Īfter three years of persistence and many failed attempts, Eliza proved that indigo could be successfully grown and processed in South Carolina. In experimenting with growing indigo in new climate and soil, Lucas relied on the knowledge and skills of enslaved Africans who had grown indigo in the West Indies and West Africa. When Colonel Lucas sent Eliza indigofera seeds in 1740, she expressed her "greater hopes" for them, as she intended to plant them earlier in the season. Starting in 1739, she began experimenting with cultivating and improving strains of the indigo plant, for which the expanding textile market created demand for its dye. First, she experimented with ginger, cotton, alfalfa and hemp. They and other planters were eager to find crops for the uplands that could supplement their cultivation of rice. It gives insight into her mind and into the society of the time.įrom Antigua, Colonel Lucas sent Eliza various types of seeds for trial on the plantations. This letter book is one of the most impressive collections of personal writings of an 18th-century American woman. As was customary, she recorded her decisions and experiments by copying letters in a letter book. In addition, she supervised care for her extremely young sister, as their two brothers were still in school in London. Įliza was 16 years old when she became responsible for managing Wappoo Plantation and its twenty slaves, plus supervising overseers at two other Lucas plantations, one inland producing tar and timber, and a 3,000 acres (12 km 2) rice plantation on the Waccamaw River. Her mother died shortly after they moved. Eliza's letters to him show that she regarded her father with great respect and deep affection, and demonstrated that she acted as head of the family in terms of managing the plantations. England's involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession thwarted his attempts to move back to South Carolina with his family. He was appointed lieutenant governor of the island. In 1739, Colonel Lucas had to return to his post in Antigua to deal with the political conflict between England and Spain. They chose to reside at Wappoo, which was 17 miles by land to Charleston (then known as Charles Town) and six miles by river. Eliza's grandfather, John Lucas, had acquired three tracts of land: Garden Hill on the Combahee River (1,500 acres), another 3,000 acres on the Waccamaw River, and Wappoo Plantation (600 acres) on Wappoo Creek-a tidal creek that connected the Ashley and Stono Rivers. With tensions increasing between Spain and England, he believed his family would be safer in Carolina than on the tiny, exposed island in the West Indies. In 1738, the year Eliza would turn 16, Colonel Lucas moved his family from Antigua to South Carolina, where he had inherited three plantations from his father. She wrote to her father that she felt her "education, which esteems a more valuable fortune than any could have given, … Will make me happy in my future life." Move to South Carolina and career She treasured her education at boarding school, where studies included French and music, but she said her favorite subject was botany. During this period, many parents believed that girls' futures of being wives and mothers made education in more than " the three Rs" and social accomplishments less necessary. Girls would not be sent until their mid-teens when nearing marriageable age. It was customary for elite colonists to send boys to England for their education when they might be as young as 8 or 9. Lucas sent all their children to London for schooling. She had two brothers, Thomas, and George, and a younger sister Mary (known to her family as Polly). She was the eldest child of Lieutenant Colonel George Lucas, of Dalzell's Regiment of Foot in the British Army, and Ann (probably Meldrum) Lucas. Lucas grew up on Poorest, one of her family's three sugarcane plantations on the island. In the 20th century, Eliza Pinckney was the first woman to be inducted into South Carolina's Business Hall of Fame.Įlizabeth (known as Eliza) Lucas was born on December 28, 1722, on the island of Antigua, in the colony of the British Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. Manager of three plantations, Pinckney had a major influence on the colonial economy. Its cultivation and processing as dye produced one-third the total value of the colony's exports before the Revolutionary War. American planter and agriculturalist (1722–1793)Įlizabeth "Eliza" Lucas Pinckney (Decem– May 27, 1793) transformed agriculture in colonial South Carolina, where she developed indigo as one of its most important cash crops.
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