• Excerpt from the Introduction

There is a place called Stateburg nestled in the midst of some hills in the South Carolina midlands. Because of its topography and the proximity of the hills to the Santee River, the area was named the High Hills of Santee. In the old days Stateburg was a vibrant community with a robust agrarian economy and a cultural sophistication. Many inhabitants, white and black, were related by blood, and some of them who were not would be in later generations because of marriages among the children of the families who lived there.

The landscape was adorned with elegant and comfortable plantation houses; the families who lived on the plantations were served by slaves and supported by a growing agricultural economy. A new crop, short stable cotton, was introduced to the South Carolina backcountry near the end of the eighteenth century, and it offered great hope of wealth and prosperity for the plantation owners in the years ahead. Natalie Delage Sumter arrived in the high Hills near the end of 1803.

... The place is different now. There is no town. The hills are still majestic and quiet except for occasional loud, screeching noises from air force fighter jets taking off and landing at a nearby base.