Her family moved to South Carolina when she was still a child, and her mother died soon after. When Eliza was 16, her father had to return to the West Indies, and she assumed the management of his three plantations. Eliza was soon making high-quality blue indigo dye that was in great demand in England. She encouraged other planters to follow suit and created a new industry. Within two years indigo ranked second only to rice as a South Carolina export crop.
Eliza also began producing flax, hemp, silk, and figs. In , she married a widower, Charles Pinckney, a Chief Justice of the Province, and they had four children, Charles Cotesworth, Thomas, another son who died, and a daughter, Harriott. After her marriage, Eliza continued experiments with hemp and flax and revived the silk culture in the Lowcountry. She took over management of her husband's several plantations and Charles Town properties after his death in Charles C.
Pinckney continued his mother's love for experimental farming and was an early planter of sea island cotton, a grade of cotton excellent for use in high-quality goods. He shared his scientific knowledge with fellow planters, just as his mother had shared hers. Eliza Pinckney copied her correspondence in a letterbook, which has been preserved, providing extraordinary insight into Colonial life in the Lowcountry, and which reveals her own strong personality, intelligence, and convictions.
A sample from a letter to a friend:. I am making a large plantation of Oaks which I look upon as my own property, whether my father gives me the land or not; and therefore I design many years hence when oaks are more valuable than they are now—which you know they will be when we come to build fleets [ships].
I intend, I say, 2 thirds of the produce of my oaks for a charity I'll let you know my scheme another time and the other 3rd for those that shall have the trouble of putting my design in Execution. Eliza Lucas Pinckney lived to see her sons achieve prominence and America win its Revolution. Even after the move, Pinckney's father, George Lucas, remained involved in the military and political affairs of Antigua. Less than a year after their arrival in South Carolina, with the outbreak of the War of Jenkin's Ear, a trade-motivated war between England and Spain, the British government recalled Lucas to the West Indies where he served in the military and eventually became Lieutenant Governor of Antigua.
Upon her Father's removal to Antigua, and with her Mother's continuing illness, Pinckney assumed the management of the family's three Carolina plantations. In a letter, Pinckney describes a typical day:. The first hour after breakfast is spent at my musick sic , the next is constantly employed in recollecting something I have learned least for want of practice it should be quite lost, such as French and short hand.
After that I devote the rest of the time till I dress for dinner to our little Polly her younger sister and two black girls who I teach to read. After dinner she did needle work, read and wrote letters. She also devoted her time to visiting neighbors and taking care of plantation business, of which her father left her "a pretty good share.
Part of Pinckney's copious letter writing included corresponding regularly with her Father, offering updates concerning the plantations and the family. In turn, he sent her West Indian seeds for cultivation, an exchange that would alter the economy of the region and the broader Atlantic world. In an effort to generate a profit on their mortgaged plantation, Pinckney experimented with many tropical plants, including figs, cassava, ginger, cotton, and lucerne — a type of alfalfa, all in the attempt to find a suitable cash crop.
Yet as she said, she had "greater hopes from the Indigo. Pinckney is notable not only as a cosmopolitan, educated, and quick-witted woman, an ardent patriot in her later years, but also as the first to successfully and profitably grow and process indigo in South Carolina. In so doing, she became known as the originator of one of South Carolina's most important early cash crops. Her actions had wide consequences, ultimately affecting markets on a global scale. Eliza Lucas Pinckney's introduction of indigo into the American colonies played an important role in the on-going biological transfer between regions as well as changes in the global market, connecting Pinckney and the American South to the Atlantic World, from Europe to the Caribbean to Africa.
Though difficult to grow and process, indigo produces a vivid blue dye that is still used across the world to color fabrics. By the middle of the seventeenth century, indigo had become a primary export commodity of the European colonies in the West Indies and the Americas. The production of indigo dye in Pinckney's time was a labor intensive procedure.
In order to produce the dye, farmers grew the indigo plants, itself a delicate endeavor, then harvested the plants and submitted them to an intricate extraction process. Identifying the peak harvest time was vital to achieving a vivid color.
Workers, usually slaves, threw the freshly cut plants into a large wooden vat, covered the plants with water, and pounded them until they began to ferment, a process taking approximately eight to twenty hours. The mixture had to be tended the entire time, day and night. Once the water began to turn blue, thicken, and bubble, workers, again usually slaves, moved the liquid to the next vat where they continuously churned it.
When the dye particles began to separate from the water, workers allowed the mixture to settle and siphoned off the liquid.
They transferred the residue to a third vat to sit for eight to ten hours, then strained the paste and hung it in cloth bags to drain. As the indigo hardened, laborers cut it into squares, and again left it to dry in the shade until completely hard and shippable. While drying, the squares needed to be turned three or four times a day and protected from flies and sun; if exposed to direct sunlight before drying, the indigo will lose its color and much of its value.
Overall, the process was highly labor intensive at every step, requiring a great deal of oversight and physical toil, not to mention dealing with the nauseating smell of fermenting indigo. As slaves performed most of this labor, Pinckney tied herself into global networks not only through her role as an early innovator in the cultivation of indigo in South Carolina, but also through her utilization of slave labor. Though indigo was not completely new to the area, Pinckney's timing was fortunate.
Meanwhile, the same imperial war that drove her father back to Antigua also cut off British consumers from their traditional indigo markets, as did the following War of the Austrian Succession from and the French and Indian War beginning in According to historian G. Terry Sharrer, "the imperial wars in the 18 th century gave American dye producers a near monopoly on the English market.
In opposition to large, heavy barrels of rice, small cubes of indigo could be transported on a few well-protected ships. After her successful crop in , Pinckney distributed indigo seeds to her neighbors, initiating an indigo revolution in South Carolina. Indigo became the highland staple of the state, the niche rice filled for the lowlands. And finally the youngest son, Thomas, was born in Motherhood was an exciting new experiment that Eliza took on happily.
She was able to send a substantial export of indigo to England. England responded by issuing a bounty to Carolina planters in an effort to cut out the French from dominating the market.
The crop could be grown on land not suited for rice and tended by slaves, so planters and farmers already committed to plantation agriculture did not have to reconfigure their land and labor.
England received almost all Carolina indigo exports, although by the s a small percentage was being shipped to northern colonies. By the beginning of the American Revolution, indigo made up one third of the exports from South Carolina.
In less than fifty years, the market had grown substantially. However, the tension with the British and the establishment of the East India Trading Company led to the diminishing of the Carolina indigo trade. Today, indigo is an important symbol in South Carolina. Eliza Lucas Pinckney had an impact on South Carolina that is lasting.
References Eliza Lucas Pinckney.
0コメント