by Jim Morekis
The sea nettle (Chrysaora quinquecirrha), a less-than-charming beach inhabitant, is a jellyfish that stings thousands of people on the coast a year (though only for those with severe allergies are the stings potentially life-threatening). Stinging their prey before transporting it into their waiting mouths, the jellyfish also sting when disturbed or frightened. Most often, people are stung by stepping on the bodies of jellyfish washed up on the sand. If you’re stung by a jellyfish, don’t panic. You’ll probably experience a stinging rash for about half an hour. Locals say applying a little baking soda or vinegar helps cut the sting. (Some also swear fresh urine will do the trick, and I pass that tip along to you purely in the interest of thoroughness.)
In the Air
When enjoying the marshlands of the coast, consider yourself fortunate to see an endangered wood stork (Mycteria americana), though their numbers are on the increase. The only storks to breed in North America, these graceful, long-lived birds (routinely living over 10 years) are usually seen on a low flight path across the marsh, though at some birding spots beginning in late summer you can find them at a roost, sometimes numbering over 100 birds. Resting at high tide, they fan out over the marsh to feed at low tide on foot. Old-timers sometimes call them “Spanish buzzards” or simply “the preacher.”
Often confused with the wood stork is the gorgeous white ibis (Eudocimus albus), distinguishable by its orange bill and black wingtips. Like the wood stork, the ibis is a communal bird that roosts in colonies. Other similar-looking coastal denizens are the white-feathered great egret (Ardea alba) and snowy egret (Egretta thula), the former distinguishable by its yellow bill and the latter by its black bill and the tuft of plumes on the back of its head.
Egrets are in the same family as herons. The most magnificent is the great blue heron (Ardea herodias). Despite their imposing height—up to four feet tall—these waders are shy. Often you hear them rather than see them, a loud shriek of alarm that echoes over the marsh.
So how to tell the difference between all these wading birds at a glance? It’s actually easiest when they’re in flight. Egrets and herons fly with their necks tucked in, while storks and ibises fly with their necks extended.
Dozens of species of shorebirds comb the beaches, including sandpipers, plovers, and the wonderful and rare American oystercatcher (Haematopus palliates), instantly recognizable for its prancing walk, dark brown back, stark white underside, and long, bright-orange bill. Gulls and terns also hang out wherever there’s water. They can frequently be seen swarming around incoming shrimp boats, attracted by the catch of little crustaceans.
The chief raptor of the salt marsh is the fish-eating osprey (Pandion haliaetus). These large grayish birds of prey are similar to eagles but are adapted to a maritime environment, with a reversible outer toe on each talon (the better for catching wriggly fish) and closable nostrils so they can dive into the water after prey. Very common all along the coast, they like to build big nests on top of buoys and channel markers in addition to trees.
The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), is making a comeback thanks to increased federal regulation and better education of trigger-happy locals. Of course as we all should have learned in school, the bald eagle is not actually bald but has a head adorned with white feathers. Like the osprey, they prefer fish, but unlike the osprey they will settle for rodents and rabbits.
Inland among the pines you’ll find the most common area woodpecker, the huge pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) with its huge crest. Less common is the smaller, more subtly marked red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis). Once common in the vast primordial pine forests of the southeast, the species is now endangered, its last real refuge being the big tracts of relatively undisturbed land on military bases and on national wildlife refuges.
Insects
Down here they say that God invented bugs to keep the Yankees from completely taking over the South. And insects are probably the most unpleasant fact of life in the southeastern coastal region.
The list of annoying indigenous insects must begin with the infamous sand gnat (Culicoides furens), scourge of the lowlands. This tiny and persistent nuisance, a member of the midge family, lacks the precision of the mosquito with its long proboscis. No, the sand gnat is more torture-master than surgeon, brutally gouging and digging away at its victim’s skin until it hits a source of blood. Most prevalent in the spring and fall, the sand gnat is drawn to its prey by the carbon dioxide trail of its breath.
While long sleeves and long pants are one way to keep gnats at bay, that causes its own discomfort because of the region’s heat and humidity. The only real antidote to the sand gnat’s assault—other than never breathing—is the Avon skin care product Skin So Soft, which has taken on a new and wholly unplanned life as the South’s favorite anti-gnat lotion. Grow to like the scent, because the more of this stuff you lather on the better. And in calmer moments grow to appreciate the great contribution sand gnats make to the salt marsh ecosystem—as food for many species of birds and bats.
Running a close second to the sand gnat are the over three dozen species of highly aggressive mosquito, which breed anywhere a few drops of water lie stagnant. Not surprisingly, massive populations blossom in the rainiest months, in late spring and late summer. Like the gnat, the mosquito—the biters are always female—homes in on its victim by trailing the plume of carbon dioxide exhaled in the breath.
More than just a biting nuisance, mosquitoes are now vectoring West Nile disease, signaling a possibly dire threat to public health. Local governments in the region pour millions of dollars of taxpayer money into massive pesticide spraying programs from helicopters, planes, and trucks. While that certainly helps stem the tide, it by no means eliminates the mosquito population. (This is just as well, because like the sand gnat the mosquito is an important food source for many species, such as bats and dragonflies.) Alas, Skin So Soft has little effect on the mosquito. Try over-the-counter sprays, anything smelling of citronella, and wearing long sleeves and long pants when weather permits.
But undoubtedly the most viscerally loathed of all pests here, especially on the coast, is the so-called “palmetto bug,” or American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). These black, shiny, and sometimes grotesquely massive insects—up to two inches long—are living fossils, virtually unchanged over hundreds of millions of years. And perfectly adapted as they are to life in and among wet, decaying vegetation, they’re unlikely to change a bit in 100 million more years.
While they spend most of their time crawling around, usually under rotting leaves and tree bark, the American cockroach can indeed fly—sort of. There are few more hilarious sights than a room full of people frantically trying to dodge a palmetto bug that has just clumsily launched itself off a high point on the wall. Because the cockroach doesn’t know any better than you do where it’s going, it can be a particularly bracing event—though the insect does not bite and poses few real health hazards.
Popular regional use of the term “palmetto bug” undoubtedly has its roots in a desire for polite Southern society to avoid using the ugly word “roach” and its connotations of filth and unclean environments. But the colloquialism actually has a basis in reality. Contrary to what anyone tells you, the natural habitat of the American cockroach—unlike its kitchen-dwelling, much-smaller cousin the German cockroach—is outdoors, often up in trees. They only come inside human dwellings when it’s especially hot, especially cold, or especially dry outside. Like you, the palmetto bug is easily driven indoors by extreme temperatures and by thirst.
Other than visiting the Southeast during the winter, when the roaches go dormant, there’s no convenient antidote for their presence. The best way to keep them out of your life is to stay away from decaying vegetation and keep doors and windows closed on especially hot nights.
History
BEFORE THE EUROPEANS
Based on studies of artifacts found throughout the area, anthropologists know the first humans arrived in t
he Carolinas at least 13,000 years ago, at the tail end of the Ice Age. However, a still-controversial archaeological dig in South Carolina, the Topper Site on the Savannah River inland near Allendale, has found artifacts that some scientists say are about 50,000 years old.
In any case, during this Paleoindian Period, sea levels were over 200 feet lower than present levels, and large mammals such as wooly mammoths, horses, and camels were hunted for food and skins. However, rapidly increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and efficient hunting techniques combined to quickly kill off these large mammals, relics of the Pleistocene Era, ushering in the Archaic Period of history in what’s now the southeastern United States. Still hunter-gatherers, Archaic Period Indians began turning to small game such as deer, bear, and turkey, supplemented with fruit and nuts.
The latter part of the Archaic era saw more habitation on the coasts, with an increasing reliance on fish and shellfish for sustenance. It’s during this time that the great shell middens of the Carolina and Georgia coast trace their origins. Basically serving as trash heaps for discarded oyster shells, as the middens grew in size they also took on a ceremonial status, often being used as sites for important rituals and meetings. Such sites are often called shell rings, and the largest yet found was over nine feet high and 300 feet in diameter. Hilton Head Island, for example, has two remaining shell rings. Using ground-penetrating radar, archaeologists are finding more and more Archaic era shell middens and rings all the time.
The introduction of agriculture and improved pottery techniques about 3,000 years ago led to the Woodland Period of Native American settlement. Extended clan groups were much less migratory, establishing year-round communities of up to 50 people who began the practice of clearing land to grow crops. The ancient shell middens of their forefathers were not abandoned, however, and were continually added onto.
Native Americans had been cremating or burying their dead for years, a practice which eventually gave rise to the construction of the first mounds during the Woodland Period. Essentially built-up earthworks sometimes marked with spiritual symbols, often in the form of animal shapes, mounds not only contained the remains of the deceased, but items like pottery to accompany the deceased into the afterlife.
Increased agriculture led to increased population, and with that population growth came competition over resources and a more formal notion of warfare. This period, from about AD 800-1600, is termed the Mississippian Period. It was the Mississippians who would be the first Native Americans in what’s now the continental United States to encounter European explorers and settlers after Columbus.
The Native Americans who would later be called Creek Indians were the direct descendants of the Mississippians in lineage, language, and lifestyle. Described by later European accounts as a tall, proud people, the Mississippians often wore elaborate body art and, like the indigenous inhabitants of Central and South America, used the practice of head shaping, whereby an infant’s skull was deliberately deformed into an elongated shape by tying the baby’s head to a board for about a year.
By about AD 1400, change came to the Mississippian culture for reasons that are still not completely understood. In some areas, large chiefdoms began splintering into smaller subgroups in an intriguing echo of the medieval feudal system going on concurrently in Europe. In other areas, however, the rise of a handful of more powerful chiefs subsumed smaller communities under their influence. In either case, the result was the same: The landscape of the Southeast became less peopled as many of the old villages, built around huge central mounds, were abandoned, some suddenly.
As tensions increased, the contested land became more and more dangerous for the poorly armed or poorly connected. Indeed, at the time of the Europeans’ arrival much of the coastal area was more thinly inhabited than it had been for many decades.
THE EUROPEANS ARRIVE
The record of white European contact in the coastal Carolinas begins, suitably enough, with Amerigo Vespucci, the man for whom America was named. The Italian explorer came ashore somewhere in the Cape Hatteras area during his long-ranging first voyage to the new world in the 1490s.
Later, the Spanish arrived on the South Carolina coast in 1521, roughly concurrent with Cortez’s conquest of Mexico. A party of Spanish slavers, led by Francisco Cordillo (sometimes spelled Gordillo), ventured to what’s now Port Royal Sound from Santo Domingo in the Caribbean. Naming the area Santa Elena, he kidnapped a few dozen Indian slaves and left, ranging as far north as the Cape Fear River in present-day North Carolina, and by some accounts even further up the coast.
The first serious exploration of the coast came in 1526, when Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon and about 600 colonists made landfall at Winyah Bay near present-day Georgetown, South Carolina. They didn’t stay long, however, immediately moving down the coast and trying to establish roots in the St. Catherine’s Sound area of modern-day Georgia. That colony—called San Miguel de Gualdalpe—was the first European colony in America. (The continent’s oldest continuously occupied settlement, St. Augustine, Florida, wasn’t founded until 1565.) The colony also brought with it the seed of a future nation’s dissolution: slaves from Africa. San Miguel lasted only six weeks due to political tension and a slave uprising.
Hernando de Soto’s infamous expedition of 1539-1543 began in Florida and went through southwest Georgia before crossing the Savannah River somewhere near modern-day North Augusta, South Carolina. He immediately came in contact with emissaries from the Cofitachequi empire of Mississippian Indians. His subsequent route took him through the central Carolinas, westward over the Appalachians, and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico, where de Soto died of fever.
Long after his departure, de Soto’s legacy was felt throughout the Southeast in the form of various diseases for which the Mississippian tribes had no immunity whatsoever: smallpox, typhus, influenza, measles, yellow fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and bubonic plague. While the barbaric cruelties of the Spanish certainly took their toll, far more damaging were these deadly diseases to a population totally unprepared for them. As the viruses they introduced ran rampant, the Europeans themselves stayed away for a couple of decades after the ignominious end of de Soto’s quest. During that quarter-century, the once-proud Mississippian culture, ravaged by disease, disintegrated into a shadow of its former greatness.
The French Misadventure
The Spanish presence in the Carolinas was briefly threatened by the ill-fated establishment of Charlesfort in 1562 by French Huguenots under Jean Ribault. Part of a covert effort by the Protestant French Admiral Coligny to send Huguenot colonizing missions around the globe, Ribault’s crew of 150 first explored the mouth of the St. Johns River near present-day Jacksonville, Florida before heading north to Port Royal Sound and present-day Parris Island, South Carolina.
After establishing Charlesfort, Ribault returned to France for supplies. During his absence, religious war had broken out in his home country. Ribault sought sanctuary in England but was clapped in irons anyway. Meanwhile, most of Charlesfort’s colonists grew so demoralized they joined another French expedition led by Rene Laudonniere at Fort Caroline on the St. Johns River. The remaining 27 built a ship to sail from Charlesfort back to France. Only 20 of them survived the journey, which was cut short in the English Channel when they had to be rescued.
Ribault himself was dispatched to reinforce Fort Caroline, but was headed off by a contingent from the new Spanish fortified settlement at St. Augustine. The fate of the French presence on the southeast coast was sealed when not only did the Spanish take Fort Caroline, but a storm destroyed Ribault’s reinforcing fleet. Ribault and all survivors were massacred as soon as they struggled ashore.
To keep the French away for good and cement Spain’s hold on this northernmost part of their province of La Florida, the Spanish built the fort of Santa Elena directly on top of Charlesfort. Both layers are currently being excavated and studied today on Parris Island, near a golf course on the U.S. Marine camp.
The Mission Era
With Spanish dominance ensured for the near future, the lengthy mission era began. While it’s rarely mentioned as a key part of U.S. history, the truth is that the Spanish missionary presence in Florida and on the Georgia coast was longer and more comprehensive than its much more widely known counterpart in California.
While the purpose of the missions was to convert as many Indians as possible to Christianity, they also served to further consolidate Spanish political control. It was a dicey proposition, as technically the mission friars served at the pleasure of the local chiefs. But the more savvy of the chiefs soon learned that cooperating with the militarily powerful Spanish led to more influence and more supplies. Frequently it was the chiefs themselves who urged for more expansion of the Franciscan missions.
The looming invasion threat to St. Augustine from the great English adventurer and privateer Sir Francis Drake was a harbinger of trouble to come. The Spanish consolidated their positions near St. Augustine and Santa Elena on Parris Island was abandoned. As Spanish power waned, in 1629 Charles I of England laid formal claim to what’s now the Carolinas, Georgia, and much of Florida, but made no effort to colonize the area.
By 1706 the Spanish mission effort in the southeast had fully retreated to Florida. In an interesting postscript, 89 Native Americans—the sole surviving descendants of Spain’s southeastern missions—evacuated to Cuba with the final Spanish exodus from Florida in 1763.