History of Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen gardens - Huntington Medal of Hungtington GardensThe land comprising Brookgreen Gardens is an amazing story of thousands of years of continual human habitation. This habitation directly resulted from the physiological diversity of the land on the Waccamaw Neck of Georgetown County, South Carolina. Around 10,000 B.C., the first humans arrived along the coastal plain of South Carolina.  They were nomadic tribes of hunters and gatherers who began to settle in villages around 1500 A.D.  The Waccamaw tribe living along the Waccamaw Neck and on the plantations that make up Brookgreen Gardens was part of the Eastern Siouan linguistic group, one of the three linguistic groups in South Carolina. 

During the Seventeenth Century, English settlers first came to the Carolina territory from Barbados and other Caribbean islands.  A plantation economy was well established on the islands, and the planters were looking to expand their holdings.  From the beginning, they brought enslaved Africans to work the new lands. The planters at The Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield and Laurel Hill plantations (the four former plantations that make up the present-day Brookgreen Gardens) established family dynasties and were leaders of the rice planting elite during the antebellum years.  However, the success of these great rice plantations rested on the backs of the enslaved Africans.  As early as the mid-eighteenth century, a majority of the population in the Lowcountry of South Carolina were enslaved Africans and during the late antebellum period they accounted for almost 90 percent of the population in the region. They provided physical labor, skill and technology required for rice cultivation and production and infused the environment with their customs, traditions, crafts, and language known today as Gullah-Geechee culture.

In 1931,Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington established Brookgreen Gardens as a 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation to preserve the native flora and fauna and display objects of art within that natural setting. Today, Brookgreen Gardens is a National Historic Landmark and a display garden with the most extensive collection of figurative sculpture in an outdoor setting by American artists in the world. Brookgreen has the only zoo accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums on the coast of the Carolinas. Brookgreen Gardens offers tours, programs, and archeological sites for visitors to explore.