History | January/February 2025

Inside the Struggle to Preserve Georgia’s Butler Island, Home to a Notorious Plantation

Descendants of people enslaved at the site are grappling with its complicated history while also honoring the region’s rich culture

OPENER - Major Pierce Butler, a U.S. senator representing South Carolina and an original signer of the United States Constitution, left the 1,500-acre rice plantation—and its enslaved laborers—to his grandsons when he died. For locals whose ancestors were

Major Pierce Butler, a U.S. senator representing South Carolina and an original signer of the United States Constitution, left the 1,500-acre rice plantation—and its enslaved laborers—to his grandsons when he died. For locals whose ancestors were forced to work there, it’s considered a sacred place.

Sheila Pree Bright

Photographs by Sheila Pree Bright

Text by Melissa L. Cooper

The route that runs straight through Darien, Georgia, and cuts across the marshes, rivers and creeks along coastal McIntosh County leads to a historic site: Butler Island, a once vast antebellum plantation.

Drivers unfamiliar with this stretch of U.S. Highway 17 likely pay little attention to the remains of a 75-foot brick chimney that powered the old rice mill or the huge kiln nearby, both planted in the lush landscape of palmetto trees and marsh grass. The 1,500-acre tidewater plantation was originally purchased in 1793 by Major Pierce Butler, a signer of the United States Constitution whose grandsons—Pierce Mease Butler and John Mease Butler—inherited the property and the people enslaved there. Relying on agricultural knowledge passed down to them by their ancestors who honed their techniques in West Africa’s rice-growing region—stretching from present-day Senegal to Liberia—the captives on Butler Island waded through boggy and marshy fields, doing intensive, grueling work to produce the rice crop that made coastal planters rich. Today, all that remains to acknowledge the hundreds who maintained the residence and worked the land is a historical marker erected in 2019 that shares a brief story of the “Enslaved People of Butler Island.”

Dehumanization and suffering were inherent effects of slavery, and some of the agonies Butler Island’s enslaved population endured were documented by Frances Anne Kemble, Pierce Mease Butler’s wife, a well-known British actress who spent the winter of 1838-1839 on the plantation. (The couple typically resided in Philadelphia.) Absent any detailed testimonies from Butler Island’s enslaved residents, Kemble’s record singularly sheds light on the everyday conditions there. She recalls the pitiful sight of Black women in the property’s infirmary, “most of them on the ground,” some “too ill to rise.” Kemble was stunned into the realization that “here, in their hour of sickness and suffering, lay those whose health and strength are spent in unrequited labor for us—those who, perhaps even yesterday, were being urged on to their unpaid task.” (Kemble became an outspoken abolitionist, which reportedly played a role in her 1849 divorce from Butler.) Through it all, the enslaved individuals on the Butlers’ plantation made families and a community, passing on what remained of their forebears’ traditions—such as hand-weaving baskets used to winnow rice—through the generations and adding more than captivity and suffering to the meaning of the place. That’s what made the events of March 2 and 3, 1859, especially catastrophic. To pay off gambling debts and financial losses, Pierce Mease Butler sold 436 Black people, a portion of those he enslaved on Butler Island along with some from his nearby Hampton Plantation, a major cotton-producing farm. The auction of enslaved people, held at Ten Broeck Race Course in Savannah, was among the largest in American history.

The last remaining structures from the former plantation’s rice-growing era, the 75-foot chimney of the steampowered rice mill, built in 1833, and a nearby kiln. They stand as reminders of the free-labor economy on which America was built— and those who s — The last remaining structures from the former plantation’s rice-growing era, the 75-foot chimney of the steam-powered rice mill, built in 1833, and a nearby kiln. They stand as reminders of the free-labor economy on which America was built—and those who suffered under it. Sheila Pree Bright

Located along two rivers, the land was a “muddy, slimy sponge,” in between earth and water, Kemble wrote in one entry. — Located along two rivers, the land was a “muddy, slimy sponge,” in between earth and water, Frances Anne Kemble wrote in one entry of her *Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839*. Sheila Pree Bright

A map of Butler Island Plantation (above) included in one 1984 edition of Frances Anne Kemble’s Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839. — A map of Butler Island Plantation included in one 1984 edition of Frances Anne Kemble’s *Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839*. The University of Georgia Press / Public Domain

Anne C. Bailey, a historian and the author of a book about the auction, writes that the mass sale and its aftermath came to be known as the “Weeping Time,” ripping apart families and the community forged on the island, and scattering some of its members across the South. Moreover, not only did the Butler auction represent “a traumatic breach in family bonds” for those who were bought and sold, Bailey writes, but it also severed a link “between present and future generations.”

After the Civil War, the Butler Island Plantation would never again achieve the same scale of agricultural production. The Butler estate was passed down in the family until it was sold in 1923, becoming a vegetable and dairy farm before changing hands again. Today, the island is the property of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Descendants of those who remained on Butler Island after the auction consider it a sacred place for ancestral remembrance. “Down every road in McIntosh County there is some history,” says Eunice Moore, an 85-year-old lifelong Darien resident who believes her ancestors were once enslaved on the Butler Island Plantation. A former member of Darien’s City Council and a representative on a local historic preservation board, Moore has advocated to keep Butler Island’s history alive. She is a regular honored guest at local Black history events and commemorations, dressed in African-style attire that, she says, “pulls my culture to me.”

Cover image of the Smithsonian Magazine January/February 2025 issue

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $19.99

This article is a selection from the January/February 2025 issue of Smithsonian magazine

Eunice Moore has helped conserve the history of Butler Island and the surrounding region, including as a former member of Darien’s City Council. One idea she proposed was to include the plantation as a stop on a Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor trail. “We need to have some recognition,” she said. Sheila Pree Bright

The enslaved population of Butler Island lived in cabins that Kemble described as “shockingly dilapidated and overcrammed.” At one time, Major Butler counted as many as 900 men, women and children as his property. For generations, families lived together on this land. Sheila Pree Bright

Wide, coiled sweetgrass fanners were used to winnow rice, which involved pounding and tossing it from one basket to another to separate the grains from the husks and chaff. Today, these hand-woven items are popular in markets throughout the Lowcountry. Sheila Pree Bright

For residents descended from people enslaved on Butler Island and other Lowcountry plantations, the customs of their ancestors are instilled in their culture. They point to hand-woven sweetgrass and palmetto baskets, rice fanners, intricately crafted fishing nets, musical customs such as the ring shout (singing spirituals while keeping the rhythm by pounding a stick and marching in a circle), spiritual traditions such as baptismal “seeking” rituals, and patterns of speech and syntax that can all be traced back to African influences and a culture sometimes known today as Gullah Geechee.

Amy Lotson Mitchell, another coastal Georgia native, has been a key figure in preserving local Black history. She calls herself a “memory keeper.” Born and raised in St. Simons, a nearby island settled by members of the emancipated Black community from local plantations, Mitchell is now the historian for the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition. She was instrumental in saving the historic Harrington School, a one-room structure built on St. Simons in the 1920s to serve three Black communities. A few years ago, she published a book, co-written with historian Patrick J. Holladay: Gullah Geechee Heritage in the Golden Isles. The old rice plantation on Butler Island also has personal significance for Mitchell—her paternal ancestors are from McIntosh County and may have been enslaved there. She says all Black Americans, not just those with family ties to the plantation, should learn about it: “Our people need to know what struggle we had.”

Amy Lotson Mitchell displays a hand-woven basket made from sweetgrass. Africans who survived the Middle Passage brought this skill with them to the Lowcountry and passed it down to their descendants for generations. The tradition is considered part of the Gullah Geechee culture of the region. Sheila Pree Bright

According to locals, servants who were seemingly loyal to the people who enslaved them were sometimes honored in death with headstones for their graves. Many other burial plots were left unmarked. The inscription of this stone, a replacement for the worn original, for Sambo Swift (1811-1884) reads, “Sorrow vanquished. Labor ended. Jordan passed.” Sheila Pree Bright

Recognized as the “last of the Butler slaves,” Liverpool Hazzard was born on the plantation in 1851, according to most records, and was never sold. An oarsman, he rowed in races that sometimes proved lucrative for Pierce Mease Butler. Clara E. Sipprell, *Liverpool Hazzard–108 Years Old*, ca. 1930, gelatin silver print, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Purchase through gift of The Dorothea Leonhardt Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas, Inc., P1984.1.88

For the communities around Georgia’s coast, the struggle continues, as efforts to preserve local history have grown urgent. Residents face increasing challenges, not the least of which is their displacement. The encroachment of developers and the “heirs’ property” crisis, which is marked by the forced sales of family homesteads passed down without a will, make the future of these culturally rich areas uncertain. Tax hikes and new proposed zoning regulations may also drive out residents hoping to preserve the area’s history.

Other dangers also threaten these historically significant sites. In 2020, a bill put forward in the Georgia state legislature would have opened Butler Island and other heritage sites statewide to private sale. One proposal, which would have turned the plantation into a distillery, was protested by Butler Island descendants and preservation groups, including the recently formed Coalition to Save Butler Island Plantation & House. Moore was among those who fought against the sale. The bill died in the State Senate.

Joe Hazzard, the great-great-grandson of Liverpool Hazzard, is among the many descendants of Butler Island’s enslaved. Many of those who weren’t sold and stayed on the plantation after the auction remained in the region after the Civil War and created tightknit Black communities along Georgia’s coast. Sheila Pree Bright

Former co-owner of the New York Yankees T.L. Huston bought Butler Island in 1926 and built this mansion on the land a year later. Its entryway, marble fireplace and woodwork were signature features until the home was destroyed by fire in 2024, dashing preservationists’ hopes of turning it into a museum. Sheila Pree Bright

The waterlogged remnants of dikes, once used to control and manage water necessary for rice cultivation, are still visible on Butler Island. The land is now the property of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and is available to the public for fowl hunting and other recreational activities. Sheila Pree Bright

Then last summer, the 1920s-era mansion on the site was set on fire, allegedly by a burglar, and destroyed. Meanwhile, intensifying and damaging storms are battering coastal neighborhoods, and rising seas threaten to submerge Butler Island and other heritage sites.

But Moore, Mitchell and other leaders refuse to lose faith, vowing to continue to keep the memory of their ancestors alive. “Some of these things we can’t erase,” says Moore. “You might want to cover them up, but you can’t erase it. It’s still there.”