Local industry still does little to recall the stains of slavery

Charleston has an elephantine memory, and it leans on that nostalgia to drive tourism, its largest industry.

Fleets of carriages caravan down its streets, their drivers pointing out its stunning architecture. We hear often that four of its sons signed the Declaration of Independence and it was, at one time, the most affluent city in the nation. And promoters celebrate its pivotal role in the Revolutionary and Civil wars and trumpet the seminal submariners who died in the Hunley.

But our cacophonous tourism industry is still pretty hushed about slavery. From 1700 to 1775, 40 percent of the slaves imported to North America were offloaded in Charleston. And those shipments kept coming even after the nation banned the import of human cargo in 1808.

You don't often hear statistics like that on the carriages downtown, nor will you read them in the brochures printed by the Convention & Visitors Bureau or on the four metal tablets chronicling the history of the city in Waterfront Park. But you can find them in the Old Slave Mart Museum, which the city of Charleston reopened in November on Chalmers Street.

In addition to family-cleaving and homicidal brutality, the tiny museum captures terrifyingly well the ubiquity of the slave trade in Charleston.

Slaves were sold all over the Holy City; at one time there were 40 enclosed markets on Chalmers, Queen and State streets peddling human flesh, according to the museum's exhibits.

Human purchases were financed by the state's biggest banks. Thomas Ryan, the man who opened the slave mart, was an alderman. Newspapers of the day sold advertisements to slave traders, according to exhibits, and even many of the state's free black residents bought and sold slaves.

There is still good money to be had in promoting Charleston's slave trade, by telling its story to tourists. Though some of Charleston's historic plantations and homes tackle the issue head-on, and no doubt profit from it, much of the tourism industry here looks the other way.

However, hospitality businesses, and the city as a whole, would do well to get over their legacy of shame or lingering racism.

Some of the most trafficked attractions in Germany are concentration camps, where vacationers buy tickets and line up to walk through barbed-wire-strewn gates and gaze on chilling stacks of shoes.

And the American West is dotted with sites documenting the slaughter of native tribes. Craftsmen in South Dakota have spent 60 years carving into a cliff the likeness of Crazy Horse, a storied Lakota warrior, that will dwarf the commanders-in-chief on Mount Rushmore.

In short, suffering sells.

Since opening on Nov. 1, Charleston's new slavery exhibit has welcomed about 3,200 people. Unfortunately, there was not a single other visitor in the hour or so that I was there. Granted, I went on a weekday during the slowest time of the tourism cycle, but sadly the building was no doubt much more publicized 150 years ago when it was well-known from here to Louisiana.

Kudos to city planners for this new attraction. They have pulled back slightly the lacy curtain that covers this dark legacy, this sanguine stain on our home.

Reach Kyle Stock at 937-5763 or kstock@postandcourier.com.

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