Rice

Carolina Plantation Rice in Darlington has devoted a portion of its rice acreage to the cultivation of true “Carolina Gold” rice. Visit them online at carolinaplantationrice.com.

Throughout the 1700s the economy of South Carolina was based overwhelmingly on the cultivation of rice. This product brought consistently high prices in England, and the colony prospered and expanded. South Carolina become one of the richest of the North American colonies; and Charles Towne (now Charleston), its capital and principal port, one of the wealthiest and most fashionable cities in early America.

The South Carolina planters were, at first, completely ignorant of rice cultivation, and their early experiments were mostly failures. They soon recognized the advantage of importing enslaved people from the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa. The South Carolina rice planters were willing to pay higher prices for enslaved individuals from the “Rice Coast,” the “Windward Coast,” Gambia, and Sierra-Leone, and slave traders in Africa soon learned that South Carolina was an especially profitable market for laborers from those areas. 

The South Carolina and Georgia colonists adopted a system of rice cultivation that drew heavily on the labor patterns and technical knowledge of their enslaved Africans. During the growing season, the laborers on the rice plantations moved through the fields in a line, hoeing rhythmically and singing work songs to keep in unison. At harvest time, the women processed the rice by pounding it in large wooden mortars with pestles, virtually identical to those used in West Africa, and then “fanning” the rice in large round winnowing baskets to separate the grain and chaff. The enslaved people may also have contributed to the system of sluices, banks, and ditches used on the South Carolina and Georgia rice plantations.

South Carolina’s growing population of enslaved individuals was largely due to the Low Country’s suitability to rice culture. Rice was both incredibly labor intensive and incredibly profitable. Not only did rice planters need more help than other planters, they could afford it as well.

Many of the enslaved settling in the Pee Dee region were accustomed to growing rice and planted small plots for their own use. You can read more about these rice fields, specifically in the Mars Bluff area in Amelia Vernon Wallace’s book African Americans at Mars Bluff, South Carolina, available for purchase at the Florence Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Note: Information from www.yale.edu and www.sciway.net.