Georgetown County and Rice
Perhaps no place in early America was as dependent on one product as Georgetown County was on rice. Rice was originally introduced in the Charleston area, and, as planters searched for new coastal areas, eventually made it up the coast to Georgetown County. The inhabitants of the Santee and Winyah area had petitioned the South Carolina General Assembly for a port as early as 1723. After many disagreements with the inhabitants of Charleston, on January 2, 1730, the royal governor, Robert Johnson, spoke for the Crown and granted the area a port of entry. By this time, the town of Georgetown had been laid out on the west side of Winyah Bay just north of the Sampit River. The town was a center of trade with the local Indians and indigo became the main cash crop. Rice was grown as one of several secondary crops. Profits from agriculture were extraordinary in this area prior to the Revolution, and they were about to dramatically increase. Tidal flooding, ideal for the rivers around Georgetown, was perfected in the 1750s. This caused rice to become the second most valuable crop in the area. After the Revolution, British demand for indigo from America fell drastically. This incident, along with the invention of the tidal powered rice mill in 1787, catapulted the importance of rice and production in South Carolina. Before the invention, slaves operated rice mills, with animals supplying the power, but the opening of a rice mill operated by the tidal water in Georgetown ended this need. It caused rice to become so profitable that many professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and physicians left their profession to become rice planters. Soon those planters in Georgetown County became some of the wealthiest men in America.
Geography made Georgetown County ideal for rice growing. The county is home to six rivers. The North Santee and South Santee form the border between Georgetown and Charleston Counties, and the swampy area between and around them are ideal for rice production. The other four rivers, the Black, Sampit, Pee Dee, and Waccamaw flow into Winyah Bay, where the port of Georgetown sits. The area is unique because the rivers and Winyah Bay have extreme tides like the ocean, but all of the water is fresh water. The most prosperous of these areas in terms of rice production was between the Waccamaw and Pee Dee Rivers. These rivers are parallel through most of Georgetown County, and they are connected by many small creeks and swamps. There is very little solid ground between the two rivers, and the many swamps could be cleared to produce rice fields. The only solid area between the two rivers is Sandy Island and it was soon occupied by plantation homes, as were the other sides of the Waccamaw and Pee Dee rivers. By 1850, the area had nine plantations on Sandy Island, thirty-five on the Waccamaw Neck, twenty-one on the inland side of the Pee Dee River, eleven on the Black River, and twenty-five along the Sampit River and Winyah Bay. In addition, there were fifty-three plantations on either Santee River. Rice truly dominated the economy of Georgetown County. A map of Georgetown County can with more explanation on exact geography can be seen be clicking here.
An interesting point mentioned by Easterby is that the city of Georgetown, despite its close proximity to all of these areas, failed to gain prominence as a port, and it remained in the shadow of Charleston. This was partially because of the shallow harbor in Winyah Bay, but Easterby also believes that Charleston's building of canals and securing the railroad were other reasons for Georgetown's lack of importance. A third reason may have been that Charleston was simply more established than Georgetown. It had been a center of commerce for years, and it had a society that many of the Georgetown planters were a part (or wanted to become a part) of. Georgetown, on the other hand, was too young to have established this society, and the planters may have felt that it was better to become a part of something that they could already connect to than establishing something on their own. Whatever the reasons, Charleston was the shipping point for most of the rice produced in Georgetown County, and most planters were willing to pay the extra price to ship their rice to Charleston to be sold.
No place in South Carolina, or anywhere else on mainland North America, was as big a user of slaves as Georgetown County. Population figures in the county reflect this trend, and they also show how the proportion of slaves in the county greatly increased with the widespread advent of the production of rice. The following statistics show this trend arranged in the following order:
Year; Total Population; Slave Population; Slaves as a percentage of the population; 1790; 13,987; 8,446; 60%;; 1810; 15,679; 13,867; 88%;; 1830; 19,943; 17,798; 89%;; 1850; 20,647; 18,253; 88%;; These extraordinarily high percentages of slaves were a problem throughout South Carolina, and a militia, originally created by acts of the colonial assembly in 1721, 1734, and 1740, was kept to keep slaves in check throughout the state until the Civil War. These militiamen generally rode in groups of five through plantations about once a month. In 1740, only slaveholders and slave overseers could be on these patrols, but slave riots in 1816 prompted the law to be changed to include all free males over the age of eighteen. Punishment of slaves usually were immediate whippings administered by the militia, overseers, or planters themselves. To find out more about the slaves on rice plantations, click here.
Despite the cruelly of slavery and the constant threat of revolts and riots, the slaves helped produce an abundance of rice in Georgetown County. In 1839, the first year records were kept, Georgetown County produced 36.36 million pounds of the 80.841 million pounds of rice produced in the United States. By 1850, Georgetown was producing only 30% of the rice crop in the United States, but the amount had increased to 55.8 million pounds of rice. The county was the center of rice production in America, and this is shown through the wealth of the planters. Planter information may be viewed here.
Sources of information on this page include http://www.the-strand.com/rice, Easterby's book, pg 7, Easterby's article, and Rogers, pg. 30-34, 252-292, and 343.
Front Gates / Table of Contents / Introduction of Rice / Rise of the Rice Plantations / Planters / Slaves / Georgetown County / Geography of Georgetown County / Examples of Plantation Homes / Demise of the Rice Plantations / Gallery of the Abandoned Rice Fields / Explanation of Certain Terms / Links to other sites / Bibliography