Every day, people drive across the Santee Delta, unaware of the bountiful natural resources and complex history surrounding them. Bob Raynor paints a portrait of the fertile grounds that fostered the development of tidal rice culture with an enslaved labor force to carry out brutal and often fatal work. Raynor utilizes his personal investigations on the water and on foot to highlight the Delta’s crucial role in the environmental and economic development of South Carolina.
The Santee Delta: Waters and Voices takes an in-depth exploration of this area through a narrative, including the storytelling of significant historical events and Raynor’s experiences in this fascinating Lowcountry world.
“This book is as movingly evocative as it is informative, Bob brings the same deep sensitivity to the people of the Santee Delta as he does its waterways and marshlands, as well as what remains of its rice fields and ancient swamp forests. ” - Kerry Taylor, Associate Professor of History, The Citadel