AGRICULTURAL ENTREPRENEUR UNITED STATESI have the business of 3 plantations to transact, which requires much writing and more business and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine. But least you should imagine it too burthensom to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave to assure you I think myself happy . . .
—ELIZA PINCKNEY
Eliza’s father read the letter as the family gathered silently around him. They were all nervous, and Eliza knew it couldn’t be good news. With sadness in his eyes, he told them that the military had called him back to his post in Antigua. There was no choice; he would have to leave them alone at their new home in South Carolina. “But who will take care of the plantation?” asked her mother. They all knew that she was too sick to run the plantation without her husband. “I can do it,” sixteen-year-old Eliza said quietly. The whole family stared at her when she spoke up.
Eliza was true to her word and soon began her busy days of running the plantation. At five AM, in the pitch dark, it was time to get up. After two hours of reading, Eliza went out to the planting fields to supervise the workers. When the sun finally rose in the east, it was time for breakfast. After that, she spent an hour on music and another hour studying. In addition to her own lessons, Eliza taught reading to her sister and several slave girls from the plantation until dinnertime. After dinner, Eliza devoted several hours to calculating the financial books for the plantations, and then she sewed until dark. Exhausted, she finally went to bed, usually sneaking in a little more time to read or write before she fell asleep.
When little Elizabeth Lucas was born on December 28, 1722, no one knew that she was destined to become one of the great agricultural inventors of history. Born in the West Indies, where her father was stationed as a British army officer, Eliza spent her early years in Antigua before being sent to England for her education. When she was sixteen, her family moved to South Carolina, where her father had inherited a plantation on Wappoo Creek.
A year after the family arrived in America, Eliza’s father received the telegram recalling him to Antigua. Her mother was in frail health, so seventeen-year-old Eliza took on the job of running the plantation and overseeing two other family properties. With only her father’s letters from Antigua to help her, Eliza ran every aspect of the plantation’s business. Like other southern plantations, theirs relied heavily on slave labor. Eliza supervised more than twenty slaves and all the other employees, and she still found time to care for her mother and younger sister.
While their plantation used slave labor like all others at that time, Eliza took time out each day to teach several slave girls to read. She hoped they would become schoolmasters for the other slaves’ children, who normally received no education.
Eliza’s most important contribution to the business came from her experiments with crops during her teen years. Occasionally, her father sent new kinds of seeds from Antigua, and Eliza cultivated them in the South Carolina soil. After attempts with crops such as cotton, ginger, and alfalfa, Eliza received some indigo seeds.
Indigo plants are used to make blue dye for fabric and ink. Today, many dyes can be man-made, but in Eliza’s time, indigo was in high demand for its unique ability to produce permanent color. English cloth makers depended heavily on indigo and were forced to buy large quantities from France, one of the few indigo-producing countries.
In a few years, Eliza would give French indigo growers some real competition, but not before she suffered her share of setbacks. When she first planted indigo seeds in 1740, nearly the entire crop was ruined by an early frost. Eliza had wisely saved some seeds for the next year, but they yielded only one hundred bushes of the precious plant. Out of this small crop, the plantation produced a modest amount of indigo.
From the West Indies, Eliza’s father sent an experienced dye maker, who agreed to help her turn the small indigo crop into finished dye. This is a delicate process, which requires accurate timing and the correct measurement of additives. The dye maker was afraid that if indigo succeeded in South Carolina, it would compete with West Indian indigo, so he deliberately ruined Eliza’s tiny crop. He added too much lime to the mix and spoiled the color.
Still determined to make her venture a success, Eliza kept planting indigo seeds. Finally, in 1744, the Wappoo plantation produced a promising crop. Eliza made seventeen pounds of indigo, six of which she shipped to England. The English cloth makers declared her product to be as good as, and even slightly better than, the French indigo they had been using.
Delighted with her success, Eliza shared indigo seeds and taught other plantation owners in South Carolina how to grow it. Soon the new plant was flourishing all over the state; South Carolina had found a profitable new crop for export. In 1747 South Carolina plantations shipped out over 135,000 pounds of indigo, and eventually they exported more than a million pounds annually.
By the age of twenty-one, Eliza’s experimental enterprise made her a rich and independent woman. She had already turned down two marriage proposals, but in 1744 she decided to marry Charles Pinckney, a prominent lawyer. They built a mansion in Charleston, but Eliza continued to supervise her family’s plantations and pursue her own interests in agriculture and gardening. She experimented with various crops, including flax and hemp. Eliza even tried raising silkworms and producing silk.
Over the course of her marriage, Eliza gave birth to four children. This agricultural pioneer lived to a relatively old age, surviving through the Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States. In 1793 at the age of seventy, Eliza died of cancer. At the time of her death, Eliza’s contributions to the American economy were well-known and respected. Her foresight and persistence gave South Carolina a vitally important crop, one which would help support the state’s plantations for decades. At her death, President George Washington personally requested that he serve as a pallbearer in Eliza’s funeral.