The Landscape of the Black Majority

One of the first crops to be planted by settlers in Charleston was rice, which failed. It was reintroduced in 1685, with improved seed from Madagascar but several years would pass before the techniques necessary for its cultivation were mastered.

The first black Carolinians belonging to white immigrants from the West Indies provided the labor necessary for rice cultivation. Successful rice cultivation required a large number of workers who could be coerced into performing intense labor under harsh conditions.

A typical rice planter with 130 acres needed sixty-five laborers, who could not readily desert and go elsewhere.

Image to the right is courtesy of the National Park Service.

Early Low Country rice plantations were located on river floodplains to facilitate irrigation.

From 1680 to the mid-1700's rice was grown in the Low Country, utilizing the many inland swamps, which were part of the natural landscape.

For slaves, inland swamp cultivation was hard arduous work. Quite often slave families were separated and members sent to work in distant areas or on other plantations. As the cultivation and production of rice intensified, the slave birthrate declined. In addition, the mortality and runaway rate increased.

With the natural population decreasing, the rice planters began importing more Africans to the Low Country.

From only 1,500 slaves in 1690, the African population grew to 4,100 by 1710, when South Carolina became the first mainland colony with a black majority.

By 1730, enslaved Africans outnumbered free colonists in the Low Country two to one: 20,000 to 10,000.