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25-522: Shem Creek was originally inhabited by the Sewee Native American tribe. The name of the creek is thought to derive from the Native American word Shemee. In the 1740s, Peter Villepontoux operated a lime kiln on the bank of the creek. During this period, several businessmen established ferries which operated along the creek. During the 1800s, several mills and factories were stationed on

50-561: A Native American tribe that lived in present-day South Carolina in North America. Their territory was on the lower course of the Santee River and the coast westward to the divide of Ashley River , around present-day Moncks Corner, South Carolina . Ethnologist John Reed Swanton estimated there were 800 Sewee in 1600. In 1670, the English founded the coastal town of Charleston in

75-583: Is the setting in Dorothea Benton Frank 's 2004 novel, Shem Creek: A Lowcountry Tale ( ISBN   978-0425196083 ) . Many of the boating scenes in the Netflix series Outer Banks were filmed on Shem Creek. The creek and boardwalk was also a filming location for the comedy series The Righteous Gemstones . This South Carolina -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sewee The Sewee or "Islanders" were

100-619: The Carolina Colony on land belonging to the Etiwan people and neighboring tribes like the Sewee. Sewee and other native peoples began participating in the Deerskin trade shortly thereafter. The Sewee hunted, processed, and exchanged deer hides for manufactured goods and glass beads from the English. However, they felt that English traders had become middlemen. Noting that the English ships always landed at

125-592: The Wando people , with whom they later intermarried. The Sewee language is poorly attested and unclassified. Some Sewee words were recorded in 1670 by Nicholas Carteret and William Owen. Based on the geographical location of the Sewee people, Zamponi (2024) hypothesizes that that the Sewee language may have been a Siouan language, although he could not find any evidence of Siouan morphemes in any attested Sewee words and phrases. Slave ship Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from

150-562: The 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves . Such ships were also known as " Guineamen " because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast in West Africa. In the early 1600s, more than a century after the arrival of Europeans to the Americas , demand for unpaid labor to work plantations made slave-trading a profitable business. The Atlantic slave trade peaked in

175-558: The Netherlands also agreed to abolish their slave trade. The trade did not end on legal abolition; between 1807 and 1860 British vessels captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 160,000 slaves. After abolition, slave ships adopted quicker, more maneuverable forms to evade capture by naval warships, one favorite form being the Baltimore Clipper . Some had hulls fitted with copper sheathing , which significantly increased speed by preventing

200-418: The abolition of slavery. For the first time, limits were placed on the number of slaves that could be carried. Under the terms of the act, ships could transport 1.67 slaves per ton up to a maximum of 207 tons burthen, after which only one slave per ton could be carried. The well-known slave ship Brookes was limited to carrying 454 people; it had previously transported as many as 609 enslaved. Olaudah Equiano

225-668: The creek in the 1940s, and Abundant Seafood operates from the creek. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo , hundreds of boats in Shem Creek were left in derelict condition or capsized. In October 2011, the Shem Creek Boardwalk and Shem Creek Park opened to the public. The Shem Creek Park and 3,000 foot boardwalk is maintained by the Town of Mount Pleasant. The creek is known for the variety of wildlife, including manatees, dolphins, egret , black skimmers , and American oystercatchers . Shem Creek

250-531: The creek, but commerce along the creek came to a halt during the American Civil War . In 1905, the Shem Creek Beacon was erected, which provided light to the creek and aided boaters. In 1937, a bridge was built over the creek. By the 1950s, the first shrimp dock was constructed along Shem Creek and the seafood industry became highly active along the creek. Shelmore Oyster Products began working along

275-466: The crew were far better than those of the slaves, they remained harsh and contributed to a high death rate. Sailors often had to live and sleep without shelter on the open deck for the entirety of the Atlantic voyage, as the space below deck was occupied by slaves. Disease, specifically malaria and yellow fever, was the most common cause of death among sailors. A high crew mortality rate on the return voyage

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300-496: The deaths of slaves on board slave ships. Firsthand accounts from former slaves, such as Olaudah Equiano , describe the horrific conditions that slaves were forced to endure. The Slave Trade Act 1788 , also known as Dolben's Act, regulated conditions on board British slave ships for the first time since the slave trade started. It was introduced to the United Kingdom Parliament by Sir William Dolben , an advocate for

325-405: The growth of marine weed on the hull, which would otherwise cause drag. This was very expensive, and at the time was only commonly fitted to Royal Navy vessels. The speed of slave ships made them attractive ships to repurpose for piracy, and also made them attractive for naval use after capture; USS  Nightingale and HMS  Black Joke were examples of such vessels. HMS Black Joke had

350-544: The last two decades of the 18th century, during and following the Kongo Civil War . To ensure profitability , the owners of the ships divided their hulls into holds with little headroom, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration , dysentery , and scurvy led to a high mortality rate , on average 15% and up to a third of captives. Often, the ships carried hundreds of slaves, who were chained tightly to plank beds. For example,

375-429: The overcrowding on slave ships may have reduced the on-board death rate, but this is disputed by some historians. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the sailors on slave ships were often poorly paid and subject to brutal discipline and treatment. Furthermore, a crew mortality rate of around 20% was expected during a voyage, with sailors dying as a result of disease, flogging, or slave uprisings. While conditions for

400-429: The same location, the Sewee believed that by rowing to the point on the horizon where the ships first appeared, they could reach England and establish better trading prices. Therefore, the Sewee nation decided to construct canoes with woven mat sails for their expedition. English land surveyor John Lawson , having heard the story from a Carolina trader, described the process in his book A New Voyage to Carolina : It

425-599: The slave ship Henrietta Marie carried about 200 slaves on the long Middle Passage . They were confined to cargo holds, with each slave chained with little room to move. The most significant routes of the slave ships led from the north-western and western coasts of Africa to South America and the south-east coast of what is today the United States, and the Caribbean . As many as 20 million Africans were transported by ship. The transportation of slaves from Africa to America

450-461: The vessels with hides, pelts, and provisions. Most able-bodied Sewee men boarded the boats and took to the sea, while children, the sick and the elderly stayed home. As the Sewee entered open ocean, an abrupt storm engulfed their canoes and caused many to drown. The survivors were picked up by a passing English slave ship and sold into slavery in the West Indies . The surviving Sewee settled with

475-416: Was agreed upon immediately to make an addition of their fleet by building more canoes, and those to be of the best sort and biggest size as fit for their intended discovery. Some Indians employed about making the canoes, others to hunting – everyone to the post he was most fit for, all endeavors towards an able fleet and cargo for Europe. Eventually the Sewee had completed their navy of canoes, and they filled

500-435: Was among the supporters of the act, but it was opposed by some abolitionists, such as William Wilberforce , who feared it would establish the idea that the slave trade simply needed reform and regulation, rather than complete abolition. Slave counts can also be estimated by deck area rather than registered tonnage, which results in a lower number of errors and only 6% deviation from reported figures. This limited reduction in

525-414: Was in the captain's interests, as it reduced the number of sailors who had to be paid on reaching the home port. Crew members who survived were frequently cheated out of their wages on their return. These aspects of the slave trade were widely known; the notoriety of slave ships amongst sailors meant those joining slave ship crews did so through coercion or because they could find no other employment. This

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550-722: Was known as the Middle Passage of the triangular trade . The owners of slave ships embarked as many slaves as possible to make the voyage more profitable. They did so by cramming, chaining, and selectively grouping slaves to maximize the use of space. Slaves began to die of lack of oxygen due to these cramped conditions. Portuguese lawmakers passed the Tonnage Act of 1684 in order to slightly improve conditions. Slaves on board were underfed and brutally treated, causing many to die before even arriving at their destination; dead or dying slaves were dumped overboard. An average of one to two months

575-645: Was needed to complete the journey. The slaves were naked and shackled together with several different types of chains, stored on the floor beneath bunks with little to no room to move. Some captains assigned slave guardians to watch over and keep the other slaves in check. They spent a large portion of time pinned to floorboards, which would wear skin on their elbows down to the bone. Diseases such as dysentery , diarrhea , ophthalmoparesis , malaria , smallpox, yellow fever, scurvy, measles, typhoid fever, hookworm, tapeworm, sleeping sickness, trypanosomiasis , yaws, syphilis, leprosy, elephantiasis, and melancholia resulted in

600-577: Was often the case for sailors who had spent time in prison. Black sailors are known to have been among the crews of British slave ships. These men came from Africa or the Caribbean, or were British-born. Dozens of individuals have been identified by researchers from surviving records. Knowledge of this is incomplete, though, as many captains did not record the ethnicity of crew members in their ship's muster roll . African men (and occasionally African women) also served as translators. The African slave trade

625-663: Was outlawed by the United States and the United Kingdom in 1807. The 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act outlawed the slave trade throughout the British Empire . The U.S. law took effect on 1 January 1808. After that date, all U.S. and British slave ships leaving Africa were seen by the law as pirate vessels subject to capture by the U.S. Navy or Royal Navy . In 1815, at the Council of Vienna , Spain, Portugal, France, and

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