FRANCIS MARION'S GRAVE

It is a fact greatly to be deplored and which, as has been remarked, is “a sad commentary on the gratitude of a people," that the momentous events of the late civil war, the effects of which were felt so long and so grievously in the South, have almost eliminated from the Southern mind the memory of the men of 1776, and their gallant deeds.

In a true and commendable spirit of gratitude to those who, as a celebrated historian and diplomat has said, “true to the instincts of their birth and faithful to the teachings of their fathers," laid down their lives for the cause they believed to be just and holy, all over the South have been reared marble tributes and massive memorials to perpetuate the memory of the heroes of the Lost Cause. But among all these monuments, few can be found which are dedicated to the first heroes of our country; to the men of 1776 who left hamlet and hall, or who, releasing the horses from the plow, rode away to check the advance of the invader, without even returning for a moment to the family fireside to embrace for perhaps the last time their little ones, or to imprint, maybe, the last kiss upon the lips of an anxious wife.

A striking illustration of this seeming neglect is the condition of the grave of Francis Marion, the famous. Swamp Fox of the Revolution. When this celebrated soldier died, his remains were interred in a buryingground on Belle Isle plantation, St. Stephen's Parish, Berkeley county, South Carolina. Over his grave some years afterwards, was placed a simple marble slab-a "frail memorial, with shapeless sculpture decked," which barely recorded in few words the dates of the birth and demise of the'illustrious warrior who lay beneath.

As years went by the once flourishing old plantation became neglected, and finally deserted, and the burying-ground soon fell into disuse and decay. The old slab, however, still remained, although stained by the weather, and marked by time, until about three years ago, when during one of the fierce equinoctial storms which often sweep the Carolina coast in the fall of the year, a giant sugar-berry tree was blown across the grave of the old soldier, and that of Mrs. Marion, which lay next to his, and the slab over the general's grave was completely shattered. There was considerable interest expressed at the time, and a country paper with more spirit of regard for the old hero's memory than dollars or influence, pro

posed to raise a fund with which to replace the slab, and to put the two graves in good condition. A few trifling subscriptions were sent in, but interest languished, and no definite movement has ever been made toward the consummation of this most laudable object.

The negroes, the only present occupants of Belle Isle plantation, have cut up the sugar-berry tree for firewood, and have carried away the fragments of the shattered slab, which are now doing service as oven-backs in the numerous cabins along the country side.

Unless something is done very soon to reclaim the graves of the famous old Revolutionary hero and his wife from the decay and ruin into which they are rapidly falling, it will not be long before they will be in the same condition as the grave of the old patriot, William Moultrie, who died in 1805 full of years and honors, and was buried at "Windsor" plantation, in St. James, Goose creek, Berkeley county, South Carolina. No tomb was placed over his grave, and his family and admirers continued putting it off year after year, until, in 1852, when a party of gentlemen visited the old burying-ground to locate the grave for the purpose of erecting a shaft over it, to their mortification, and the mortification of all persons who value the memory of the heroes of '76, it was found impossible to identify it among the many brush-grown mounds in the decayed enclosure.

In speaking of Marion, it might be of interest to many to know that in Rocky Bluff Swamp, in Sumter county, South Carolina, there is a low island-now altogether inaccessible, unless one is willing to gain it on foot, cutting his way through the dense canebrakes which surround it with an axe-upon which can still be seen the ruins of one of Marion's old places of rendezvous. The spot where the shanties for the protection of the soldiers were erected is marked by the remains of mud chimneys, and the old forge where the horses were shod is almost intact. The old-fashioned anvil was in its place until a few years ago, when a country blacksmith penetrated the swamp and brought it away, and it is now doing good service in these piping times of peace, as it did under the hammer of some stalwart old soldier-smith an hundred years ago, when every ring of the horseshoe caused the rude patriots to start for fear it would guide the enemy to their hiding-place.

Shirley Carter Hughsow.

CHARLESTON, S. C.

THE FRENCH COLONY OF SAN DOMINGO

ITS RISE AND FALL

San Domingo, in natural advantages, is unsurpassed. Three mountain ranges, of moderate elevation, traversing its entire length, are a guarantee for attractive scenery and well-watered land. The heat is tempered by the trade winds. The climate is salubrious, save along the coast. Splendid flowering plants adorn the plains. Majestic forests of pine, mahogany of the finest kind, the most valuable dye and cabinet woods clothe the mountain sides. The soil is one of exceeding fertility, the low-lying districts yielding in profusion the best varieties of tropical growths, while the productions of temperate regions thrive on the elevated slopes. In short, it is excelled by no other portion of the world. In its day it was called "The Garden of the West Indies,” “The Queen of the Antilles ;" and it was the boast of Columbus, when its native richness and beauty burst upon him, that he had found the original seat of Paradise.

Columbus discovered this turtle-shaped island December 6, 1492, and at Isabella, on the northern coast, established the first Spanish colony. The city of San Domingo was founded, 1496, by the brother of the renowned admiral. For half a century these settlements received marked attention from the mother country, and rose to great prosperity. But, as other parts of America were discovered, the inhabitants were drawn off; and the indigenes having been exterminated by excessive work and general illusage, the island, for a period, declined.

In 1789 its sovereignty was divided between France and Spain. The French colony occupied the western portion of the island, an irregular north-and-south line separating it from Spanish territory. The area of this colony was ten thousand square miles, or one-third of the whole, being somewhat larger than the state of Vermont. It embraced three provinces, northern, southern, and western, presided over by a governor-general. Cape François, in the northern province, was the metropolis, and the Paris of the Western World. At the above date French San Domingo had reached a remarkable state of prosperity and spiendor.

The utmost effort had been made to stimulate and improve agriculture, and on every hand the teeming colony smiled with successful industry. Spread over it were a thousand sugar plantations, and three thousand of of coffee, not to mention the cultivation of indigo, caçao, cotton, etc., and

the splendid tropical fruits yielded to trivial care. The narrow but rich plain of Cul de Sac itself contained one hundred and fifty sugar plantations, while the rising slopes, up to the Spanish lines, were clothed with coffee farms, that appeared from the hill-crests as so many thickets. In 1789 the colony laded, for France alone, four hundred vessels. It supplied Europe with half of its sugar. Its exports were valued at $28,000,000. Numerous roads, spacious and most beautifully kept, intersected the country in all directions. The planters lived in jovial splendor, in the loveliest homes in the world. From 1750 to 1789 (the beginning of revolutionary activity) the growth of the colony was marvelous, at the latter date reaching a height superior to all other colonial possessions.

The inhabitants were whites, mulattoes or people of color, and negro slaves. The rise of each is written in dark lines.

In 1630 a small body of French and English, who had established themselves on St. Christopher, one of the windward islands, were ruthlessly driven out by the Spaniards. The greater part found refuge in Tortuga, a small island near the northwest coast of San Domingo, where they increased rapidly, and as buccaneers, became the terror of the neighboring seas. Upon the commerce of the Spaniards, their special enemies, they took the amplest revenge. Predatory excursions soon gave them a footing on the western coast of San Domingo. Eventually, the English buccaneers settled in Jamaica. The French section continued to gain ground in San Domingo, where gradually they left off piracy, and became planters. The French government now began to extend its care. Governors were appointed. The planters were increased by emigrants from the mother country. Wives were sent out. Negro slaves were taken in raids upon Spanish territory. An incursion to Jamaica in 1694 secured two thousand, and a notable impulse was given to the cultivation of sugar. The colony, in 1697, had greatly developed in numbers and importance, and the Spaniards, unable to cope with France, by the treaty of Ryswick formally ceded to the latter country the western portion of the island.

In 1789 the whites were known as Europeans and as creoles, between whom great jealousies existed. The former, generally, were public functionaries, military men, or merchants--lived chiefly in the towns-assumed an air of superiority, and exercised much petty tyranny.

The creoles or planters considered themselves the heirs of the soilwere excessively imperious and voluptuous, impatient of restraint, jealous of wealth and honor, unbounded in self-indulgence, yet hospitable and charitable. They commonly lived on the estates they cultivated, and resented disdainfully the assumed superiority of the European.

Of the mulattoes many were cultivated men, opulent and large slaveowners. Their characters often commanded respect, yet meanness of birth could not be forgotten. The whites looked down upon them contemptuously, and their condition, on the whole, was truly degraded. They were exposed to perpetual insult and humiliation-were governed by a set of local laws applicable only to themselves-on attaining their majority they were compelled to serve three years in a kind of militia, to keep runaway slaves in check-were subject to a "corvee " for the maintenance of the roads—excluded from public employments and the liberal professions— and not allowed to bear the names of their white fathers. Many had been highly educated in France, and possessed large estates, and the deprivation of political and personal rights was borne with a gathering and ominous sense of resentment.

The circumstances connected with the introduction of the negro slaves, to replace the exterminated indigenes, opens the blackest page in Spanish history.

These indigenes-as they appeared to Columbus, before they had been broken and debased by the Spaniard's cruelty-were an interesting race. Reliable accounts represent them as being of lighter color than the inhabitants of the neighboring islands, and generally superior-singular in feature, but not disagreeable—in aspect timid and gentle, in person not tall, but well-shaped and active, and weak in body, incapable of much labor, short lived, and extremely frugal. They were guileless in their manners, possessed fair apprehensions, were remarkably obedient to their rulers, humble, patient, submissive, with a love for quietude, and dislike for disputes. They exercised a simple agriculture and had made some progress in the arts of ornament and of utility, displaying ingenuity in working beaten gold, and in the manufacture of a plain cotton cloth and earthern pitchers. In a word, they occupied a middle state between savage life and polished society-an unoffending, peaceable and amiable race. Their character was in keeping with the native fauna of the island, which contained no beast of prey, and no wild animal larger than a hare.

The bold bearing of the Spaniards, their great size and strength, and splendid aspect in shining armor and on caparisoned horses, produced in the minds of the simple islanders a reverential awe. They regarded them as having descended from the heavens, and gave them the honor due to superior beings. But the Spaniards were ravening wolves; and under a course of most merciless treatment the history of the indigenes is pitiful, till it ends with their extinction fifty years on.

Pioneer colonists are commonly reckless adventurers, without money