Redcliffe Plantation, completed in 1859, was once the home of James Henry Hammond, three generations of his descendants, and numerous African-American families like the Henleys, Goodwins, & Wigfalls who worked at the site as slaves and later free men and women. Now one of the many historic plantations South Carolina has opened to the public, this site symbolizes the ambition, wealth and power of James Henry Hammond a successful cotton planter, congressman, governor and senator, who spent his life defending thesouthern plantation system and his status within it.