Move To South Carolina and Career
In about 1738 when Eliza was 16 years old Col. Lucas decided to move his family from Antigua to South Carolina, where he had inherited 3 plantations from his father. The chief one overlooked Wappoo Creek outside of Charleston.
In 1739, Col. Lucas had to return to his post in Antigua to deal with the political conflict between England and Spain. Col. Lucas was appointed lieutenant governor of the island. England’s involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession thwarted his attempts to move back to South Carolina with his family. Eliza’s letters to him show that she regarded her father with great respect and deep affection. Her mother lived until 1742 or later, but Eliza's letters demonstrated that she was head of the family in terms of managing the plantations.
Eliza was just 16 years old when she became responsible for managing Wappoo Plantation and its 20 slaves, plus supervising overseers at two other Lucas plantations, one inland producing tar and timber, and a 3,000 acres (12 km2) rice plantation on the Waccamaw River. In addition she oversaw her two younger siblings, as one brother was still in school in London. As was customary, she recorded her decisions and experiments by copying letters in a letter book. This letter book is one of the most impressive collections of personal writings of an eighteenth-century Americano woman, and gives insight into her mind and society.
From Antigua, Col. Lucas sent Eliza various types of seeds for trial on the plantations. They and other planters were eager to find crops for the uplands that could supplement their cultivation of rice. First, she experimented with ginger, cotton, and alfalfa. Starting in 1739, she began experimenting with cultivating and improving strains of the indigo plant, for which the growing market in textiles created demand. When Col. Lucas sent Eliza indigo seeds in 1740, she expressed her “greater hopes” for them, as she intended to plant them earlier in the season. In experimenting with growing indigo in new climate and soil, Lucas also depended on the knowledge and skills of enslaved Africans who had grown indigo in the West Indies and West Africa.
After three years of persistence and many failed attempts, Eliza Lucas proved that indigo could be successfully grown and processed in South Carolina. While she had first worked with an indigo processing expert from Montserrat, she was most successful in processing dye with the expertise of a black indigo-maker of African descent whom her father hired from the French West Indies.
Lucas used her 1744 crop to make seed and shared it with other planters, leading to an expansion in indigo production. She proved that colonial planters could make a profit in an extremely competitive market. Due to her successes, the volume of indigo dye exported increased dramatically from 5,000 pounds in 1745-46, to 130,000 pounds by 1748. Indigo became second only to rice as the South Carolina colony's cash crop, and contributed greatly to the wealth of its planters. Before the Revolutionary War, indigo accounted for more than one-third of the total value of exports from the colony.
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