Magnolia Plantation and Gardens

Fifteen generations of the same family have held this land on the Ashley River since 1679 — a fact that contains everything you need to know about how power worked in this part of the South. The plantation began as a rice operation, built on the labor of enslaved Africans, some brought by the Draytons from Barbados. What endures today is the Reverend John Grimké Drayton's English-style gardens, the restored slave cabins interpreted across multiple eras from slavery through Reconstruction, and a guided tour — "From Slavery to Freedom" — that takes the full history seriously.