The appeal of West Africans to plantation owners was simple: The moist climate of their homeland bore striking similarities to South Carolina’s swampy Lowcountry.

For years, villagers, mid-sized landholders and plantation owners alike have used slash-and-burn as the cheapest, fastest way to clear land for agriculture and development.

Back then, it was a rural outpost, wide-open land tended to by black sharecroppers and white farmers, some of whom were former plantation owners.