Agriculture has always been an important part of our lives here in South Carolina!
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“P” is for Pinckney, Eliza Lucas [ca. 1722-1793]. Planter. Matriarch. Born in the West Indies, Eliza Lucas moved to South Carolina with her family in the 1730s. In 1739, her father returned to the...
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A 1930 photograph of a group of African American laborers cultivating with hoes. Hoe culture was the predominant method of working the soil in traditional African agricultural societies, and the hoe...
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This engraving, also from the 1785 Henry Mouzon map cartouche shows all the main steps in the production of indigo. The plants were harvested in bundles before the stems became woody, then immediately...
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Workers in the fields harvest the indigo plant during the hot summer months. Engraving from a French book, around 1760. Indigo was a good complement to rice as a crop. Indigo grew well in the high...
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Beginning in 1740, experiments by Eliza Lucas (who later married Charles Pinckney - see Charles Pinckney's Town House) led to the successful cultivation of indigo, the source of a rich blue dye so...
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African-American workers thresh rice with a flail around 1910, a technique that is probably African in its origins. Lowcountry planters in colonial South Carolina sought out slaves from the Rice Coast...
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Workers on the Hobcaw Barony plantation around 1900 are "pounding rice the hard way," according to the caption. This pounding system is African in origin. The blows loosen the husks from the rice...
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Winnowing house on the Mansfield Plantation in Georgetown County. Rice was brought into the upper story of the winnowing house, and was slowly sifted through a hole in the floor. As the heavier...
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Winnowing rice with a fanner basket near Beaufort, in 1907. The sweet grass baskets now sold as decorative items in Charleston area open air markets were originally essential pieces of home and field...
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Harvesting rice, using modern methods and a tractor. Photo by Stan Lewis, around 1950. Courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.