Business Industry | Industry

Growing Indigo in South Carolina

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In the mid-1700s, the price of South Carolina's largest cash crop, rice, was dropping, making indigo a valuable new addition to plantations. The indigo crop also extended the growing season, creating year-round work that made slavery more profitable.
In little over a decade after its cultivation by 16-year-old Eliza Lucas, indigo became one of South Carolina's most profitable cash crops.

In 1742 the face of agriculture in South Carolina changed dramatically when Eliza Lucas, the 16-year-old daughter of a wealthy planter, successfully cultivated indigo for the first time in the American colonies. Because the rich, blue dye extracted from the indigo plant was rare-and expensive-it was a symbol of status and wealth and in high demand in Europe. In 1747 the first shipment of indigo left for England, and within two decades more than a million pounds would be shipped each year, making the dye one of the colony's largest exports, second only to rice. Indigo production was an extremely labor-intensive, multi-day process that could only be profitable when done on a large scale with slave labor, which limited it to plantations. Though most South Carolinians had few slaves, some landowners had many. The production of indigo caused a spike in the importation of African slaves-who would go on to outnumber whites in the colony by two to one-while lining the pockets of the colony's elite.

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Rice was grown on swampy terrain along the coast. Indigo was grown on the highlands west of the coast, which wasn't suitable for rice. However, indigo quickly exhausted the soil, forcing plantation owners to demand more land from local Native American tribes.

 

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Extracting dye was a challenging and tedious process involving pounding indigo plants for up to 20 hours.

 

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The increased demand for indigo required more labor, in turn creating higher demand for slaves. Up to 60 percent of all African slaves entering the American colonies during the 1700s landed in South Carolina.

 

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Much of the dye imported from the American colonies was used to color luxury clothing for the Old World's elite.