McLeod Plantation Historic Site

Prepare yourself... this is a rich and difficult history. Our guided tour leader was phenomenal, authentic, and intentional throughout our journey. Shock alert... descendants of slaves lived on the plantation in slave homes until 1990 (not a typo). The land was granted to then revoked by force from former slaves, then changed hands through sales numerous times. At one point, a developer wanted to turn the land into a stadium. It is now owned by the Parks Department, and tours are the only remaining profitable side of the business. Whew...

We chose to see McLeod because it was a little more affordable compared to other plantations and because we had heard good things. We weren't disappointed. We got there around 11:15am and our tour started at 1130am. Our guide John was terrific. Very knowledgeable, spoke very well and really cares about what he does. The tour is about a half hour and only goes about some of the grounds. You never stray too far, but we were able to go into the Big House. It was a great experience and really left us feeling some type of way.

Absolutely one of the finest plantation tours I have taken. Tobi (not sure of spelling) was passionately invested in the historical significance of this plantation and it came through (with a big impact might I add) during her guided tour. The grounds and home, while amazing, were not the attraction. The spotlight not being placed on the land owner but rather the enslaved was most illuminating and was/is the attraction here. No sugar coating, just pure knowledge and facts. A real eye opener of a tour. Highly encourage a visit and tour with Ms. Tobi.

The historical site is very well maintained. I opted to just walk without doing the guided tour. Towards the end of my walk around the museum, I decided to visit the McLeod home where I encountered a very nice guide named Suzanne, who answered every one of my questions and who effortlessly gave me a wonderfully detailed synopsis of the history of the plantation (I was in a rush). She was very kind, funny and knew her stuff.

Fabulous visit even though the subject is dark. Wonderfully kept grounds and excellent tour guide who actually knew one of the slaves. Sea Island Cotton was grown hear by the African enslaved, and thanks to their knowledge, put America on the map for growth and export.

We were lucky to have Toby Smith as our guide around the grounds. It’s humbling to learn of the active and thorough work that the staff are doing to bring to light the history of the plantation and its inhabitants—with accuracy and respect and through ongoing community involvement. Her particular perspective helps ground you in the site’s current context by sharing about the experiences of the under-recognized and overlooked. Thank you for all of the staff’s efforts.

This was the most moving tour I have ever experienced. I came alone, planning to do a self guided tour. The ladies at the ticket counter encouraged me to do the group tour with Toby. I am so glad I did. Toby’s honesty and eloquence in telling the story of the people of McLeod Plantation had me completely spellbound to the point that I didn’t even notice the tears running down my face. This is an incredible place to connect with humanity.

A fantastic and highly recommended plantation site to visit - anticipate 2 hours to see everything. Guided tours are included with your admission - Paul was our guide and he was a wealth of information.. to include his passion for honestly recounting the human history and misery that occurred here.

I know that plantation tours are a standard part of most tourist itineraries when visiting Charleston. Please skip the Disney-fied bigger name spots and instead visit the McLeod grounds (or, at minimum, check out both) for a tour that gives a truer picture of plantation life centered around experiences of enslaved people forced to work the land. Is it sobering? Yes. Is it worthwhile? Absolutely. Our particular tour guide was a bit sarcastic and prone to tangents to the point that I could see a few fellow visitors become frustrated and tune out. However, he was deeply knowledgeable about Gullah Geechee history, so I listened intently and chalked up his edginess to passion with a side of appropriate anger. After scanning reviews, I also believe his style is an anomaly amongst the roster of McLeod guides, so your mileage may very well vary.

Amazing guided tour through a dark part of of the United States history. Allows you to understand the truth behind slavery and later difficult emancipation. Very interesting and a must when visiting Charleston. The guided tour is around an hour long and touches on key points of the history of the McLeod Plantation

Definitely worth a visit to learn and experience a very different perspective on what so many visitors were taught about both the antebellum and reconstruction era of the southern experience. Our guide had a lot of passion but also quite a bit of anger and sarcasm especially as it pertained to false information. While he invited questions throughout, I felt he didn't always set an inviting tone or display tolerance for comments, questions, or (mis)understandings that didn't align with his truths. I think ppl come to a place like this because they genuinely want to learn, I did, and feel he had a valuable and unique opportunity to invite discussion and help educate others to relearning aspects of history that for many of us we believed was taught in good faith. Its not an easy subject.

Harriet was our tour guide and she is an accomplished storyteller. This plantation centers its narrative around the experience of the enslaved people, which is super important. It is, understandably, a heart-wrenching and tragic chapter of history. I learned much that I didn't know and am so grateful for the experience. Highly recommended!

My wife and I participated on this awesome tour at the end of Feb 2024, with our tour guide: Tobi. Her passion as she shared stories of her own ancestry on these grounds and the stories of a terrible time in history, in South Carolina, as well as in America! We were intrigued to learn the history of the McLeod Plantation, not from the landowner, but from the enslaved people whose work and lives are the very foundation of this historic site. Tobi was amazing with retelling the history of the generations (families) who lived here, but extremely knowledgeable and interesting sharing the stories of hope and community as family. Such an eye opening experience and a truthful, heartfelt discussion shared with deep compassion from Tobi that made this experience profound as we still talk about it today. Highly Recommended!

Top-notch and very enthusiastic tour guide. Here's a video about my experience. https://youtu.be/EPDdvn34Nfg?si=m9am4S095qF7fTOa

As a part of America's ugly history, this was on our lists of places to visit. With a Charleston county parks pass, we got free admission for out group of three, which was great since adult admission is $20/each. We started at the visitors center and arrived at a fortunate time: the last tour of the day was set to depart soon at 2:30pm. The tour is well-worth the fees as our guide Noah was super knowledgeable, empathetic, and honest with our group. Noah's focus was family: not the family this site is named for, but the families who were enslaved here and who grew their own families. He shared a wealth of information with us in a sobering, authentic manner than allowed us to reflect on the reality of the folks who lived here, not by choice, and how their lives were impacted and transformed by the McLeod family. I appreciated the family theme as well as seeing the conditions of the plantation. I was surprised to learn that the last residents of the homes left in 1990, I would've thought much earlier. Our tour lasted until closing time (4pm) and at that point, our last stop was visiting the McLeod home (first floor open). Besides the enlightening tour, the best part about our visit was the sweet black kitty I saw hanging out near the home. We did pass by the location of the cemetery but didn't perceive much, our guide had shared they were working on identifying the graves. There is also a pavilion available for rental, during our visit there was a retirement party happening. Interesting to think this land originally spanned 30+ acres and today you can hear the roar of cars on the road and other noises nearby. Glad we came here and learned more about the families who sustained the cotton enterprise and suffered deeply as they strived for freedom.

This is definitely a place that needs to be put on ur bucket list! The tour guides where very knowledgeable and passionate about the historical significance about the place. They really put their hearts and soul into the historical background of the place!

Incredible tour. It is very clear that the exhibits and tour were thoroughly researched and are periodically updated as more is discovered. Our tour guide was passionate about the subject and did not shy away from detailing past injustices and how they are linked with present ones. Specifically, their work in identifying individuals that were enslaved at this plantation as well as their lived experiences is nothing short of impressive, especially given the work that was done to erase their stories. Sites like these are critical to learn from the past and to keep the memory of those enslaved on the plantation alive for present and future generations, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to visit.

Absolutely amazing experience / highly recommend. Definitely do the guided tour - especially with Tobi. Learned so much history in such a short period of time.

This plantation is one of the closest to Charleston and it had the highest Yelp rating although not the highest number of reviews. Most of the Yelp reviews were positive except a few and I was playing the odds that I would enjoy an informative tour and leave more informed. I was more informed however I did not appreciate the personal assertions on the "unchanging line of the racism of the past to the present". This tour focuses on post-Civil war reconstruction era. At one point the tour guide (Paul) lost track of his monologue. The tour was scheduled for 45 minutes but thankfully he finished after 40. Yes, it was an awful time in our history and there's no need to tell anything but the truth but the tone and insinuations of the tour guide were too much for my wife and I. The woke culture today justifies the looting, violence and crime we find in our cities as a natural response for slavery and racism. We left the plantation immediately after the tour and had no interest in remaining. I can listen to the app audio on my own. We attended the Boone Hall Plantation earlier this week and their tour guides and speakers were so much better.

Very informative! tour guide was amazing and great with any questions we had. beautiful and well kept. great for all ages to learn and experience. really do recommend taking the time to go! we also got to see the "mama fox" from far and it made my day!

We enjoyed our visit to McLeod and left feeling like we left learning a bit about the history of this place. The plantation is sombering (I can't wrap my head around why people have celebrations at these places). The tour was long and only had a couple of stops along the way, so prepare yourself for a lot of standing and listening, more than a half hour at each stop. There's a house on the property and it's confusing to me why that isn't part of the tour.

The guide was really good - friendly and knowledgeable. It's not as big as most of the plantations nearby but it's close to Charleston and worth the trip.

One of the best, most informative tours of a historic location I've had. The tour guide knew his material as well as all of the nuances involving the property, the slaves that lived here and the ownership. You won't be disappointed. An hour scheduled tour that went easily an hour and a half.

Everyone here was friendly and the entry price is reasonable at $20 per adult. There's plenty of parking. This spot is closer to downtown than many of the other ballyhooed plantation sites like Boone, Drayton and Middleton. The tour was solid, with lots of great info. You can go inside the house on your own after the tour. We enjoyed the exhibits in the house. The one thing that keeps me from giving 5 stars is that our tour did not give as much depth of what it felt like to live on the plantation in the historical time period, particularly for the slaves. I got more of that from the free app I downloaded for the site.

Absolutely amazing tour. so informative and told the stories that may be hard to gear but are so necessary to learn. our tour guide was so wonderful and knowledgeable. answered any and all questions afterward.

Wonderful, thought provoking, educational tour. Glad I did it. The entry fee is a little steep (20$) but worth it in my opinion.

I cannot recommend this tour enough. I've been twice and both tour guides were good. Each gave a slightly different tour, but both were meaningful. Let's stop romanticizing about these plantations and consider what they truly were - a place of bondage and torture for human beings. This plantation gives us accurate history.

I've come again twice more with out of town visitors since my initial visit, and I still highly recommend this tour. I've had two different guides now, and then the third time I kind of toured my family around on my own bc we were pressed for time. It's $20/per person even if you don't do the guided tour, but if you have the park pass you get two people in, included with that. After three visits, I still highly, highly recommend this tour.

Powerful. If you're looking for "Gone with the Wind" or support for a telling of the glory of the Lost Cause, don't take the guided tour. If you are looking for a heart-felt look at real history of a working sea island cotton plantation told with an emphasis on the lives of the enslaved folk and their descendants- this is the place for you. We had an absolutely fabulous tour from a guide who is passionate about African American history. She pours herself into the tour and the affect on me was strong. Probably good for 10+ years old and with an interest in history. In addition to the fabulous tour, the grounds are lovely and there are many preserved buildings. Go here if you have a chance and are open to the history being taught.

We decided to check out McLeod Plantation, as it was very close to where we were staying, and it was a bit less expensive than some of the larger plantations that were about 30 minutes away. Easy to navigate. We joined the first tour of the morning, and I'm so glad we did. Our guide was very informative and passionate about telling us about McLeod. (He has direct ties to family members that used to actually work/live at the plantation, so he told recounted stories from family members). There are 4 original slave quarter building left standing, but it gives a good representation of what life was like back in the day. There isn't much to see IN the actual main house. We tried to go across the street to see the family cemetery, but wasn't able to find it easily, despite being marked by a sign. We decided it wasn't worth traveling down the path, into a woodier area, due to the mosquitoes.

Truly an imperative part of our history that should never be forgotten, most of which we are uneducated about, many facts of the enslaved people and their own families throughout the years is heartbreaking and should not be disregarded. The grounds and homes are kept beautifully. Very educational tour surrounded by amazingly beautiful grounds.

While this tour was hard to digest, I appreciate the rawness of the provided information. How the facts are delivered is centered around the enslaved people. This allows the truth to be told and not sugarcoating what is. I toured with Kate I believe and she was very informative. I paid $20 (as an adult) to tour the entire property. Once I paid, I was assigned a tour group that started around 10:30 AM. The tour also included some photos that the tour guide had on hand to show since some things have been renovated. My tour ended around noon, so if you go wear comfortable shoes and clothing. Once the tour ended, we were able to tour the property on our own like the house since the tour doesn't include going inside the home. If you are in the area I highly recommend you go and learn.

The site itself is in a nice setting, but there is not any furniture in the houses or the slave quarters. While the grounds are not as majestic as many of the plantations near New Orleans, this place is very close, and the grounds are nice. However...the tour was like an indoctrination into Orwell's 1984. Having said that, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you do it. It's free, and if you know your history (or want to read some below) it is literally like spending an hour with Baghdad Bob. Not to be missed! Let's get to it now... The tour focused on the "enslaved" and had very little history of the "enslavers" - by design. Lots of fabricated facts and snide one off remarks about the "enslavers." Look, I realize that slavery was not our brightest moment, but let us keep to HISTORY and not re-write it. FACT: Out of just under 11M slaves from Africa, less than 400K were shipped to what is America. Why do I say "What is America?" Because the vast majority of those were shipped by the British. When the USA became a country, the Constitution specifically stated an end period to this abhorrent practice. BTW, Brazil imported 40% of all slaves. But, but but isn't it BAD what we did? Shouldn't we TALK about it? Yes! But factually! Not through a PRAVDA propaganda lens. When I pointed this out to a person showing us the "Slave Triangle" - showing no slaves going to South America, she replied, "That's because this is OUR history. US history." Well, OK, but it seems like it should be focused on the history of slavery, with us being a part, a very small part until the civil war, in fact. But OK. To those that don't know history it seems like all the enslaved came to the USA. And not Britain, but the U.S.A. OK, some of the things we heard that make this plantation seem like crazy town (sorry but these are just too good to not mention): - The enslaved themselves were the most valuable asset the enslavers had. Um, more valuable than the land or the yearly cash flow from the crops. I'm no historian, but if that is true, then why the next point. - The enslaved were fed one pound of meat per week, along with one pound of rice. The enslaved didn't care if they starved to death, in fact the enslavers made more money - yes, MORE MONEY - because the slaves were insured. Now this is an interesting fact, notwithstanding this attitude would quickly decimate the insurance industry, and that is not how business is run. But OK, did some research and in fact yes, slaves were insured. Mostly high value slaves up North, like a blacksmith slave. According the the NY Times, the largest insurer by far was NY Life, who insured 508 slaves and incurred losses about equal to their policy revenues, about $230K in today's dollars. Hmmm our guide said that each payout was a hundred thousand dollars in today's dollars, and every enslaved (approximately 70) at the McLeod Plantation was insured. It sounds like someone read this NY Times article and just remembered a bunch of numbers. - Virtually all bricks used in the USA - yes in the entire USA - before, oh, around 1880 or so are bricks built by the enslaved. Who had to dig up the clay from water up to their chest. - Andrew Johnson, the POTUS who took over after Lincoln was assassinated, forgave all in the Confederacy they went up to Washington DC and signed a document stating they would not revolt against the US government. This was bad because it gave the landowners their land back instead of giving it to the enslaved. Even a cursory reading of history of civil wars will tell you that the way it was handled by the winning US side - the North - resulted in our country becoming one again. Not sure how the giving of land to the enslaved would have worked out legally or practically. Let me check out how things are going in Zimbabwe and Haiti... - Enslaved dependents lived in the enslaved quarters throughout the 20th century, and in fact in the early 1970's living there they still could not send their kids to school and the only water they had was from a well. Of course, when the well broke nobody wanted to fix it for them so they had to walk to get water across the highway. - The NYSE - yes, the New York Stock Exchange - got is start to profit off of the enslaved and is a fundamental part of white supremacy. I guess our guide isn't into Nvidia or Microsoft or GE stock. - Enslavers never freed the enslaved. Never. Well, that is not what they tell you in Mt Vernon or Monticello, where we have been and history is not right out of PRAVDA. Our tour guide was very animated, and did a great job telling us these stories. Literally like an AI robot, or brainwashed press secretary, or maybe even one of the crazies in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest who really really was a neurosurgeon. You need to go there to hear this and maybe think about our future if todays kids listen to and believe this alternate history.

[Coronavirus review] The story I was told included this place being beautified by its former owners to make it look less like a factory farm, and the county recently purchasing the property and refurbishing it for public viewing. The preserved area isn't huge and it is urban, so you'll see cars whizzing by. However, it is very convenient to downtown Charleston, and the embeddedness of its context perhaps leaves an impression that a more remote site would not. The one tour on offer was socially distant, with rope squares for tour guides to stand in. Mine seemed to know his history and talked about the broader story of the Civil War. It was a short tour, supplemented by some signage. There seemed to me to be the potential to do more education in the space (and perhaps they will when viral contagion is less pressing), but even right now I thought it worth a detour.

If you're going to pay $20 admission, do yourself the favor and catch the guided tour. We did the 12:30 tour on a Sunday and what was quoted at an hour took about an hour and a half, but our tour guide Irsa was a wealth of knowledge and hit on all the points. Appreciated the stories of the McLeod plantation and history of sea island cotton, plus the stories of the enslaved and their descendants stretching all the way to the 1990s! Highly recommend visiting if you love history and want to learn more about the rich history in and around Charleston.

Such an enlightening and enriching experience! This place really teaches true, honest history which is what we came for! Paul, our tour guide, was phenomenal!!! Would highly recommend this plantation, and the guided tour is a MUST!

Great tour of the plantain. Tour guide goes in detail and explains it all to the public. 5/5 stars!!

If you can only go to ONE plantation, go to this one. This one is unique in presenting slavery FROM the perspective of the enslaved. This is a profound difference from other places. Our guide, John was excellent and you felt that he spoke from his soul. I love how he wanted to find out where we were from, which was a perfect segue into where the enslaved came from as well. The mansion has no furniture in it and when I asked why I was told that they didn't want the emphasis to be on the pretty furniture, but rather on the beautiful people that made it what it was. Indeed Charlestin was built on the backs of the enslaved and it is due time that is recognized. Another important work that the McLeod Plantation is focused on is the research and naming of the enslaved that are buried in nameless buried plots in the cemetery. Such an awesome and life-saving job. Just loved everything about this plantation and its quest to explore in a deep and unpretentious way the realities of life on a plantation. Go. Go and see. Go and support.

Extremely powerful tour focusing on the stories of enslaved people and their journey to freedom. Highly recommend Paul's tour - he does not shy away from difficult topics and invites people to challenge their preconceptions of "plantations" aka forced labor camps. The exhibits showcase forgotten and suppressed voices, and skillfully show how our current society is still linked with the racism and brutality of the past. Thank you Paul and team for an incredible tour and for your unwavering dedication to sharing these important histories.

We had the best tour guide. Very nice, easy and relaxing. Lots of history and the staff is very knowledgeable. Beautiful grounds to see and walk. Glad we got to experience this McLeod plantation tour

We have 3 children's ages 5 - 11 and knew we had to select a plantation tour carefully because of their attention spans and also based on what would be appropriate. We travel on a budget and have to be mindful of the cost for a family of 5. We asked all around which of the options in the area might be best and every time locals responded nonchalantly without much of an opinion. I can't tell you how or why we picked this one but wowwww, we LOVED IT. Noah did a phenomenal job as our tour guide and I highly recommend visiting for a tour. Their are historians on site still connecting to families of the original enslaved today! The tour respectfully shared the experience of life on the plantation for all people residing there and in a way that we weren't having to cover any ears. It was honest and honoring, also very sad of course. After visiting the big house, the cabins, and seeing some of the land we lingered around on the grounds and had a picnic. The tunnel of trees are stunning but planted later by a relative who used the plantation as a tourist destination. So much to learn. Highly recommend!

A truly informative and sobering guided tour of the property, its history and the role it played in our country's struggle to face the reality and truth of slavery.

Loved our visit to this site. It was very illuminating around our true history. Tour done by true historians. Recommended.

We were visiting family nearby in Charleston and took half a day to visit the McLeod Plantation Historic Site. In addition to spending part of our time at the site doing a self-guided tour, we spent a few hours on a guided tour. Our guide was wonderful; he was a history major in college and he really knew all about the site, and the history that surrounded so much that had gone on there. We are grateful for all the extra things he shared, like turning on to 'Stony the Road', a wonderful and mind-opening book by Henry Louis Gates Jr. written about the Reconstruction Period and its impact on our nation. Worth your time. Worth a visit.

As I'm a complete sucker for historical tours, I needed to do one on my first weekend in Charleston, and chose McLeod Plantation because I'm very interested in what slavery was like in the South before the Civil War. They offer a guided tour here, so of course I took it. Interestingly enough, the interior of the main house is not part of the guided tour, so I had to go back and see it myself afterwards. The areas of the plantation the tour does cover are interesting, but there isn't all that much to see. Apparently the McLeods were considered middle class, but even middle class families had slaves back then. The main mansion has been restored, but the interior of the house is unfurnished; they use the space for pictures that you can look at as part of self-guided tours.

Very informative visit and learned a lot on the brief tour. Kudos to them for having the tour guide have a speaker with them to make it easy for everyone to hear them; they also apparently have an app if you want to walk around yourself. Incredible to believe people were living in some of the houses until 1990. If you're going for a romanticized version of plantation life you will be disappointed, but if you want to learn about the reality/history, definitely work checking out. Quite close to Folly Beach and Charleston as well.

One of the worst tour experiences in my life. If I could give this place zero stars, that would be an overstatement. The house had been stripped of period furniture/artifacts and replaced with contemporary kid's artwork and other information that had nothing to do with the plantation. Then came the worst part of the experience - the tour. The tour guide was so paranoid of COVID that he made everyone stand more than 15 feet from him - if you got too close, he would put out his hand and back up without explaining why he was doing this. Then he proceeded to preach to us about "white privilege" and lay guilt trips on any white person in the group as if we had been slave owners ourselves (by the way, our tour guide was white). I fully understand how horrific slavery was, but I was expecting a tour with facts as opposed to activist opinions. His final comment was that America is no different today then it was over two centuries ago. This was a complete waste of my time and money.

Most informative and interesting tour provided. Great access to site. Would be my number 1 recommendation if you can only see one plantation. The only one that really counts.

Loved how the tour was told from the perspective of the enslaved. If you want to know the real story and not just visit a privately owned estate that will solely focus on how great it was for the owners. Coming from California I now have a different perspective on plantations and the people who worked there. If you want the real story of the McLeod Plantation and don't want too many people around I highly advise you to visit. Lastly, I like how they told us that the current condition of the estate was solely for show only and it didn't look like that as a working plantation.

Amazing tour! Gave a well-researched, in-depth, historically accurate account of the lives lived here. Myself, my husband and two teenage children came away with a much better understanding of the history and legacy of this plantation and others like it.

Just about everyone I spoke to in regards to visiting Historic Sites in Charleston, S.C. told me that McLeod Plantation was a must and I can certainly see why. This is only the second of many Plantations in the United States where the stories were told about the early Slavery days, from the Slaves' point of view. Only what they saw and only how they lived. The second Plantation is in New Orleans called the Whitney Plantation. We never really checked out what time the tour started and got to the Plantation, located on James Island, where so many Plantations occupied. We got there before 10:00 am and the nice and knowledgeable lady who ran the museum where you got tickets for the tour for a reasonable price, told us we could actually tour this ourselves if we did not want to wait for the guide. How were we to do this? Genious!!! She had an IPhone App that was already downloaded on her phone that we could control each part of the tour of the Plantation by pressing on the number of each location we were standing at. We could go back and forth and repeat and learn on our own. Maybe not as complete as the regular tour guide, but we had the freedom to take our time and do this to try to understand more of the history of this important time in our history. We could of downloaded this on our own, but she was so nice to let us use her phone. McLeod's Plantation was a Sea Cotton Plantation farmed by slaves in the early to late 1800's. Sea Cotton has not grown on this plantation for over 100 years, but the seeds are starting to become available again now as they are trying now to grow again here, which will take many more years to develop. The "MAIN HOUSE" where the McLeod's lived as slave owners was definitely what we thought it would be although not a big "mansion" sized house. For certain, we were brought back to the 1850's and beyond by being able to see all the original items in the house. The original brick stairs leading up to this beautiful "Gone With the Wind" style house, rocking chairs on the porch, the old piano which really was amazing to actually see one from that time. There were story boards up in the rooms explaining the times between the Confederate occupation to the years the slaves fought for rights after the Emancipation during which the McLeod's returned to the Plantation. We could read this at our own pace. We were only allowed on the first level of the house and could not go up the wooden stairs. Being able to go from each of the small, "cold" shacks the slaves resided in on the property was really quite chilling, just to think how they lived and treated by the slave owners. We could look into these dwellings from outside the entrance doors, all having a fireplace for warmth a small area and some shelves. Although this was a different time in American History which shaped our future, just looking at these very small dwellings and the cotton fields that they faced, it almost seemed unbelievable that the country we know today would or could ever experience inhuman treatment of human beings known as "property" to the slave owners of this time. For that reason, this tour is a MUST SEE and MUST LEARN, and to feel yourself standing on the very soil that this took place on. After the tour we walked around the grounds and saw the very old Oak Trees, one being over 300 years old. If this tree had eyes, it saw it all. The building that the tour started in and that you get the tickets in had books and souvenirs to purchase. In the middle is an old Cotton Gin, that separated the seeds out of the Sea Cotton. The nice woman who was running the tours showed us how it worked. In fact she answered a lot of questions for us and supplied additional information we did not get on the self guided tour. Next time we visit Charleston, I want to go on the guided tour here. The weather was quite cold this week and during the spring, summer or fall will be a lot better. I would advise to check out the tour times, go early and get the tickets there or they can be bought on line. This part of our history shaped where we are today and disagreements on the subject of slavery between the Union and the Confederacy was the cause of the biggest war that shaped our history. For that reason, this is a tour that all Americans should experience.

My family and I visited this afternoon and really enjoyed the reception center, the house, and the grounds, but the walking tour was completely tainted by inappropriate political rhetoric of "white supremacy" then and today. My family could barely recount any of the historical information about the site because of all of the repeated unnecessary political comments. It is my opinion that this venue should remain neutral of personal opinions and divisive topics. Stick to the historical facts not blatant political opinions. So unfortunate for such a beautiful place.

I came to Charleston to take in the History and food.,one of the stops was the McCloud Plantation. The narrative given by our guide provided rich history on the plantation and its slaves rich history was eye opening. Hearing their history and rich story gave a unique perspective on the land and area. I highly recommend adding the McCloud plantation to your list of must sees

Fascinating tour. Itis was our tour guide and was an absolute wealth of knowledge. Grounds are beautiful and we even got to see Sea Island cotton plants (no longer allowed to be grown in the US so it was cool). Highly recommend. And don't forget to tip your tour guide. We weee the only people out of a group 20* that tipped.

After researching plantations in the Charleston area we settled on this one because of the focus on the enslaved people rather than the plantation owners. Kat was an amazing guide sharing with us the history of the enslaved people at McLeod plantation and their generational struggle. She was extremely knowledgeable and the passion with which she presented the history was inspiring. We would highly recommend this plantation and the guided tour to anyone who wants a true picture of life on a southern plantation.

We took a guided tour with Toby yesterday and it ended up being the highlight of our trip to Charleston. This is an incredibly powerful tour that focuses on the enslaved people that lived here and does a great job at honoring them. If you're going to visit a plantation, this is what you should be learning. All of the staff were great, but Toby made the experience that much better.

Let me just emphasize this: you do not go to this site for the home, you go for the guided tour of the property. The house does not have any period furniture, but it does have some interesting information about archaeological research on the property. The guided tour is the star of this site and is a must-see in Charleston. Paul led us and he was fantastic and informative. He helped my grandma across the property as it was not wheelchair accessible. The tour explored the transition period from enslaved people to freed people. I have visited many plantations, or the correct term we learned, privately-owned slave labor camps. I learned new information and from a different perspective than I've ever experienced on a tour. I highly recommend.