Rice in the Low Country of South Carolina
ENGL-135: Advanced Composition
DeVry University Online
Professor Berardi-Rogers

Rice in the Low Country of South Carolina

According to local history the rice seed was brought to the low country of South Carolina in 1672 and by 1691 the General Assembly was allowing the plantation owners to pay their taxes in rice. Rice flourished in the low country of South Carolina which encompasses the southern coastal areas between the rivers and the ocean. The black slaves in the area where from Gambia River area of Africa where rice was grown. These slaves taught the whites how to use their tidal rivers to plant and grow great crops of rice call South Carolina Gold. (Rice and Slavery: A Fatal Gold Seede) Rice was the money making crop for Antebellum South Carolina, it was a labor intensive crop which produced great riches for the white plantation owners and caused great trial and tribulations for the black slaves.

Rice became the staple crop for the southern coastal regions of South Carolina. The rice fields were built by African slaves brought to the low country for this specific purpose. They taught the white plantation owners how to make this crop thrive. It made many white men rich.

The rice fields were great works of art. “Historical archeologists have found evidence from records that the embankments were six or more feet tall and 15 feet wide. When compared to building the Egyptian Pyramids, the amount of dirt moved along just the East Branch of the Cooper River was estimated to be three times the volume of the world’s largest pyramid-Cheops.” (Carney, J. 2001) It started with the clearing of the marsh lands were cyprus trees, razor sharp swamp grass, and other underbrush grew in abundance. When the field hands were done, acres of marsh land became smooth rice fields. Embankments were built as stated above six feet tall and 15 feet wide. Great trunks that let the water in and out of the fields as need were built from the cyprus trees. These trunks were massive and hand crafted by the artisan slaves. (Alston, J, 1953) All of this work was actually taught to the owners of the plantations by the slaves they imported for this specific reason. The great owners of the plantations would never admit that their simple minded slaves were smart enough to actually create what would be come on of the largest export crops in South Carolina. (Carney, J. 2001)

(Carney, Judith, 2001) Tidal swamp conversion, South Carolina

Once the embankments were built and the trunks were working it was time to start planting the rice in the fields. “April was planting month. Workers tried to get all of the rice planted by the 1st of May.” (Joyner, Charles. 1985) Rice was soaked in clay before it was planted so it would not rise to the top when it was covered by water. As soon as the rice was planted the water was allowed into the fields at high tide to cover the newly planted seeds. This first flooding remained on the rice for about 3 days until the seed sprouted, then the great trunks were opened at low tide to allow the water drain from the fields. Once the water was drained the field was hoed for weeds and then the rice was once again flooded. The water was drained many times, but only partially to hoe and then it was re-flooded. This cycle was followed until September at which time the rice was harvested. (Joyner, Charles. 1985)

The water was stagnant from May until September as it sat un-moving on the rice fields. The mosquitoes became a problem causing malaria which was one of the major causes of death in this area. The plantation owners learned to leave their plantations for the beach and pine land, while the slaves suffered in the heat with the mosquitoes and died.

The plantation owners and their families lived privileged lives during the antebellum years. Rice provided the wealth and classified them as part of the elite society of the low country of South Carolina. They were the best families with the oldest and best family names. The Alstons, Pringles, Balls, Rutledges, Deas, and Flaggs are some of the names you would have recognized during this time. These names are actually still very prevalent in this area today in white and black families. Their homes were large with furniture which was imported from Europe alongside pieces made by the plantation slaves. Everything was done for the owners by their slaves; from cooking, cleaning, dressing, combing of hair, and raising children. The slaves were also the ones who planted, grew, and harvest the rice that created the riches for their owners.

Elizabeth Alston Pringle grew up on the Chicora Woods Plantation. She wrote that when her mother, Adele Petrigu Alston, first married her father and moved to the country (that is what they considered there plantation homes) she cried because there were too many house servants and she could not find enough work for them all to do. It took most of her morning just to plan what each servant’s (slave) task was for that day. (Pringle, E. 1922) Each family had multiple homes that were fully staffed with servants. One home was a plantation home, another there was their summer home either in the pine lands or on the beach, and then they would have a town home in Charleston, SC. (Pringle, E. 1922) They moved from house to house according to the season. During the summer it was un-healthy to live at the plantation because the air caused country fever (malaria) so the families moved to their summer home. The social season in Charleston where these great families came together to create marriages and combine fortunes was during the late fall. The families would then return to their plantation sometime in November and the process would begin again. (Ball, E. 1998)

Chicora Woods Plantation (Pringle E. 1922)

The Ball family decedents had a joke among themselves that when plantation children became so white that you could see through them that they had intermarried much too often. (Ball E., 1998) The Plantation families kept their money and plantations within the family. It was not uncommon for first cousins to marry and eventually most of the plantation owners were either directly or distantly related. (Ball E, 1998) This was a class system and you could not marry out of your class although you could marry a person of title from Europe. Though it is know that plantation owners or the “Maussa” did quite commonly spend time with the women servants and produce children. This was never discussed by plantation families and these children were still considered slaves and were often sold off to other plantations once they came of age to prevent a scandal. (Ball, E. 1998) All of this opulence ended with the Civil War. Growing rice was a labor intensive and required a large work force which was not longer available once the war was over. The rice culture and the money it produced died completely out by the 1920’s. (Joyner, C. 1985) The plantation owners were bankrupt, and living in poverty. They continued to try to maintain their homes but most were either lost or sold to northern hunters and sportsmen as hunting lodges. A few of the families held on to at least one of their homes but lost others. Elizabeth Pringle continued to plant and cultivate rice alone on her two plantations until the 1920’s with what she considered a lazy and demoralized black community.
“My father gave prizes for the best workers in the different processes, and they felt a great pride in being the prize ploughman or ditcher or hoe hand of the year; but now, alas, poor things, they have been so confused and muddled by the mistaken ideas and standards held out to them that they have no pride in honest work, no pride in anything but to wear fine clothes and get ahead of the man who employs them to do a job.” (Pringle, E. 1904) What the planters felt were the best of times were over and they would try to recover these times by enacting laws, humiliating and belittling the very people who broke their backs to raise their crops and children while creating the very fortunes that they had lost.

While the plantation owners were living in grandeur, with large homes and plenty of food and clothing, the servants or field hands as the slaves were called had a totally different experience. Slavery had existed in South Carolina as long as the colony had existed. In the early years (before rice was grown) slavery existed on a smaller scale, but with the introduction of rice it grew expedientially. By the time of the Civil War blacks outnumbered whites in the low country of South Carolina. (Rice and Slavery: Fatal Gold Seede) Slavery was an institution that cause even good men to treat others in ways that are unthinkable.
Slaves in rice fields (Joyner, C. 1985)

The Africans brought the knowledge of rice planting with them to their new homes in South Carolina. Without this knowledge, the white plantation families would never have had the kind of prosperity that they enjoyed so much. But the white families did not see it that way, they saw the black men and women as sub-humans. These so called sub-humans with the brains of children were never given the credit they were due for teaching the whites to plant one of the most profitable crops know to the low country. (Carney, J. 2001) Instead the slaves were treated like animals; bought, sold and beaten. Ben Horry described in an interview with Genevieve Chandler how his mother was beaten for what the “Maussa” thought was very severe offence.
“The worst thing I members was the colored oberseer. He was the one straight from Africa. He the boss over all the mens and womens and if omans don’t do he say, he lay task on ‘em they aint able to do. My mother won’t do all he say. When he say, ‘You co barn and stay till I come,’ she ain’t do em. So he have it in for my an lay task on ‘em she ain’t able for do. Then for punishment my mother is take to the barn a strapped down on thing call the Pony. Hands spread like this and strapped to the floor and all to both she feet been tied like this. And she been given twenty five to fifty lashes tile the blood flow.” (Chandler, G. 1936-1938)
There was never enough food and whippings thought not an everyday thing were common. When the rice fields were filled with water for months at a time, the mosquitoes became an infestation. (Joyner, C. 1985) The white families left the plantations during the sick season and headed to their beach homes, their pine land homes, or spend the summer abroad and left the black families to die of malaria. But still the white families felt they treated their slaves like cherished children.

Because the white plantation families left their plantation for over 6 months out of the year, the slaves were left on the plantation with minimal supervision. On one Allston plantation, there were over 100 slaves set up in communities or streets and these communities grew into a culture now called “Gullah”. It was diverse culture which included the “Gullah” language. Gullah is a mixture of different African dialects and English. Most people considered it poor English or lazy English but it is actually its own language. It helped different African dialects to be able to converse with each other and with the white families on the plantations. Though it sounded like bad English its verbs and nouns worked like the African language. For example: “if unna kyant behave unna self, I’ll tek yu straight home.” This actual meant if you can’t behave yourself I will take you home. (Joyner, C. 1985)

Though the white “Maussa” taught the enslaved Africans the Christian religion, the black slaves took what they were taught and enhanced it with their African spirituality. It included the Christian belief of Jesus, but also added a spiritual belief in herbs and healing practices. These beliefs were brought from Africa and also included focusing on the supernatural such as ghosts, hants, and hexes. (American Slave Narratives 1936-1938) Hagar Brown a former slave explained to Genevieve Chandler during an interview about hants; “Dey juss lak-uh-we. But they come in all fashion. Come in any kind of how. Suck yuh en draw yuh blood. Freraed uv’um.” (Chandler, G. 1936-1938) Along the Sea Islands of South Carolina Gullah peoples still practice the Gullah ways and speech. The show Gullah Gullah Island brought a view of this culture to Nickelodeon.

The Civil War changed everything for the enslaved people on the plantations. Being free was just the beginning of more trials and tribulations. Understand that these black families had lived in their cabin on these plantations for generations. They felt that the plantation was as much theirs as it was the white families. Though they wanted to be free and move on but they still questioned the loss of their home. Didn’t their great-grandfather build the “Maussa’s” big house? Who cleared, dug and build the rice field? Where were they going to go? So many stayed. They took pride in the work they had done to create these great plantations and the cultivated rice field. The newly freed slaves felt that maybe they would have a stake in what happened. They were promised 40 acres and mule by the President of the United States. The “Maussa” took advantage of this.

The freedmen were told they could stay and continue to live where they always had, as long as they continued with the work they always did. They forgot to tell them that they could work for wage that couldn’t keep a dog alive. The black families now continued to work but in some instances had less than they did during slavery time. (Joyner, C. 1984) In some instances this caused the freed slaves to look back with longing for the “old timey days.” (Chandler, G. 1936-1938) Freedom was a hard road for the black families they were stalked, belittled, killed for wanting the freedoms they were promised and forced to live in a different kind of slavery, but they continued to move forward first in small steps and then in larger ones. The fight still continues today.

Great fortunes were had from rice production from the beginning of the 17th century until the Civil War. The white planters lived in ways that we could not imagine today because they lived off the labor of their black slaves. Rice was brought to the low country on a slave ship and grown by slaves who grew this very rice in their native African lands. (Carney, J. 2001) Rice brought riches and opulence to the low country for the plantation owners and pain and suffering in unimaginable ways to their black slaves. The consequences of rice production and slavery have left marks along the South Carolina Coast. We now have a rich Gullah culture here that is being preserved through research and oral history. Now the rice fields are great swamp lands where ducks and hunters abound, but when you take your boat out into these old fields you can almost hear the sound of the old slave songs…. “Stay in the field! Stay in the field! Stay in the field till the war been end!”
(Chandler, G. 1936-1938)
Remember if you ever visit the low country of South Carolina that hants are real and rice is served with every meal.

Reference

Alston, J. (1999). Rice planter and sportsman. University of South Carolina Press.
The memoirs of J. Motte Alston showing us what it was like to be of the white planters class in South Carolina. He explains extensively how rice is planted and growing the tidal rivers of South Carolina. Speak generously of the slave population on his plantation.

Ball, E. (1998). Slaves in the family. New York: Ballantine Books.
“There are five things we do not talk about in the Ball family,” he would say. “Religion, sex, death, money and the Negroes.” The story of a South Carolina plantation family and how their lives interacted and affected the black families enslaved on these plantation.

Carney, J. (2001). Black Rice. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Rice was brought to South Carolina on a slave ship along with the black African slaves. These slaves were sold to plantation owners and treated as sub-human while they taught their “masters” how to cultivate rice and made them very rich men.

Chandler, G. (1936-1938). American Slave Narratives [Interviews with Horry, B. and Brown, H]
Retrieved March 24, 2011, from University of Virginia database. During the depression in American the WPA paid men and women to interview the “negroes” that were born into slavery. The interview contains a wealth of oral history that would otherwise have been lost.

Joyner, C. (1985). Down by the riverside. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
The lives of slaves in the All Saints Parish, Georgetown District, in the South Carolina Lowcountry was hard, but produced its own culture and language (Gullah). This book describes what their lives were like not just from a slavery perspective, but also from a culturally perspective.

Pringle, E. (1976) Chronicles of Chicora Wood. Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Company.
Elizabeth Alston Pringle writes about her life in the South Carolina Lowcountry during the antebellum period. She explains the lowcountry rice culture and her view on the lives of the slaves at Chicora Wood Plantation.

West, J. Rice and Slavery: A Fatal Gold Seede. Retrieved March 26, 2011 from http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_rice.htm
The planting of rice in South Carolina directly affected the number of slaves bought and sold. As rice products grew so did the number of slaves until the white population was actually outnumbered not only on their plantations but actually in town