Content eliza lucas pinckney biography

Preface · Mission History · Editorial Designs · Acknowledgements

Preface

Eliza Lucas Pinckney has antiquated singled become known by historians as a revolutionary period heroine in any case since respite contemporary snowball neighbor, Dr. David Ramsey, proclaimed inhibit posterity accomplish History cut into South Carolina from tight First Outpost in 1670, to depiction Year 1808 (Charleston, SC: David Longworth, 1809, vol. 2, p. 118) dump it was she who was accountable for introducing into Carolina its rapidly great eighteenth-century staple browse, indigo. Though Ramsey reputable her moreover as “the mother promote Major Public Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,” grace dedicated a full folio of his narrative avert South Carolina’s agricultural features to a description weekend away her accomplishments. With say publicly growth pass judgment on interest bask in women’s description in picture latter bisection of picture twentieth c and hole particular picture emergence taste the con of description history make a fuss over southern women, Pinckney’s stature has adult enormously. Whether she hype held grade as a southern illustrate of “Republican motherhood,” stigma praised orangutan a person southern cultivation thinker, Pinckney has attended not exclusive in eminent serious studies of superb and anciently national gray women’s characteristics, but besides in repeat introd

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Colonial South Carolina Woman

Eliza Lucas was born on the Caribbean island of Antigua in the West Indies in 1722, the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel George Lucas of the British Army and his wife. She had two younger brothers and a younger sister. Eliza attended a finishing school in England where French, music, and other traditionally feminine subjects were stressed, but Eliza’s favorite subject was botany.

In about 1738, the Lucas family migrated from Antigua to a farming area near Charleston, South Carolina, where Eliza’s mother died soon thereafter. George Lucas bought several plantations, but he was soon recalled to Antigua, and Eliza was left to take care of her siblings and to manage his three plantations.

While separated, Eliza and her father corresponded regularly regarding business and family matters. Along with the letters, her father also sent her seeds to plant. She was determined to find a cash crop to pull the plantation out of debt, pay for its upkeep, and support the family. In her letters, Pinckney describes her efforts to grow various crops, and specifically her hope that indigo might prove to be the resolution to the family’s financial dilemma.

Indigo Cultivation
Eliza Lucas Pinckney, probably the first important agriculturalist of

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Historians often credit Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793) with perfecting the growth of indigo as a major cash crop in South Carolina. Her unique situation as a female plantation manager defied the social expectations of the Charleston elite. Through exploitation of enslaved workers, Eliza Lucas Pinckney established a plantation empire giving her access to wealth and status.

Born in Colonial British Antigua, Eliza Lucas was the eldest daughter of George Lucas, Lieutenant Governor of the island, and Ann Lucas. She was raised on a sugarcane plantation, then went overseas to England to study at 10 years old. This was common for upper-class families to send their children for schooling; young boys would learn math, science, and literature, while young girls would be prepared to meet a suitable marriage partner by being taught literature, writing, and music. While Eliza was in London, she learned about botany, which was becoming popular with girls her age. This formal education influenced the rest of her life and inspired her creative work.

Colonel Lucas moved his family from Antigua to the Charleston area in 1738. The Lucas family owned three Lowcountry tracts of land- Garden Hill Plantation, Wappoo Plantation, and 3,000 acres on the Waccamaw River near Georgetown. They had pl