Remarkable Women

No, not the Book Club ladies this time.  Another era.

I have always believed that South Carolina ranked right up there with Georgia in cotton fields.  You know.....“When I was a little bitty baby my momma would rock me in the cradle in them ‘ole cotton fields back home.”   I just always pictured Charleston ….isn’t that what back home means?  No wonder I was stunned to learn that cotton certainly was not King here in the low country.  Why?  Well, cause it’s low country. Cotton needs higher ground.

 Rice was king.  These vast vistas of flat marshland, as far as one can see, used to be cultivated in rice.  There are few remnants left of the industry so long ago abandoned.  Running a close second was indigo.  I remember that from grade school history, but thought it sounded a bit too exotic to be real.  But real it was and helped establish the royal colonies as a force to reckon with.

I’ve been reading about (can you tell?) the strong, remarkable women who in their day (18^th and 19^th centuries)  had to work and manage and direct business behind the scenes, all-the-while sporting a 20 lb. dress that could span 6 feet.  Coupled with a demure graciousness, these colonial and anti-bellum ladies could pull their weight and smile doing it.  Their names aren’t memorialized on city streets or statues in the park, but I applaud them and say “well done.”

Eliza Lucas Pinckney was one such lady, who at age 16 was left by her father to manage 3 plantations solely by her own wits.  With gritty determination, she experimented for 3 years with seedlings before she found the plant that would flourish.  She is single-handedly responsible for introducing indigo cultivation in the colonies.  No small wonder why we won the revolution.