless feelings of those enslaved men, women and children can still be felt in the catacombs on Factors Walk.
By 1810, some 44 percent of the workforce was enslaved. In 1860, the population of the city was 22,000, with some 17,000 enslaved people and 700 free blacks, many of whom owned slaves themselves. Then came the Civil War. Being a port city, making it an invaluable prize as a naval base and supply center, Savannah was spared from ignition by Union forces in 1865. But the New South was another form of misery for the freed slaves who suffered not only from terrorist organizations like the KKK but from political corruption, economic control and violent intimidation. In the 1890’s, lynching was at its barbaric height, and Jim Crow legalized what custom dictated. More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950. Slavery didn’t end. It evolved.
***********
OK, so while the legacy of racial injustice and the trauma of these atrocities are all around you hanging thick in the air, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t visit. In fact the South has long presented some of America’s most exciting and delicious food. Today, Savannah, famous for its shady oak-filled squares draped in dreamy Spanish Moss, is brimming with artisans and gourmands doing innovative things with Southern ingredients. By honouring the past without being overly wedded to it, transplants like Cheryl & Griffith at Back in the Day (Savannah, GA) are creating culinary alchemy.