Hofwyl Plantation, 1976

HOFWYL PLANTATION
By Victoria Reeves Gunn
July 1, 1975

Copyright

State of Georgia Department of Natural Resources Office of Planning and Research Historic Preservation Section

1976

TABLE OF CONTENTS .
I. The Narrative Foreword................................................... 1 The Rice Coast........................................... 2 Laurens and Mcintosh...................................... 48
The Brailsfords. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . 56
The Troups . ............................................ . . . 63 The Dents . ......................... ; . . . . . . . . . 72
II. The Illustrations III. The Bibliography IV. The Appendix

FORI!.'WORD
In 1860, C~orgia and South Carolina had an international reputation for producing the finest rice in the world. A decade later the prod.uctio:t of rice had sharply declined and, within half a century, had died out almost entirely along the coastlines of those two states. Today few Georgians understand or even know of the important role played by rice i.n the settlement and growth of Georgia; few have heard that before "Cotton is King," and even after, rice was queen of the seacoast.
The home of the Yamasee Indians, claimed for years by Spain, and granted first to two important figures of the Revolutionary era, Hofwyl Plantation had an extensive history before the lands were purchased by the family which owned it for the following 170 years. But it is this period of ownership by a riceplanting family which gives the plantation its importance to the State of Georgia.
It is therefore essential to give some understanding of the nature of rice in order to determine why the coast of Georgia adapts itself so well to its cultivation. The lives of the rice planters were so thoroughly ruled by the vagaries of their crop that comprehension of their attitudes and life styles is enchanced by a .study of the cultivation of rice as well as the culture which grew up aroupd it.
While the phenomenon of rice culture was of a regional nature, affecting large amounts of land ona number of coastal waterways, an-analysis may be made of specific sites. This can help illuminate the ways of life which characterized the rice plantations and provided cultural antecedents for the diffusion of plantation li'Ting based on other regions and on other products. In this, the State of Georgia is fortunate to have acquired Hofwyl Plantation.
1

THE RICE COAST

The LoW Country of Georgia and South Carolina in the 1600's was treach-

erous land, consisting primarily of tidal swatnpland, choked with a jungle-like

vegetation consisting of "enormous cypress, gum, ash, etc., matted together with

huge grape vine,

and cane

from fifteen to twenty

feet high.



nl

Thelandwas

"subject to the flux and reflux of tides;"2 the "dark, alluvial soil so soft that

one could scarcely walk any distance upon it everywhere his progress was im-

peded by dense undergrowth, and his clothes and flesh tom by briars n3

"Numbers of alligators were in the s~amps turtles ready at the slightest

alarm to slide quickly back into the dark water. Snakes of many kinds, especially water moccasins, luxuriated where the sun found its way through the thick foliage." 4

That men observed this wilderness and envisioned "many miles of serpentine embank-

ment enclosing thousands of acres, checked into fields which bear in waving luxuriance crop~ of translucent grain"S is testimony to the illlgenuity and am-

bition with which the joint problems of agriculture and economics were approached

in the seventeenth century.

Yet, by the early nineteenth century, the rice country could be described

as having '!an ease, a grace, a cordiality, hardly to be matched in any American society, equal to, in fact, the most civilized circles of old European countries,"6

~aving less vulgar display and more int~insic elegance than any distinct class among us." 7 .The very nature of the rice empire had become the quintessence of

the Old South; living up to the Southern Tradition in an age when the Southern

Tradition did not yet exist. What is most remarkable, therefore, in consider-

ing the development of "The Empire of Rice" is that it occured at all.

2

3 I

Although rice was first experimented with .in the colony of Virginia, 1

it is South Carolina which can claim the credit for turning the grain into the

significant crop it became and the dominant one of the coastal Low Country.

The actual introduction of the first seed rice is so shrouded in picturesque legend that exact dates and circumstances cannot be accurately determined. 2

As early as 1672, a bushel or barrel of rice was shipped from Charleston, but

the onslaught of production which might have been expected to follow this initial endeavor was not forthcoming. 3 The English colonists were "unacquainted with the manner of cultivating rice"4 and, therefore, the history of its intrench-

ment as the staple crop of the Low Country is one of painstaking experimentation

and gradual technological improvement.

From coincidental accounts of the intzoduction of a superior type of rice

from Madagascar, it can be assumed that the industry received a boost in the

form of a more adaptable variety sometime during the latter part of the seven-

.

c

5

teenth century. In 1691, a South Carolina law was passed to encourage the in-

vention of rice threshing and cleaning machines which resulted in a series of more or less successful devices, 6 and, by 1700, Charleston was having difficulty obtaining enough ships to export the rice which was produced by the colony. 7

With the intrenchment of the industry came a certain amount of expansion, within

set geographical limits, and, in 1733, twenty barrels of dee were donated to Georgia by the General Assembly of South Carolina. 8 The results of the experi-

mentation encouraged by this venture were successful and, in 1735, Georgia was

granted permission to export rice "to any port south of Cape Finnisterre on the Brittany Coast, "9 shipping 266 barrels the following year.l0

Although Georgia had proved that her climate was a favorable one for the

production of rice, there were a number of factors which kept the colony from

4
keeping pace with the production of her South Carolina neighbors. The development of rice as a commercial crop required a large, cheap labor force 11 and considerable amounts of land in order to be profitable; 12 neither of which were
available south of the Savannah River. Georgia had been settled as a colony
for debtors, responsible for providing a military barrier for South Carolina
and for producing a select group of commodities for England; none of which was rice. 13 Consequently, a set of rules was under effect, designed to prevent the
growth of the plantation system which would be essential for the growth of rice.
The primary feature of this code provided for the restriction of individual land
grants to fifty acres for debtorsl4 and prohibited slavery .15
While these regulations were not iron clad, especially for those with
enough money or ingenuity to get around them, they still were very unpopular
with the ge11eral public.l6 Directly across the Savannah River, the Carolinians
were prospering with the production of rice, an enterprise which "gave the best opportunity for industrial profit which America then afforded."17 In 1738, the
colonists,
finding that it required an immense expenditure of physical labor to clear the river swamp lands . finding that the air of the swamps was loaded with poisonous qualities which generated disease, which, if not fatal, ended in debility and entire destruction of the constitution, finding that the cul~ tivation of the pine lands was not productive, and finding that after the severe labor, exposure and ill health of several years, they were unable to provide even a coarse common subsistence for themselves and families, addressed an earnest ap~ peal to the Trustees of the Colony of Georgia frequesting] . 'the want and use of negroes, with proper limitations; which, if granted, would induce great numbers of white people to come here, and also render us capable of subsisting by ourselves by raising provisions upon our lands tmtil we could make some produce from it for exportation, and in some measure to ba11mce our importation. '18 .
The references to "disease" and "ill health" in the preceeding passage are
significant. The low lying area of the South Carolina and Georgia coast, with
its swamps, marshes and slow moving rivers was becoming a notorious center for

5
disease; the most prevalent of which was malaria. Mentioned with regularity in the accounts of travels in the area, 19 the "summer" or "country" fever, as it was known, seemed to strike primarily at night and during a specific season, usually mid-April to November, during which time the rice planters abandoned their
plantations for healthier locations, making periodic inspections, but without 20
spending a night in the affected areas. Since the existence of the anopheles mosquito and its connec~ion with the disease was not discovered until late in the nineteenth century, the cause was generally attributed to a "bad air" or "miasma" rising from swamps or standing water. 21 '!he correlation between the
disease and the summer months was early recognized, as well as its relation to rural areas.
In the hot season the human body is relaxed by perpetual perspiration, and becomes feeble and sickly, especially during the dog-days, when the air is one while suffocating and sultry, and another moist and foggy. Exhausted of fluids, it is perhaps not all, or very improperly, supplied. Hence intermittent, nervous, putrid and bilious fevers, are commo22 in the country and prove fatal to many of its inhabitants. It was observed from the peginning, however, that while slaves were prey
to certain endemic diseases not affecting the whites, they seemed less likely to to suffer from malaria. Recent medical research has shown that populations which are exposed to malarial climates, such as the West Coast of Africa, develop a genetic trait which produces a near-immunity to the disease. '!his heritable characteristic, however, produces a disadvantageous balance in the form of the so-called "sickle cell trait." Studies begun in the 1950's show that
the Gullah Negroes of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts show a higher incidence of sickle cell trait than the majority of Black Americans, indicating that the slaves in the rice-growing areas "would have perpetuated this genetic characteristic as long as it served a function in a highly malarious region." 23
A tradition arose in the Low Country, and spread throughout the South,
that African slaves were essential to perform labor that Europeans could not

7
more profit than he could obtain from his own labor35 and .since the production of rice relied .heavily on human labor and only incidentally on machines, 36 the addition of many pairs of hands was essential. "The planters had no sooner got the strength of Africa to assist them than they laboured with success, and the lands every year yielded greater and greater increase."37 If for no other reason than that the white colonists had not wanted to do the dirty work of preparing and cultivating rice lands themselves, the availability of African slaves gave new life to an industry that, tried briefly, had all but been abandoned.
Conversely, the growth of the rice industry was a great incentive to the expansion of slavery and the development of the plantation system. "It was now [after the successful beginnings of the rice industry] that importations of Negro slaves were made with great avidity. And the proceeds of the crop, were economified [sic] to increase the exertions of the ensuing year~"l" 38 In South Carolina the black population drew equal to and then surpassed the white population in roughly the twenty years when the rice industry was taking hold. 39 ~orgia experienced a similar population growth following the repeal of the slave restrictions. In 1753 the black population of Georgia was 1,066 as compared to 2,381 whites; increasing to 7,800 blacks and 9,900 whites in
40 1766. When the first United States Census was taken in 1790, while Georgia white outnumbered blacks by 52,886 to 29,662 in total, blacks constituted 69.9 per cent of the total population of the rice coast. 41
Since the purchase of slaves and the acquisition of large amounts of land required an enormous outl~ of capital, the lands along the coastline suited for
42 rice cultivation soon fell into the hands of wealthy proprietors. A conte~ porary observer figured the initial expenses of "undertaking" a rice plantation in Georgia in the late eighteenth century to be just over ~2,476 on pre-cleared and banked land; ennumerating as essentials 200 acres of land, 40 "working hands,"

8

oxen, horses, carts, collars, "hoes, axes, spades and other plantation tools,"

and the construction of a barn and pounding machine. Clothing and medical care

for the slaves, including a provision for losses due to slave deaths, taxes, quit rents and the overseer's wages were listed as annual expenses. 43 Since

early returns on this initial investment would be small, probably less than
44
~700 the first year, depending on the fluctuating price of rice, the small

planter could afford no real effort toward gaining a foothold in coastal Georgia after 1750. 45

A large number of the wealthy emmigrants of the 1750's were Carolinians,

mostly rice planters, "lured into Georgia by the prospect of easily obtaining the undeveloped rice lands." 46 The Georgia coast, accordingly, acquired a type

of plantation system which was loosely based on the absentee system of the West

.

47

Indies as it was channeled through the Carolinas. Because of the "narrow

hydrolic limi ts"48 of cultivation available to the rice planter, the coastal

section of the two colonies developed into a well-defined geographical region,

distinctive from the rest of the American mainland. Towns, Charleston and Sav-

annah, primarily, supported on a smaller scale by Georgetown and Beaufort in

South Carolina and Darien and Sunbury in Georgia, developed as centers of com-

merce and, during the malarial summer months especially, social centers. Con-

sequently, an interdependent type of city-state evolved which the coastal rice

planters had little occasion to leave and the smaller farmers of the uplands had

little occasion to enter. As a result, this rather isolated society grew more thoroughly dependent on the plantation system than other parts of the South. 49

Developments in the technology of rice planting in the 1700's were direc-

ted towards the change from the "inland swamp" method of cultivation to that of

the "tidal flow" system. While the advantages to be gained from planting rice

in "wet, deep, miry soil; such as is generally to be found in Cypress Swamps;

9

or a black greasy Mould with a Clay foundation " 50 were apparently recog-

nized at an early date, it was not until around 1724 that a system of periodic

irrigation began to be employed, and probably then only "for the parpose of

supplying moisture to the plant rather than for the systematic destruction of weeds and insects, as later." 51 These inland cypress swamps, .cleared of vege-

tation and equipped with an irrigation system which employed impounded rainwater or dammed-up springs as reservoirs, 52 had, however, certain disadvantages, being liable to flooding and extremely susceptible to droughts. 53

Although the change to the tidal marshes was beginning to take place as

.

. 54

early as 1758 in South Carolina and by 1771 in Georgia, it was not until after

the Revolution that planters began developing tide swamp plantations on a large scale. 55 The fertile river land, located close enough to the ocean to be affected

by the rise and fall of the tide and yet out of reach of salt water, had the ad-

vantage of a readily available water supply. The natural system of irrigation

to be found along the coastal rivers, flooding the land at high tide and drain-

ing it again when the tide fell, could be harnessed and used to the advantage of the rice planter. 56 In addition, the land had a completely renewable soil, provided by deposits of fresh topsoil brought by the river from the uplands. 57 "The

great shift, however, came during the last decade of the eighteenth century and

the earlyyears of the nineteenth, induced partly by the grassy condition of inland swanp lands and partly by development of the very advantageous water culture. " 58

Limited as it was to geographical areas which could be thus adapted, the rice coast had practically reached its full economic development by 1800. 59
Rice prices remained consistantly high enough to make the continued production of the grain profitable, in spite of fluctuations; 60 although production remained 100re or less stationary after the beginning of the nineteenth century. 61
In 1839, the beginning of the "Golden Years" of the Georgia rice coast, Georgia

10
ranked second only to South Carolina in United States rice production62 and boasted 25,000 to 30,000 acres of tidal flow plantations. 63
II
The engineering operation which transformed the virgin tidal swamp into the hydraulic "machine" which was the rice plantation was an enormous undertaking. It is difficult in an age of technological achievement to appreciate the monumental effort required to clear the swamp mud of acres of hardwood and undergrowth, replacing it with an elaborate system of embankments, trenches, sluiceways and culverts using only hand labor. One contemporary observer determined that it took eight slaves one day to clear an acre of swamp, and this seems a somewhat optimistic appraisa1. 1
The process by which "the tide is shut out, subjected to regulation and rendered tributary to the enlightened d,esigns of the Rice Planter, "2 began with a careful survey of the course which the main river embankment was to take. This area was cleared in a swath of approximately fifty yards in width, located from fifty to eighty feet from the water line of the river, 3 and at this point the main ditch or "face" ditch was dug, about eight feet wide and five feet deep. 4 The dirt was then used to construct the main river embankment, located about ten to twenty feet closer to the river. This dam rose at least two feet above the maximum high tide, usually about five feet, and was twelve feet wide at the base, tapering to three feet at the top. 5
Just above the low tide level, floodgates known as "trunks" were embedded in the embankment at regular intervals, allowing water access from the river to the newly enclosed rice fields. These rectangular wooden culverts were the most important mechanisms of the rice field. About twenty to thirty feet in length, 6 they were equipped with a swinging door at either end, and weighted with stones

11
at the bottom. In order to flood the field, the outer door was lifted, allowing the incoming tide to push open the inner.door, which would close again firmly at ebb tide, sealing the water in the field. To drain the field, the procedure was reversed, raising the inner door so that the outer door swung open with the pressure from within the field at low tide. 7 This relatively simple process, which was used th~oughout the growing season, could be easily adjusted and worked automatically, provided all of the drains, canals and dams were kept in good .order and no debris or water animals interfered with its operation. 8 The system of the raising doors had been developed in Georgia; the South Carolina method having called for the door to swing open, which necessitated waiting for a correspondingly favorable tide. 9
Since, in its natural state, the tidal swamp was subjected to a continual ebb and flow, which up to this point had caused the limitation of working hours, 10 the swamp was drained as soon as the trunks could be installed. 11 Natural springs
or creeks had to be carefully closed off and trunked to prohibit breakage in the dam. 12 The field was then divided into smaller fields or "squares" of eighteen to twenty acres each by a series of interconnected embankments and canals, extending from the main river levee and ditch. 13 It was essential that the individual fiel<is be laid out in the most efficif.ent pattern, making use of any natural barriers, 14 and, most importantly, that they be as uniformly level as possible to ensure the even flow and drainage which was required during the growing process}5
The secondary canals, usually attached to river floodgates for maximum efficiency, had the twofold purpose of transporting water to and from the "back" or interior fields 16 and providing a highway for in-field transportation via "flats"--the shallow boats which were poled along the ditches carrying everything from seed to harvested rice, earth for mending breals in banks to lumber for
17 trunk construction. These ditches were usually six to eight feet wide and

12
five feet deep, 18 although they were often dug to as much as a fifteen foot depth if extensive transportation, to and from market, for example, was expected. In this case, trunks were often constructed in such a way as to allow boats through to the river.19
Each "square" was divided into plots of one acre each by drains which opened off the interior ditch which surrounded each field, and further subdivided by "quarter drains," about fifteen to eighteen inches wide and three feet deep. 20 The water system, therefore, required a large portion of the arable land, and
21 considerably reduced the acerage which could be devoted to actual planting area. One source estimates that in a 500 acre rice field were approximately sixty
22 miles of dikes and attendant ditches alone.
The reclamation of tide lands became an art on which the rice planter prided himself, and the agricultural journals and societies of the day became forwm; of debate, as each planter presented his "improved melhods" of ditchinr and embankment. Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina, for example, wrote a series of letters to the state Agricultural Society recommending the adoption of his plans for a dike "superior in strength, tightness, durability, cheapness of construction and facility of repair;" and presenting his method of "puddling"
23 or cementing banks; and a remedy for "salt spots" in marshes.
As with embankment, each planter had his own ideas about rice planting, cultivation and harvesting. These varied from year to year and from plantation to plantation as the planter experimented with new methods and adapted to changes in the conditions of the fields and the weather. The year-long process was, however, similar on all plantations. Cyclical in nature, it began with preparation for spring planting immediately after the autumn harvest. At this time, the water system was cleaned and repaired and the fields readied for the next growing season. Embankments were checked for leaks, trunks repaired and the

13

drains cleaned or "slushed."24 Loose grains of rice whi'ch had fallen during

the harvest and were not consumed by birds were encouraged to sprout and then

turned over with the stubble of the previous crop, as any which were allowed to

mature in the next season would become "vohmteer rice," producing red kernels which devalued the crop. 25 Some planters chose to burn off the stubble before turning over the land, 26 although in most cases, especially if the growth was

not fully dry or if it was extremely heavy, it was me.rely turned under.

The land was usually broken up by hoeing, as plowing was race in South

Carolina and eve.n more so in Georgia. 27

28 Draft animals were expensive, and

there was a scarcity of land to raise feed. 29 In addition, it was necessary to

avoid cultivating to any depth as the surface of tidal swamps were underlaid

.

30

by a sour muck, caused by lack of drainage, which was injurious to rice.

Finally, subdivisions were too small 31 and frequently the land too soft to

32 accomodate a plow and mule. Although with the rising value of slaves, es-

pecially after 1850, animals were used with more frequency, 33 most of the work

on the rice plantation continued to be done by hand.

Occasionally a planter would choose to flood his fields for the winter, 34
changing the water often in order to benefit from the accumulated sediment, 35
but most only flowed their fields for a maximum of two to three weeks, being careful not to flow very deep so as not to pack down the soil. 36 Another sys-

tem called for flooding a very shallow layer in extremely cold weather and allowing it to freeze so that the ground would be broken up. 37 Most planters,

however, continued hand cultivation of the fields on some level throughout the

winter, so that the land would be prepared for an early spring planting.

The date for the beginning of planting was decided upon by a careful con-

sideration of the full moon and the approximate arrival of the spring flood tides, which could be used to advantage in covering the freshly planted rice.38

14
Planting generally took from four to five weeks 39 and was accomplished in several different plantings, usually two in the period from the tenth of March to the tenth of April and one during the period of the first to the tenth of June. 40 Rice planted from mid-April through May was subject to one of the most picturesque of pests, the May bird. Flocks of these birds, traveling north for the summer, could easily destroy fields of new rice in the few weeks they were in the area. The same birds would return around the middle of September, in a different plummage and known as rice birds, and would feast on the ripening rice. Rice planted in June was safe from both the May birds and the rice birds but did not produce as well as rice planted earlier. 41
Although ''broadcast" sowing, or the haphazard scattering of seed, was experimented with, 42 it was not generally employed, as the rice seed, usually two to three bushels to the acre, 43 was carefully planted in trenches, spaced thirteen to fifteen inches apart, two inches deep and three to four inches wide. 44 This meticulous spacing aided later in determining the cultivated rice plant from the volunteer rice to be removed. 45
Of the many methods and variations of rice planting experimented with, 46 two representative methods were generally used. The first, and oldest, usually called the "covered method," called for immediate inundation of the field as soon as the seed was covered. This first or "sprout" flow of a depth of twelve to eighteen inches47 protected the grain from birds and rodents and encouraged the rapid germination of the seed. 48 The rice would "pip" or sprout more quickly in warm weather, 49 although the usual length of time required was three to six days. 50 The water was immediately removed, as the rice seed would not take root until the field was completely dry,51 and the field remained dry until the plants emerged and developed ' a root system stationary enough for support, a point known as the "needle state."52 Until this time the grass and volunteer rice were removed by hand. 53 The second irrigation, which las ted about eight or ten days,

15

was called the "point" flow, 54 and mainly served the purpose of killing the

grass which had sprouted during the dry growth period.55 When the water was with-

drawn, the plants were approximately six to eight inches high and weakened from

the removal of the supporting water. A light hoeing was accomplished, followed

by the "stretch" flow of about three weeks, during which time the water continually topped the plants by ten inches, encouraging rapid growth. 56

The second method of rice planting, known as the "open" or "open trench"

method, was probably developed in the 1820's by South Carolinians, who were

.

57

facing the problems of soil depletion for the first time. This process involved

the "claying" of the rice seed, or coating it with a mixture of soil and water,

and eliminating the process of covering the seed. In this case, the initial flow

reamined on the field for twenty-one days. The water was then drawn off and the

field hoed over a fifteen day period, after which time a second, twenty-day flow 58
was put on. This system had the advantage of saving the labor of covering the

the seed and, in case of a sudden rush of water from the uplands called a "freshet" preventing the withdrawal of the sprout flow, the seed was less likely to rot. 59

Yields also increased; grass, volunteer rice and May birds were discouraged; and

the period from planting to harvest was reduced, allowing later plowing and planting and the cultivation of more acres by a smaller labor force. 60 In spite of these

advantages, Georgia rice planters did not employ this method often, not having the problem of soil exhaustion. 61

Following the three flowings of the covered system and the two required

by the open method, the rice fields were drained and underwent a period of dry growth for thirty to forty days. 62 The final "lay-by" or ''harvest" flow which

supported the heads of the rice as the ears were forming, lasted forty or fifty

days, until the time for harvest. The water was kept "up to the bead," or the point where the ear was forming. 63 During this period the water was either changed

16
often, at least every ten days, 64 or the trunks opened and closed daily in order to create a current in the standing water. 65 If necessary, some hand picking of
66
grass would take place during this long flow. Harvest began in late August or early September and lasted six to eight
weeks. 67 1he rice was cut by hand using a sickle called a "rice hook," then left on the stubble to dry for at least a day. 68 The dried rice was tied in sheaves, brought to the mill house or yard and stacked for "curing. \'69
Preparing the rice for market required several processes: threshing, to
remove the rice from the plant; cleaning or ''winnowing," to separate the grain from the chaff; two separate processes called "grinding" and "pounding" to remove the two hulls which surrounded the kernel; and sort.ing of the resulting flour and large and small grains. There was no set season for the beginning of this process, although it was usually started soon after harvest in order to take advantage of potential high rice prices. 70 Rice we.s then sent to market in several different shipments throughout the winter. 71
By the 1850's, most plantations had at least one building where rice was threshed, cleaned and stored, located near the river bank or a stream in order to facilitate loading and, if it was required, in order to harness tidal power or provide a source of steam for the running of machinery. 72 Until the 1850's and after in some areas, threshing was done by hand using flails and a large, raised floor built especially for that purpose. 73 The rice was then cleaned using a wind fan or the even more primitive and sometimes more effective winnowing house. These small buildings were perched on stilts and the rice dropped through a hole in the floor, allowing the wind to blow away the chaff. 74 The mid-nineteenth century, however, saw threshing devices perfected to the extent that they could be profitably employed. Although the cost was high, usually from $3,000 to $7,000,75 it paid off to use competitive machinery. A threshing

17
mill could turn out from 600 to 1,200 bushels of rice per day; 76 200 bushels yielding one 600-pound barrel or "tierce" of clean rice. 77 Rice for seed, however, was always threshed by beating the sheaves against the rim of a barrel, as vigorous flailing tended to crack the shell. 78
The earliest methods for processing rice had called for the grinding of the grain in wooden mills about two feet in diameter, blowing with a wind fan, followed by hand pounding with pestles in wooden mortars holding little more than one-half bushel and sifting through a sieve. 79 While a variety of machines were invented to shorten the process, the most successful did not come about until 1787, when Johnathan Lucas, Sr. of South Carolina built the first water mill. 80 His basic design, with certain improvements, many made by his son, the second Johnathan Lucas, remained the most important labor-saving device for rice culture, making Lucas, as some have said, the Eli Whitney of rice. 81
Pounding machinery was, however, extremely expensive; the $10,000 to $18,000 investment making it prohibitive for all but the largest planters. 82 While these planters usually made their . mills available for rice grinding on toll for their neighbors, 83 there was a gradual transition to the shipping of rice to market before the milling process as "rough rice" or rice "in paddy."84 It was then ground by large commercial mills in Savannah or Charleston, under the ~upervision of the planter's factor.
The factor was the planter's chief marketing agent. His responsibility, and that of his clerical and countinghouse personnel was "the shepherding of the planter's property through the routine of milling, weighing, grading, coopering, storage, insurance, 'starting,' [removing the rice from whole casks into smaller units] and loading."85 He served as banker and stockbroker for the planter, who drew drafts on his factor in the manner of present day

18
checking accounts. 86 In the event that there was an especially close relationship between agent and client, the factor might also procure goods for the planter and attend to other, more personal matters. 87 Perhaps most importantly, however, the factor provided the credit which was essential to the rice planter in meeting operating expenses as well in purchasing "capital goods:" the large investment expenses of land, slaves and equipme.nt. 88 Since the planter drew heavily on his returns for investment purposes, he was usually in debt to his factor at any given time, with the possible exception of a bump.er harvest year. 89
For all these services, the factor received the privilege of marketing the planter's crop.90 Through shrewd observation of the constantly fluctuating rice prices, the factor determined the most advantageous time for selling the crop, 91 now milled and labeled by an officially appointed rice inspector as "inferior," "strictly prime," or "choice," although rice in the rough kept longer, in the event that prices were low.92 The profits were deposited to the credit of the planter for his drawing account, less expenses and a personal commission, usually two per cent.93 Interest on cash amounted to eight or twelve per cent, and debts were often carried for years with the collateral being slaves and crop liens.94
Most Georgia planters dealt with Charleston factors until the 1830's, the decade which marked Savannah's emergence as a major commercial center.95 By 1859, Savannah had eighty-two factorage firms, with whom most of Georgia's planters were doing their business.96 Occasionally a planter had more than one factor, especially if he owned more than one plantation, and, with the increase in volume of plantation produce and the increased specialization among merchants which resulted, the planter was often doing business with a group of commission houses, purchasing agents, insurance agencies, warehouses, docks and shipping facilities.97
"The plantation became a great business enterprise organized upon a capital-

19

98

is tic basis, which resulted in a sort of agricultural industrialism."

This

business, based on credit and encompassing vast tracts of land and a technically

specialized labor force, was a tenuous one, requiring close supervision and skill-

ful management.

III

At the head of this extensive operation was the owner of the plantation.
While a great deal has been written concerning the romantic aspects of the life
of the planter aristocracy, the fact that the planter himself was required to be
a fairly astute farmer and business manager has been largely overlooked.
The tradition of the cultured old Southern gentleman sipping a mint julep, while sitting on the veranda of a magnificent plantation edifice is largely incorrect. The limited number of plantation owners who could indulge in such living had previously put in long years in .building up a competent organization of overseers, managers, and co-operating relatives, who profited from the older man's extensive experience and knowledge .in the running of plantations .1
The operation of a rice plantation required constant supervision. Changing weather conditions, the onset of disease or insects, 2 and broken embankments were
among the many potential catastrophes which had to be dealt with in terms of split
second decisions and subsequent orders. The planter had an enormous investment in
his plantation, which in the 1850's, the peak of Georgia's rice production, consisted of an average of 400 acres and 110 to 130 slaves, 3 and many planters owned
more than one plantation. With prime rice land valued at $40 an acre uncleared
and at least twice that much if cleared, and slaves worth from $300 to $500, the
planter had an investment of at least $100,000, including machinery and build-
ings.4 In land and buildings alone, the coastal plantation was worth at least
three times as much, on the average, as a plantation in any other section of
Georgia, and worth more in terms of slaves, implements, machinery and livestock

20

as well. 5 Therefore, with his capital in large investments and having little 6
cash on hand, the planter ."realized that his livelihood was a direct extension

of his vigilance.

In addition, a great deal of general day to day supervision of plantation

affairs was required:

selection, acquisition, training and classification [of slaves], supervision through channels of authority and responsibility, planning of work schedules and the flow of production supplies and materials, discipline and discharge of misfits, and finally morale, hea,th, old age security, and general working and living conditions.

All of -these duties were generally the responsibility of the planter himself,

for, "the truth is on a plantation to attend to things properly it requires both

Master

&

8
Overseer."

The position of overseer on the rice coast was, however, essential, although

another expense which added to the cost of producing a rice crop. The demand

for competent overseers in the south was greatest along the South Carolina and

Georgia coasts where, research has shown, the wages were highest and the managerial
9
ability the greatest. Since the planter and his family were not in residence

on the plantation during the summer months, the overseer had the responsibility for

being the only white person on the plantation during that time. In addition,

his responsibilities included the supervision of labor and the medical care and

.

10

welfare of the slaves. It was a sensitive position, requiring careful balancing

of authority and subservience. "If there bea favorable crop, the master

makes a splendid crop; if any circumstances be unpropitious and an inferior crop is

made,

it

is

the

overseer's

fault 41

11
"

However, it was the slaves who performed the real labor of the rice planta-

tion, and due to the large amount of hand work to be done, the ratio of slaves 12
to land was high. The greatest concentration of slaves in the south was on 13
the coast of Georgia and South Carolina; the slave population of coastal Georgia

21
totaling 66.7 per cent as compared to 31 per cent white. 14 Successful use
of this slave labor required obtaining the maximum work from the slave while
protecting his health and welfare; the accomplishment of one achieved at the expense of the other, 15
Work on the rice plantation was considerably more laborious than that on a cotton plantation. 16 A pre-revolutionary observer reported:
The reader must observe upon this account that the cultivation of it (rice] is dreadful: for if a work could be imagined peculiarly unwholesome, and even fatal to health, it must be that of standing, like the negross (sic], ancle [sic], and even midleg deep in water, which floats an ouzy mud; and exposed all the while to a burning sun, which makes the vry air they breathe hotter than the human blood; these poor wretches are then in a furnace of stinking putrid effluvia: a more horrible employment can hardly be imagined 17
An ex-slave recalled his own experience;
Watering and weeding the rice is considered one of the most unhealthy occupations on a southern plantation, as the people are obliged to live for several weeks in the mud and water, subject to all the unwholseome vapors that arise from stagnant pools, under the rays of a summer sun, as well as the chilly autumnal dews of night No 8t:ranger can \orork a week in a rice swamp at this season of the year, without becoming sick; and all the new hands were taken fgl within the first five days after we had entered this field. "It was a short .life . and a-hard one."19 The slave mortality rate on the rice
coast was high, for in spite of the slave's resistance to malaria, there were
snakes in the rice swamps, and fevers, and diseases due to exposure. Yet,
exactly how harsh the work on the rice plantation was cannot be determined
with any accuracy, as, for every planter rationalization, there exists an equally adamant account written by a slave or abolitionist giving an opposing view. 20
And, while certainly numbers of plantations were left entirely to the care of
overseers whose job depended upon a large crop regardless of the cost to the
slaves, perhaps an equal number were governed by masters with a concern for the
welfare of his workers. Obviously the institution did exist and the planters

22

regarded the loyalty and obedience of their slaves as divinely given. "Our

laborers aredescendants of the African bondsmen given to our ancestors by the

mother country at the same time that Indigo, and Rice and Cotton were sent to 21
them to cultivate."

This statement is also significant in view of the recent discoveries that

African slaves may have contributed more to the development of rice culture than

just their labor. It has been widely overlooked that the natives of the West

Coast of Africa were in an agricultural stage of civilization at the time that the slave ships were plying their trade22 and that large numbers of Africans

brought to the coast of Georgia and South Carolina were familiar with rice plant-

ing. Salih Bilali, an African who was the driver at Hopeton Plantation on the

Altamaha in the early nineteenth century recalled the cultivation of rice in

Africa for the pen of his master, James Hamilton Couper:

The great grain crop is rice. As a preparation for it, the soil is

turned with a sharp pointed hoe. The seed is then sown broad cast,

and is covered with the same hoe. The ground continued dry, until

the rice is nearly two feet high; when the river rises, and inundates

the country. The water continues up, until the rice is ripe; and it

is harvested in canoes, and carried to 2~e high ground, to which the

inhabitants retire during the freshets.

.

Especially in the early years of the rice industry in the American colonies,

it was probably not infrequent for the African slave to know more about the cult-

ivation of the crop than his European master and perhaps many of the tools and

techniques which became standard on the rice fields of South Carolina and Georgia

were of African origin. Among these are the rice fans, the flat baskets used for

the winnowing of small amounts of rice, and the mortar and pestle method of removing rice from its husk. 24 A distinctly African planting technique, practiced

on many rice plantations, involved using the . heel to.indent the soil for planting, 25
covering the seed with the foot.

The tribe to which the potential slave had belonged, in fact, became a

23

matter of importance to the potential slave owner. The Angolan was said to be

"of a gentle and affectionate nature and faithful to a trust. But, of rather low mentality, he was gullible and easily swayed by others."26 The Co ramantee

was loyal, but "revengeful when ill treated," Gambi3Ils '"seasoned' readily in

our latitude," but the Eboes were "despondent" and apt to commit suicide during the "middle passage."27

But for all the analysis of tribal attributes, the majority of slaves be-

came field hands, too numerous to train and mainly performing work of a repetitive, 28
simplistic nature. founded in sheer routine.

The slaves are all up by daylight; and every one who is able to

work, from eight or nine years old and upwards, repair to their

several departments of field-labour. They do not return to their

houses either to breakfast or dinner; but have their food cooked

for them continue

in the field, by negroes appointed to that thus at work till dark, and then return to

duty. their

They dwell

ings.

29

Duties were delegated by the "task," a system instituted on, and largely

confined to, the rice coast, where the drainage system divided the fields into

easily distributed units to be worked, usually a one-quarter acre square, 105 feet on each side. 30 Since the task was designed to be completed in eight to

ten hours, the slaves were allowed free time following the completion of their assignments. 31 Each slave was designated as a quarter, half, three-quarters or

full hand depending on health, age and ability, and his or her work modified accordingly. 32 Typical tasks consisted of ditchinc new land, 500 solid feet

(for men only); digging stiff land and turning in the stubble (men and women),

one-half acre for three hands, or if the stubble were already burnt, the same

acreage for two hands; one-quarter to one-half acre of levelling land; and three quarters of an acre of trenching. 33 Sowing, done by the best hands, 34 re. quired

completion of three half-acres; hoeing, depending on the condition of the fields,

usually one-half acre; reaping, three-quarters of an acre and thrashing, 600 sheaves by men, 500 by women. 35

24
A certain amount of non-divisible work was occasionally required in place of the usual task work. Gang work, "from sun to sun," consisted of such seasonal chores as burning stubble, loading schooners with rice for market, or emergency harvesting when weather conditions seemed ominous; and tidal work, the running of the mills, had to be performed to the dictates of the tides. 36
Half-tasks were done on Saturdays on most plantations and "no work of any sort or kind is to be permitted to be done by negroes on Good Friday, or Christmas day, or on any Sunday The two days following Christmas day; the first Saturdays after finishing threshing, planting, hoeing and harvest, are also to be holidays, on which the people may work for themselves." "Women with
37 six children alive at any .2!!!_ time" were allowed Saturdays off.
In addition to the field hands, who numbered an average of one to every seven acres of rice land,38 there were other, more specialized jobs on the plantation performed by slaves. The driver, the most important and powerful slave, performed the duties of assistant overseer during the day and keeper of discipline at night.39 Next in importance were the trunk minder, in. charge of regulating the flow of water during the growing season; the plantation carpenter and blacksmith; and the boat master or "patroon" and their respective staffs.40 If the plantation had milling facilities a mill engineer and cooper were essential personnel and most plantations had at least one nurse and a midwife. The domestic servants consisted of the staff of the plantation house: butlers, maids, waiters, footmen and a children's nurse; cooks for the family and for the field hands; and
41
several seamstresses and washerwomen. Those slaves too old or infirm for field work were given specialized duties and were assigned to watch the slave nursery or mind the livestock. Children were mainly given the job of "bird minder" and were stationed in the fields with the responsibility of chasing ar.-1ay as many of
42 the rice birds and May birds as possible.

25
The two-fold responsibility of caring for and disciplining this tremendous work force was primarily that of the overseer, tvorking under strict regulations from the planter. Most plantation rules seem to have followed the underlying principle that "the care and well being . of the negroes" was of first concern, although "for the well being. of the negroes, it is absolutely necessary to
maintain obedience, order, and discipline." 43
No slave was allowed off the plantation without a ticket, or permitted to
leave his task until it was inspected by the overseer or driver. 44 Within these
restrictions the slave was allowed a certain amolDlt of freedom, although discipline on the rice plantation was stricter than on other plantations, due to the limited white supervision during the su11D1ler mouths. 45 "The best evidence of good management of slaves," it was felt, was "the keeping up of good discipline with little or no punishment." 46 Methods of punishment varied; most rules calling for whipping, although confinement, demotion, extra work and loss of privileges were also employed. 47
The annual cost of maintaining a slave usually ran between twenty and 48
thirty dollars. Food, distributed weekly, consisted primarily of vegetables and grains: sweet potatoes, turnips, peas, molasses, salt pork or bacon, and any rice or rice flour which was not to be marketed. A peck of com was usually
49 part of the rations for a full hand; others received proportionately less. On most plantations, slaves were encouraged to utilize any free time after their tasks and on Saturdays to raise food to supplement their allotment. Those who
50 did not work on the task system were then given larger rations in compensation. Fresh fish was probably easy to obtain on the rice coast, although fresh meat was less plentiful and might be given out at holidays. 51
A sort of seasonal ritual was the semiannual distribution of clothing usually
52
performed b' the planter personally. Annual issue typically consisted of four pairs of trousers, two of wool and two of cotton, four cotton shirts and a cap for

26
men and four dresses and a sunbonnet or kerchiefs for women. Slaves received one or two pairs of shoes per year and blankets every second or third year. 53
Although a certain amount of ready made clothing was ordered through the factor, 54
most clothing was made by plantation seamstresses or by the slaves themselves.
One rice planter distributed the cloth with needles, thread and buttons attached,
along with "two shirts, one cap, two pairs of woolen stockings, one and one half yards of lining and a greatcoat."55
Minor illnesses were generally attended by the overseer, or the planter or
his wife if they were in residence, and most plantations were equipped with a hospital for "lying-in"mothers and one for the sick. 56 Special care was given
to pregnant women. They were to be
attended by the midwife as long as is necessary, and by a woman put to nurse them for a fortnight. They will remain at the negro houses for 4 weeks, and then will work 2 weeks on the highland. In some cases, however, it is necessary to allow them to lie up longer. The health of many women has been entirely ruined by want of care in this particular. Women are sometimes in such a state as to render it unfit for them to work in water; the Overseer should take care of them at these times. The pregnant women are always to do some work up to the time of their confinement, if it is only walking into the field and staying there. If they are sick, they are to go to the hospital, and stay there until it is pretty certain their time is near.57
The most common diseases were cholera, pneumonia, influenza, dysentery and diseases
due to dietary deficiencies, in addition to a high incidence of accidents and injuries. 58 Doctors were called in at need and were often contracted annually at a set fee per slave. 59
Because of the large numbers of slaves on the rice plantation, the "quarters"
were actually several settlements located about the plantation so as to be as near the fields as possible, and often in a secluded location.60 Frederick Lmv Olmstead described his visit to one of these settlements along the Savannah River.61
After a dde of several miles through the woods, in the rear of the plantations we came to his largest negro-settlement. There was a street, or common, two hundred feet wide, on which the

21
cabins of the negroes fronted. Each cabin was a framed building, the walls boarded and whitewashed on the outside, lathed and plastered within, the roof shingled; forty-two feet long, twentyone feet wide, divided into two family tenements, each twenty-one by twenty-one; each tenement divided into three rooms--one, the conm~n household apartment, twenty-one by ten; each of the others (bedrooms), ten by ten. There was a brick fire-place in the middle of the long side of each living room, the chimneys rising in one, in the middle of the roof. Besides these rooms, each tenement had a cock-loft, entered by steps from the household room. Each tenement is occupied, on an average, by five persons
The dwellings were generally two one-family units, frequently made of tabby, with
the floors raised and planked, to be out of reach of the malarial soil, and with whitewashed walls which were believed to inhibit the spread of the "summer fever." 62
"The negroes have provided for them all the necessaries of life in sufficient
abundance," was the claim of one rice planter. "They are well fed and clothed,
well sheltered and cared for in sickness, . and during the infirm! ties and helplessness of old age In short, the educated master, is the negro's best friend upon earth."63
This paternalistic philosophy was widespread. Almost without exception, the planter
would refer to his slaves as his "people,"64 caring for them with a sense of noblesse
oblige which might match his economically-based concern for their well-being. In
return for his "good treatment ; the master required obedience and laboriousness and had the threat of punishment on his side. 65
Under this frequently contradictory management, the slaves "created unique
cultural forms which lightened the burden of opression, promoted group solidarity,
provided ways for verbalizing agression, sustaining hope, building self esteem and often represented areas of life largely free from the control of the whites." 66
Loosely synthesized from African and European elements, the distinctive culture of
the slave was one which prevented total identification with the master, thus pro-
viding a sense of group identifiction:, the most important aspect of t-:hich was that
slaves "were not solely dependent on th.e white man's cultural frame of reference for their ideals and values." 67

28
The acculturation of Africans into American life through the institution of slavery i.s perhaps best illustrated on the rice coast. The numerical do~&inance of the blacks, combined with the frequent and prolonged absence of the whites, favored a comparatively high degree of African retention.s, which was supplemented by the continued arrival of African slaves in the nearly half a c.entury after such traffic had been outlaWed nationally. 68 The seacoast of South Carolina and Georgia has rated highest in African retentions of various areas of
the United States , 69 as, ~'in the process of acculturation, the slave made European
forus serve African functions. 1170 The slave community was charactedzed by several interrelated cultural ele-
menta. The religion of the slave, while based primarily -on the Christian beliefs of his owner, borrowed from such predominantly African tendencies as the belief in magic and nature worship. Belief in a supreme being presupposed the existence
71
of a higher authority than the master and, while the Christian religion promised a better world after death, the addition of superstition and voodoo-like practices could insure immunity in the present world. 72 Superstition also played a part in the &lave's folk tales, which de.alt with such predictable themes as "t..eakness overcoming strength. The relating of personal experiences in both story and oral history form provided a method of instruction for a people forbidden to read or
73 write.
Music and dance were a part of both religious and secular life. The wellknown spiritual was complemented by work songs and songs dealing with punishments, the stupidity of the patrollers, the heartlessness of traders and the character-
74
istics of owners. Perhaps the most impressive work songs were those sung by
75
the boatmen. One woman rembered them vividly from her plantation childhood. "Sometimes we used to row down the Savannah River in a big, flat-bottomed boat, and the Negroes sang as they rowed us, and those working in the rice fields on

29

the islands would join in the re;frain, till it echoed back anc~. forth across the still waters, like music on a harp." 76 Hhile there was little difference between
77 the sacred and secular dances to the casual observer, the most significant

religious dance was called the "shout," and is described by several observers

including one woman who came to the coast of South Carolina in 1862 to teach those slaves freed in the capture of Port Royal: 78

The negroes sing a kind of chorus, -three standing apart to lead and clap, -and then all the others go sluffling round in a circle, following one another with not much regularity, turning round occasionally and bending the knees, and stamping so that the whole floor swings. 1 never saw anything so savage. They call it a religious ceremony, but it seems more like a regular frolic to me

The patois of the Geechee-Gullah dialects on the Georgia and South Carolina

c.ast is perhaps the mast persistent of African retentions and is generally attributed to the lack of contact between the slave and his white master. 79

"These Low Country. negroes," complained one South Carolinian, ''have hardly learned to speak intelligibly " 80 "The negroes of the coast failed to

acquire the English language in intelligible form." reported a twentieth century

historian. "They clung to voodooism aad other things Afric~ and they remained largely foreign in spirit and custom and the subject of mystery to their masters."81

It was this dichotomy of cultures which allowed the slave to reject his master's

view of his place in society and attempt to "hold onto the African cultural deter-

mination of his status." 82

83 Life was isolated, however, for white as well as black.

On the rice coast,

there were upwards of. twenty black familie.s to e.very. white. family, M and, in 1850,

there were only 551 rice plantations in the United States, as compared to 74,031

cotton plantations; 15,745 tobacco plantations; 8,327 hemp plantations and 2,681 sugar plantations. 85 As rice planters often owned more than one plantation, these

figures indicate that the rice community was . a small one, though "one to be reckoned with." 86

30
It was a privileged, articulate and somewhat insulated class, with a
"keen sense of personal pride and honor powerfully nourished by the institution of slavery."87 Travelers found the rice planters and their families hospitable, "highly refined and intelligent."88 "Meeting people of their cultivation and
delicacy in this remote and solitary abode was the source to us of equal surprise. and gr.ati f ication. .,89 A description of the rice planters who lived along
the Pee Dee River in South Carolina seems to speak of rice planters all along the
coast.
I don't believe any community of men &women in the world live in higher refinement of abundance than the Pee Dee planters
and their families The best colleges & most enlightened female
schools have polished their home virtues. They wear fashionable clothes, have the amusements of cultured people & use the hospitalities becoming to the best classes of human society. They ride and drive high bred horses, keep packs for the chase and tackle for the waters. They maintain a public library and no home is wanting in many books educative of mind and mo~s and taste. Every provision for the table that the stock yard, the poultry yard, the dairy, the vegetable garden, the orchard supply is found here. Floriculture is an art with the wives and daughters. That foundation of civilized customs, effective. and faithful domestic servants, is perfectly laid. The whole co~ munity is regular in religious services At all seasons dinner parties, evening parties, in summer small mid day meetings to take fruit and wine around the broad maho~any table, or in winter afternoons to crack nuts and drink wine.9 Education, considered essential training for leadership,91 was limited to
males, although there were "female academies" available for the daughters of the plantation. 92 A veritable chivalric code existed for the c:Onduc.t . of the man, the
conventions of which "permitted a considerable liberality in personal morals, de-
manded an attitude of reverence for women, and took for granted a devotion to that
sum of principles which is called honor. To take some part in politics was almost a canon of his class."93 A byproduct of such mores, however, was the comparative
stagnation of intellectual development on the part of .the rice ladies. And, although
there were exceptions to this tendency, it was strong enough to elicit comment from
a variety of observers throughout the antebellum era. Fanny Kemble, who said she

31
would rather "die--a thousand times--than live the lives of these Georgia planters' wives and daughters," had nothing but pity for "the stupid sameness of their most vapid existence, which would deaden any amount of intelligence, obliterate any amount of instruction, and render torpid and stagnant any amount of natural energy and vivacity."94 Anrta Matilda King of St. Simons Island managed her husband's plantation during his numerous absertces, but mourned, "Poor me, I have no change, the same dull routine--ordering breakfast, dinner and supper, looking after the servaats, then darning socks and thinking."95
The planters, having both a financial and intellectual interest in scientific agriculture, established both societies and publishing forums for the diffusion of such knowledge as their experience and education produced, as well as hunting and social clubs s .uch as the Hot and Hot Fish Club of All Saints Parish, South Carolina, which provided the planters with a context for "a commingling of
96 aristocracy without the taint of snobbery." These societies formulated a consid-
erable political machine which wielded wide influence in the affairs of government. 97 A significant aspect of the life of the rice society was the periodic and
seasonal movements of the planter and his family. Unable to reside on the rice fields during the summer months, the planter chose from a variety of fashionable resorts: Cla~ksville, in the Georgia mountians, Newport and Saratoga, or the Virginia springs. 98 The very wealthy with trusted overseers could summer in Europe, but most planters chose to remain near their plantations during the growing season. Nearly every planter had a town house which was used during the February social season and could be opened during the summer months, and most had a home on the sea islands or in the pine lands a few hours' ' journey by horse or boat from the plantat:f,gp. 99
The rice coast was both a distinctive geographical and social region and a model for emulation .by ' planters of the interior South. Cotton culture was, by

32

comparison, a widespread, heterogenous, and isolated (from urban influences)

phenomenon which required less capital and slave labor to turn a profit. Cot-

ton's enviornmental adaptability resulted in the continual expansion of the ante-

bellum frontier, and, as a result, a sort of solidification of frontier life-

styles on a large scale. The rice coast was narrow, both spatially and socially.

Where the cotton planter generally exhausted his land after several years and

followed the path of profit westward, the rice planter was sustained by the steady

100

renewal of his swamplands through river transport of upland soils.

The persis-

tence of a fertile land base provided the rice planters with a comparatively

stable and settled situation. And the productions of such stability could and

did sustain cultural forms which reflected not just financial success but the

refinement of such success over generations - the basis, along with its tidewater Virginia and lower Mississippi Valley parallels, 101 for the Old South of

fiction, folklore and the popular imagination. As such, the rice coast was sus-

tained by mixed blessings, as is evidenced by this 1778 account by a visitor to the area. 102

He turned from our direct road into a muddy avenue, two miles in length, cut through the forest. At its termination, we found ourselves in an open space, occupied by a miniature palace, elegant in its exterior and embellished by the most refined taste, in the midst of a noble plantation and surrounded by a little village of negro huts. Everything in and about the house announced wealth and elegance. A highly ornamental flower-garden I saw blooming on the sixteenth of February, in all the glory and beauty of spring in New England. In wandering over the grounds we observed a large collection of negroes, seated upon rice straw making a miserable meal upon boiled rice and pure water. It is truly astonishing how the slave can sustain life with this wretched pittance, and even appear in good health and condition, compelled to labor from dawn to night, through the long summer days, under the scorching rays of the intense sun, with no shelter for his head, and in most instances, his black and oily skin exposed to its full beams; yet they seemed joyous and happy. In contemplating the wealth and splendor and magnificence of the Southern planter, I cannot divest my mind of the idea that they are all produced by the sweat and blood of the slave.

33
IV
The rice plantations of the Old South were inseperably linked to the institution of slavery and did not long survive its abolition. The Civil War and its attendant physical and financial destruction of coastal plantations was an enormous setback; however, although revival efforts persisted until the early decades of the present century, the demise of the rice districts was insured when labor became a marketable coiniOOdity. Hurricanes and economic competition from the Louisiana-Texas-Arkansas regions contributed to the decline, but emancipation was the prime factor; the watershed between Old and New South.

34

FOOTNOTES
~~Coast

Introduction

1

.

J. Motte Alston, ~Planter,.!!!$ Sportsman (Columbia: University of

South Carolina Press, 1953), p. 51.

2Alfred Huger, quoting Henry A. Middleton SnQ.th in "lhe Story of 'the Low Co\Ultry"
in Augustin T. Smythe, et al, .!!!!, Carolina 1.2!, Country (New York: MacMillan,
1931), P 103.

3ntincan Clinch He~ard, Seed .!!:2m Madagascar (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1937), p. 18.

4Ibid., p. 19.

1fuger, .2 s_g_., quoting Robert Francis llithers Allston (?), p. 106.

6
FranCis Pendleton Gaines, ~ Southern Plantation; !

Study .!!!, .!h.! Develop-

~~ Accuracy .!..! Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925), p. 154.

7
Frederick

Law

Olmstead,! Journey .!!.lh. !. Seaboa:r:d

Slave

States,

v.2

(New

York, 1856; reprint, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1904), p. 138.

Section I

1 Lewis

c.

Gray,

History .!..Agriculture.!!!, the Southern

United

States !2, ~

(Washington: The Carnegie Institute, 1933), p. 277.

2 .

For discussions of the legends see: A.S. Salley, The Introduction of Rice Culture into South Carolina (Coluri>ia: lhe State Printini"'Co., 1919); Peter~ Wood, Black"MaJoritt (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), PP 35, 36; Gray,~ cit.,

PP 277-279.

\rood, ~ .ill 1 PP 36, 58.
4Ibid., p. 58; quoting Thomas Lamboll in Gentleman's Magazine, XXXVI (1766), PP 278, 279 ~

5 Gray,

..!2.

..!!.;

Wood,

~

!!.,

P

57.

6 . Gray,

.
~

.!!,

. pp. 280-282;

. Lelia

. Sellers,

Charles ton

Buainess .2!!. h.!

Eve

.!.~American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934),

DD. 150. 151,

7 Thomas J. Wertenbaker; The Old South: The Founding of American Civilization (New York: Scribners, 1942), p. 290.

35
8Mary Granger, ed., Savannah River Plantations (Spartanburg, S.c. : The Reprint Co., 1972), p. ix.

9"An Act for granting Liberty to carry Rice from His Majesty's Province of Carolina in America, directly to any Part of Europe Southward of Cape Finisterre, in Ships built in, and belonging to Great Britain, and navigated according to law; and to extend that Liberty to His Majesty's Province of Georgia in America." (London, 1735).

10Allen D. Candler and Lucien Lamar Knight, eds., .!.!!.!, Colonial Records .2f .Eh!, State .2. Georgia (Atlanta, 1904-1916), v. 2, p. 177. (cited aftetwards as CRG.)

11 Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery (New York: D. Appleton and Co.,
1918), pp. 89, 258. (cited aftetwards as ANS.)

12 Sellers,

.2

.ill,

p.

61.

13 James E. Callaway, Early Settlement~ Georgia (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1948), p. 30.

14CRG., v.l, P . ~73.

15CRG., v.3, p. 376. 16 .
Phillips, ANS, p. 94; Granger,.2 cit., pp. x, xi.

17Ulrich B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South (Boston: Little,
Brown and Co., 1929), p. 49 .(ci't;d' aftetwards asTAL.)

18Joseph Jones, Agricultural Resources of Georgia (Augusta, 1861), p. 6; the Salzburgers o~ Ebenezer wrote the T~ustees to the contrary: (CRG, v.23, part
2, pp. 120-121) ''[we have] not the least reason now to make any Complaint about the hot season of the Countrey [sic), being not so very hoe, as idle & delicate people endeavour to persuade themselves & others, & for that unreasonable Reason
would like it mighty well rather to imploy [sic] Negroes in their Work, than white Europian [sic] people I take the Freedom to beseech the Honourable Trustees not to allow any Negro-man or Woman to be carried to & imploy'd [sic] at our Place or Neighbourhood, seeing that the Consequences of it would be very bad & the Ruin of poor Labourers. White people, if industrius [sic] & desirous to follow the Direction of God Gen:III.l9 are capable enough to plant here every sort of CountryGrain without hurting heir Health in the Summer season; of which is Witness my
whole Congregation."

19Two examples: John Silk Buckingham, The Slave States .of America (London,

1842; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968), pp.S9, 90; Alexander

Mackay, The Western World (London, 1849; reprint, New York: Negro Universities

Press, 1968), p. 180.

.

20

Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora Wood (Boston: Chris-

topher Publishing House, 1940), pp. 67..;.72.

-

21

.

.

Clement Eaton, The Growth of Southern Civilh;ation, 1790-1860 (New York:

Harper and Row, 1961), p:-103; see-also: St. Julian Ravenel Childs, Malaria and

Colonization in the Carolina Low Country (1526-1696) (Baltimore: The Johns Hop-

kins Press, 1940); William Dosite Postell, The Health of Slaves on Southern Plan-

tations (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University PresS: 1951).-

36

22Alexander Hewatt, An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Caroli~~ and Georgia (London, 1779; reprint, Spartanburg, S.C.:
The Reprint Co., 1962), y\ II, p. 136.

23Wood, .92.. cit., pp. 88, 89.

24Hewatt, cit., v. I, p. 120.

2 ~enneth M. Stampp, ~Peculiar Institution (New York: P 7 1 quoting DeBow's Review.
26phillips 1 LAL, P 57.

Knopf, 1956),

27CRG, v.l, PP 400 1 408-411. 28CRG, v.l, PP 530 531.

29CRG, v.l, PP 531 1 532.

30CRG, v.2 1 P 500.

31Phillips, LAL, P 57.

3 2cRG , v 7 , p 3

33James c. Bonner, !:!.. History.! Georgia .AJriculture, ~-.!!!Q. (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 1964) 1 p. 8.
34Stampp, .2 .!!., P 5.
35:rbid.
36Albert v. House, "Labor Management Problems on Georgia Rice Plantations,
1840-1860" Agricultural History, XXVIII (1954), pp. 152, 153.

37.Hewatt, .2 .ll_., v. II, p. 267.

38John Drayton. !_ ~ .! South Carolina.!!.!! Respects ~Natural ..!E.2, Civil Concerns (Charleston, 1802), P 115.

3Qvrood 1 .2 ..!!., p. 36, Phillips, ANS., p. 87. 40Granger, 12 ill.

4 ~lph Betts Flanders 1 Plantation Slavery ..!!!, Georgia (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 1933), P 52.

4 ~. L. Bogart 1 Economic His tory .2.f American Agriculture (New York: Long-
mans, Green and Co., 1923) 1 p. 18.

D

i

s

t

r

i

4\ ct

oui
.2.f

s N

DeVorsey, orth Ameri

.J ca

r

. (

1
C

DeBrahm' olumbia:

s

Report Univers

.2!!.
ity

the General Survey .!.!!, ~ Southern
of South Carolina Press, 1971) 1

p. 162; Flanders, .2 ..!!. pp. 42 1 43.

49Ibid.

45 Callaway,

.2

..!!..,

p.

48.

37

46David R. Chesnutt, South Carolina's Expansion ~ Colonial Georgia, JllQ;~. PhD, University of Georgia, 1973, p. iv.

47Ulrich B. Phillips, f:. History ! Transportation .!!!, ,lli Eastern Cotton
Belt to 1860 (New York, 1908), p. 23; Ulrich B. Phillips, Plantation and Frontier
DOCUments; 1645-1863 (Cleveland, 1905), p. 81. (cited afterwards as PAF.)

48Douglas C. \-films, "The Development of Rice Culture in Eighteenth Century Georgia," Southeastern Geographer, XII, P 45.

49
Phillips,

ANS,

PP

95-97.

50Bartholemew R. Carroll, Historical Collections of South Carolina (New York, 1836), p. 201.

51
Gray,

.2E.

ill.,

p.

279.

52
Phillips,

ANS,

p.

88.

53
Sellers,

.2E.

.!!. ,

p.

149.

54
Gray,

12

ill.

55Sellers, .2E. .!!., p. 148.

56Amory Austin, Rice: Its Cultivation, Production and Distribution in !!.!.United States ~ "F''reignCountries. with~ chapter .2!!. !h!;, !!.!:_SoilS
.2f South Carolina, (Washington, 1893), p. 17.

57Arthur H. Cole, "The American Rice Growing Industry: A Study of Com-
parative Advantage," Quarterly Journal E.. Economics, XLI (1927), p. 601.

58
Sellers,

.2E.

!E. ,

p.

149.

59
Callaway,

.2E.

ill,

P

50.

60Gray,~ !! PP 723, 724.

61.I...b...i..d.. ., PP 724-726

62
DeBow's

Review,

I

(1845),

p.

333.

63
Albert V. House, "Labor Management Problems on Georgia' Rice- Plantations,
1840-1860 t II ..2. ill. t p o 149.

Section II

1 DeVorsey,

~

..!!. ,

p.

94.

2 R. F. H. Allston. "Essay on Sea Coast Crops, Read before the Agricultural
Association of the Planting States on Occasion of the Annual Meeting Held at
Columbia December 3, 1853" (Charleston, 1854), p. 27. (cited afterwards as
"Essay.")

38

3Edmun. d Rufh.n, Report of the Commencement and Progress of the Agricultural Survey of South Carolina for 1843 (Columbia, 1843), p. 101.
4 Ibid., p. 102.
5 Phillips, LAL, p. 117; Ruffin,~ cit., pp. 101, 102.

6Ruffin, ~ cit., p. 103; Sass, loc. cit.
7 Albert Virgil House, ed., Planter Management and Capitalism in Ante-
Bellum Georgia: The Journal of Hugh Fraser Grant, Ricegrower (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), p. 27. (cited afterwards as PMC.); David Doar, Rice and Rice Planting in the South Carolina Low Country (Charleston: The Charleston Museum, 1936), p. 11.

8Phillips, LAL, p. 117.

9Ruffin, .2.. cit., p. 10 3

10Huger, .2.. cit., quoting Henry A. Middleton Smith, p. 103.

11 Doar,

~

cit.,

p.

9.

12
Ruffin, .2.. cit., p. 101.

13 House, PMC, p. 26.

14Ibid.; Herbert Ravenel Sass, "The Rice Coast: Its Story and Its Meaning"

co., in Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, A Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties (New

York: Williamw. Morrow and

1936), 'P724.

---

15Ruffin, .2.. cit., p. 103; Austin, ~ cit., p. 18.

16Ruffin, loc. cit. 17
House, PMC, pp. 26, 27; Sass, .2.. cit., p. 25.
18 Allston, "Essay," p. 27.
19 Ruff1..n, loc. cit. 20
Allston, "Essay," p. 27.

2 laouse, PMC, p. 27.

22

.

Theodore D. Ravenel, "The Last Days of Rice Planting," in Doar, .2.. cit.,

p. 46.

23

.

Agricultural Society of South Carolina. "Original Communications made to

the Agricultural Society of South Carolina and Extracts from Select Authors on

Agriculture, Published by Order of the Society" (Charleston, 1824), Letters from

Thomas Pinckney. (cited afterwards as ''Letters.")

39

24auffin, .2 ...!!_., p. 106.
25Gray, .2 .!!, p. 729; Allston, . "Essay," p. 31; Paul Wallace Gates, .!ll!:. Fanner's Age: Agriculture .!11--~ (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1960), P 119.
29Herbert A. Kellar, ed., Solon Robinson, Pioneer~ Agriculturist. v.2
~-.!.ll. (Vol. 23, Indiana Historical Collections.) (Indianapolis: Indiana
Historical Bureau, 1936). p. 350; Heyward,~, ill, p. 28.
27House, PMC, PP 2. 7, 28.
28Ibid., p. 28.
29Gray, ~ _ill., p. 727.
30ueyward, ..21!. .!!, p. 30; Ruffin, ~ .ill, p. 105. 31Gray, 1.2. .ill 32Ruffin, ..2)2; _!!., p. 105; Kellar, .2 ill., p. 345. 33Gray, 1.2 ..ll 34"Letters, 11 pp. 23, 24; George c. Rogers, A History .2! Georgetown County,
South Carolina, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970), p.332.
35Sass, .2E. ill., p. 29.
36 Austin, .2E. cit., p. 18.

37.!ll.

38 House, PMC, p. 28
39 Ruffin, .2E. ..!!,
40ueyward, .22. ill,., P 31
41.!.!2!s! ' p. 32.
4211 Letters, 11 pp. 23, 24.
43 Gray, 1.2.. .ill ; Austin, 21?. ...!!., p. 19; Kellar, .2. .!!.., p. 366 44 Gray, 1.2. !.!

45ll!.

46 For a discussion of other methods see: Pl-lC, pp. 31-34; "Letters. 11
47 Aus tin, 12... .!!.

Ruffin,~ !! p. 112ff; House

40
48rrouse, PHC, P 28.
49Heyward, .2. ..!!, p. 36. 50Austin , .!2.. ..!!. 51Heyward, 12. .ill 52Ruffin, .2. ..!!., P 107; Austin, 12 _ill.; DeBow's Review XII (1852), p. 296.
5JoeBow's Review, XII (1852), p. 296. Letter from R.F.W. Allston. 5~ouse, PMC, P 32.
55Gray, .2. .!!, p. 728; Heyward, .2. .!!, P 37.
56nouse, PMC, p. 32. 57~., P 33. 58rbid., PP 33, 34.
59Gray, loc ..!!; Ruffin, .2. ill., p. 108. 60Albert v. House, "Charles Manigault's Essay on the Open Planting of Rice,"
Agricultural History XVI (1942), p. 186.
6luouse, PMC, P 34.
6212!& PP 32, 34.
6Jsass, .2. ill, p. 26.
64Allston, "Essay," P 35.
65Alfred Huger, "The Story of the LowCountry," Augustin T. Smythe 7 et al eta~, ~~e C~ro~;~~ ~Country (New York: MacMillan, 1931), p. 105.
66cray, .2. ill , p. 729. 67rbid.; Heyward, .2. ill, p. 40. 6~ogers, .2. ill, p. 333.
69Allston, "Essay," p. 36.
70rimothy Ford, "The Diary of Timothy Ford, 1785-1786," South Carolina Historical~ Genealogical Magazine, XIII (1912), p. 183.
71House, PMC, P 58.

41

72Heyward, ~ .!!, p. 41; House, PMC, p. 62.

73Frances Anne Kemble, Journal 2.!.! Residence .!!..! r.eorgian Plantation ..!.!:!.
1838-39 (New York, 1863; reprint, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), pp. 109, 110;
'iiO'US'e-;-PMC, P 60.

74Doar, ..21!. ill , p. 14.
75cray, ~ !!., p. 730; DeBow's Review, XII (1852), p. 297.
R.F.W. Allston.

Letter from

76aeyward, 1 ill 77Kellar, .2. ill , p. 352.
7\rouse, PMC, p. 61; Kellar, ..21!. ..!!., p. 366.
79An American, [Dr. John Mitchell?], "American Husbandry," v. 1 (London, 1775), P 393.
80"A Lucas Merorandum," South Carolina Historical Hagazine, LXIX (1968), p.
193; for a description of other machinery invented see Sellers, EE. ..!!, pp. 150,
151.

81Doar, .2,. .!! , p. 19
82 neBow's Review, XII (1852), p. 297. Lette.r from R.F.W. Allston.

83Rogers, ..21!. ill , p. 335; Gates, ..21!. ill, P 119. 84Sass, .21!. ill, p. 22; Gray,~ ill, p. 730.

8SHouse, LMC, P 71.

86 J .H. Easterby, "The South Carolina Rice Factor as Revealed in the Papers of R.F.W. Allston," Journal.2. Southern History, VII (1941), p. 166; House, PMC, p. 44.
87Easterby, .2 ill, p. 164.
88House, PMC, P 41.
89 Easterby, ~ ill, p. 167.
90~ pp. 167, 171.
91Rogers, .2.E. ill, p. 337.
92se11ers, .2.E. ,m., p. 152; Easterby, .2.E. .ill pp. 168, 169.
93Rogers, .2 .!!, pp. 337, 338.

42

94Alfred H. Stone, "The Cotton Factorage System of the Southern States,"
American Historical Review, XX (1915), p. 561; Sellers,~ 1! p. 57.
95House, LHC, pp. 45, 58; a description of Savannah's development as a commercial center, especially with regard to rice marketing may be found in House, LHC, pp. 70-79.
96
.!!!!!. p 71
97Ibid., p. 70.
98Sellers, . cit., p. 55 .

Section III

1House, LMC, P 50.
2
Discussions of the various pests and aiaeases affecting rice plants may
be found in Austin, E. ill, p. 31; and Doar, & ll., pp. 26, 27.
3Albert Virgil House, "Labor Management Problems on Georgia Rice Plantations, 1840-1860," Agricultural History, XXVIII (1954), p. 150. (cited afterwards as U1P.)

4 Ibid. ;

Bonner,

~

...ll. ,

p.

48

5Roland 1'1. Harper, "Development of Agriculture in Lower Georgia from 18501880," Georgia Historical Quarterly, VI (1922), p. 111.

6R.S. Cotterill, TI1e Old South . (Glendale, Calif.:

P 269.

--

7 House, U1P, p. 151.

Arthur H. Clark Co., 1936),

8Charles Manigault in Ulrich B. Phillips, Plantation and Frontier Documents;

~-~(Cleveland, 1905), p. 147.

-

9w.K. Scarborough, .!.!:!!. Overseer; Plantation Management ~ l l i ,ill South (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966), pp. 29, 56, 199.
10 H.K. Scarborough, "Plantation Overseer Reevaluated," Agricultural History,
XXXVIII (1964), pp. 13, 18.

11J.C. Bonner, quoting an overseer in "The Plantation Overseer and Southern Nationalism," Agricultural History, XIX (1945), p. 2.

12
Gates,~

/il

p.

119.

13Ibid.

14Harper, .!.2. ,.!!.
15 Ralph netts Flanders, "Planters Problems in Ante-Bellum Georgia." Georgia
Historical Quarterly, XIV (1930), p.22; Ulrich B. Phillips, "The Origin and Growth of the Southern Black Belts," American Historical Review, XI (1906), pp. 804, 805.

43

16Sidney Halter Hartin, ed., "A New Englander's Impressions of Georgia in

1817-1818: Extracts from the Diary of Ebenezer Kellog," Journal of Southern

History, XII (1946), P 262.

-

17An American, .2. ...!!, pp. 393, 394.

18 Charles

Ball,

Fifty Years ,!.!!. Chains;

.2!. illb!!.! .2f ~ American

Slave

(New York, 1858; reprint, Miami: The Mnemosyne Publishing Co., 1969), pp. 144, 242.

19 Thomas

L.

Stokes,~ Savannah

(New York:

Rinehart and Co., 1951), p. 122.

20 Two accounts which favor slavery are Hon. Amelia Murray, Letters from the
United States, Canada and Cuba (New York, 1856) and R.Q. Mallard, Plantat~Lrf; Before Emancipation (Ri'Chmond, 1892). Two anti-slavery accounts are Rupert -
Sargent Holland, ed~, Letters ~ Diary .2f Laura ..!:: Towne (Cambridge, 1912; reprint,
New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) and John Brown, Slave ~.!!!, Georgia
(London, 1885; reprint, Savannah: The Beehive Press, 1972.)

21 Allston, "Essay," p. 40.

22Asa II. Gordon, Sketches .2f Negro .11!!. ~History.!!!, South Carolina
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1929), p. 6.

23rtlillip D. Curtin, ed., Africa Remembered (Madison: University of Hiscousin Press, 1967), p. 150.

24 Hood,

:E.

.!..!:. ,

p.

61.

25Hilliam R. Bascom, "Acculturation Among the Gullah Negroes," American Anthropologist, XLIII (1941), p. 49.
26 Dubose Heyward, "The Negro in the Low Country," in Augustin T. Smythe.t
et al, .!!:!! Carolina~ Country (New York: HacMillan, 1931), p. 173.

271l., pp. 174, 175.

28ulrich B. Phillips, "The Slave Labor Problem in the Charleston District,"
Political Science Quarterly, XXII (1907), p. 418; Phillips, "The Origin and G~owth
of the SouthetncBlack. Belts," .2. .!:!!., p. 804.

29Bucl~ingham, .2. .ill pp. 132, 133.

30 Stampp,

:E.

!!,

P

55;

House,

LNP,

P

153.

31James Harold Eas terby, ed., The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed
~ill Papers .2f Robert!~ Al1ston-rGhicago: Univers~of Chicago Press, 1945),
P 31.
32
Frederick Law 01r.J.Stead, ,!h! Cotton Kingdom (New York, 1861), p. 1919
House, U1P, p. 152; Rogers, :E. .ill, p. 331.

33Ruffin, .2. .!!, p. 118; other task assignments in DeBow's Review, XVIII
(1855), pp. 350~352.

44

34 Allston, "Essay," p. 32.

35 Ruffin,

.!..

..!!

36 Smith,

.2.

.!.!:.,

p.

70.

37 Phillips, PAF, p. 117.

38House, LMr, p. 150; Bonner,! History .2!. Georgia Agriculture , .2. .!!.
p. 48.

39 Ketnble,

.2

.!!..,

p.

80.

40Phillips, 1::. His tory .2!. Transportation , .2. .!!., p. 26; Doar, .2E. cit. ,
p. 30.

41 House,

U1P,

p.

152;

Doar, .2 ill,

pp.

31,

33;

Kemble, .2E. ..!!,

pp.

63,

168.

42 House, LMP, PP 152, 154.

43Phillips, PAF, p. 116.

44.!.E.!.5!; Smith , .2E.. ill , p 77

45 House, LMC, PP 52, 53.
46 Southern Agriculturist, VII (1834), p. 368.

47Phillips, PAF, p. 118; John W. Blassingame,~ Slave Community: Plantat~. on

Life 1a~ Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 166;

see also H.M. Henry, Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina (PhD, Vanderbilt

University, 1914).

--

-

48 House, LMC, p. 53.

491.!2.!2. , p. 47; Kellar, .2E. ill , p. 367.

,p. 50House, LMC, loc. cit.; William Dosite Postell, The Health of Slaves on

Southern Plantations{BatooRouge: Louisiana State University Pre;, 1951)

32;

Kellar, 1:.2. ill

51Kellar, loc. cit.; House, LMC, loc. ,cit.; see also Hason Crum, Gullah (Durham: Duke U~ersity Press, 1940; repri'ilt," New York: Negro Universities
Press, 1968), pp. 248-250 and Olmstead, .!!:!!.. Cotton KingdQm, .2E. .!!_., p. 192.

sss:- - - - - 52Eugene A. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New
York: Pantheon, 1974), P

53Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross; the Ec-
onomics .2.f American Negro Slavery (Boston: Little, Br;-an:d Co':", 1974) ,p. TI6.

54 House,

UfC,

p.

49;

Postell, .2E.

cit.,

p.

40;

Duncan

Clinch Heyward, .2E. ill,

p. 181; Georgia Bryan Conrad, "Reminiscences of a Southern loloman," printed in

~ Southern Workman, 1901; published in pamphlet form by the Hampton Institute

Press, Hampton, Virginia, n.d.

45

55smith, .2 !!, P 73.

56 Postell,

.2.

ill,

P

56.

57Phillips, PAF, P 119.

58 Postell,

.21!

ill

pp.

84,

88,

89.

59House, LMP, p. 154; House, U1C, p. 49; Crum, .2. ill, p. 253; Postell, E.E.. ..sll.. ' p 72

60 Genovese, .2 ill, P 528.

61Olmstead,~ Cotton Kingdom, .2. !!., pp., 184, 185.

62Foge1, cit., p. 115; Bonner,~ History of Georgia Agriculture ,~

cit_. ' p 199
63 Allston, "Essay," pp. 40, 41.

64 Sass,

.21!

..!!.,

p.

39

65
Blassingame, .2.

..!!.,

pp.

144,

148;

for

a

complete

discussion

of

pater-

nalism in American slavery, see Genovese, .2.1?.!. ..!!.

66 Blassingame,

!.e.

.ll_.,

P

41.

67~., PP 39, 45, 76.
68 Importation of slaves was forbidden after January 1, 1808 by an act of
Congress March 3, 1807, Barnett Hollander, Slavery.!!!, America: .!!,! Legal History
(New York: Barnes and Noble, 1964); but continued on a clandestine baSis until the Civil War. It seems likely that large numbers of these contraband slaves remained on the coast. Lorenzo Turner, Africanisms ~~Gullah Dialect (Chicago, 1943)' pp. 1, 2, 5.

69Paul Oliver citing Melville Herskovitz' "Scale of Intensity of New World AfricanisTP.s" in "Problem, Method and Theory in Afroarnerican Studies," in Afroamerica, I (1945), pp. 5-24, in Savannah Syncopators (New York: Stein and Day, 1970), p. 16.

70 Blassingame,

..21!.

..!!..,

p.

17.

71 Ibid., p. 42~

72 Robert

E.

Park,

"The

Conflict

and

Fusion

of

Cultures,"

Journal .!. Negro

History, IV (1919), p. 128.

73Blassingame, .2 !!., pp. 24-26, 57, 58.

74.!!?.! ' p. 50.
75 ~., p. 53; one of the earliest writers to appreciate the power of the
hybrid Afroamerican musical forms was Fanny Kemble, ..12 cit., pp. 162-164, 195, 259-261.

46

76Sarah E. Torian, ed., "Ante Bellum and War Memoirs of Mrs. Telfair Hodgson,"
Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXVII (1943), p. 351.

77 Blassingame,

.2.

.!!.,

p.

17

2f 78Rupert Sargent Holland, ed., Letters~ Diary

Laura~ Towne (Cambridge,

1912; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), p. 20.

79 The definitive work on African retentions in linguistics is still Lorenzo
Turner's Africanisms .!!!, !h.! Gullah Dialect, .2. ill Turner has traced several
thousaad words of west African origin in the speech of the coastal Blacks.

80 John H. DuBose, "Recollections of the Plantation," Alabama Historical
Quarterly, I (1930), p.66.
81 Ulrich B. Phillips, "The Slave Labor Problem in the Charleston District,"
Political Science Quarterly, XXII (1907), p. 422.

82 Blassingame,

.2

.!!.,

pp.

24,

25.

83 Phillips, ANS, p. 97.

84Phillips, "The Slave Labor Problem ," .2 ..!!, p. 418.

85 Clement Eaton, The Growth of Southern Civilization; 1790-1860 (New York:

Harper and Row, 1961) , P.99.

-

--

86 Phillips, ANS, p. 97.
87 Clement Eaton, "Class Differences in the Old South," Virginia Quarterly
Review, XXXIII (1957), p. 361.

88 Elkanah \Iatson, Men and Times of the Revolution (New York, 1856), p. 54;

other travelers who wereTavorably imp?es"Sed with their visits with the rice

planters were Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828

(Edinburgh, 1830) and Frederick Law-Olmstead, f:. Journey .!!!, _lli seab(;'a-;r-sr;Ve"

States, .2 ill



89Watson, 1.2.. ..!!

90 DuBose,

12

.ill

91 P.S. Cotterill, The Old South (Glendake, Calif.:

1936). p. 281.

--

Arthur H. Clark Co.,

92 Chalmers

Gaston

Davidson, .!.!!!, ~ Foray

(Columbia:

Carolina Press, 1971), p. 47.

93 Cotterill,

.2

ill,

p.

270.

University of South

94 Kemble,

.2.

..!!,

p.

192.

95 Sudie Dnncan Sides, "Southern Women and Slavery," History Today, XX (1970),
P 55.

47
96Richard B. Harwell, "The Hot and Hot Fish Club of All Saints Parish," ~Carolina Historical~ Genealogical Magazine, XLVIII (1947), p. 40.

97Patrick H. Mell, "Rice Planting in the Agricultural Development of the
South," v. 5, ~ South in ~ Building .2f ~ Nation (Richmond, Va. : Southern
Historical Publishing Society, 1909), p. 173.

98 Rogers,

.2E.

.!!,

P

312.

99

Ibid., pp. 313, 318; Elizabeth H. Allston Pringle, Chronicles of Chicora

~ (Bo~: Christopher Publishing House, 1940), pp. 67-72.

--

100House, UfC, p. 3; Alston, .2 ..!!., p. xii.

101 Gaines,

.2.

....!!. ,

p.

144.

102 Hatson,

12

.ill

LAUREij'S . AND MciNTOSH
Bordering the estuaries of the rivers which penetrate Georgia's Coastal Plain are the marshes which were once the rice fields of a great plantation system. It was a society which lived on the brink of financial ruin, constantly indebted to the factorage system and functionally dependent on such variables as economic fluctuations and the vagaries of nature. Yet, in its upper echelons, it was a graceful and distinguished culture, central in the economy of early Georgia and dominant in the political and social custous of the young state.
In particular, the Altamaha River estuary society reads like a history of important names of the era: Butler, King, Couper, Bryant, Grant, Brailsford, Troup and Dent. The plantations along the south bank of the Altamaha - Hopeton, Altama, Elizafield, Grantly, Evelyn, Broadfield, Hofwyl and New Hope - made up a society which, like its proud sisters along ,the Savannah River and its cousins in South Carolina, held tightly to its manners and traditions through periods of social upheaval and personal tragedy. This tenacity is exemplified by the continuity of the plantation system of Hofwyl-Broadfield.
The Hofwyl Plantation of today is the result of the accumulation of several parcels of land by William Brailsford and his son-in-law, James McGilvray Troup, in the early nineteenth century. Prior to this however, the land had known a long and varied history.
Claimed by Spain since the early explorations, the territory of Guale, as the land between the Savannah and St. Mary's Rivers was known, was populated primarily by the Yamasee Indians and administered by a system of Spanish garrisons and missions. 1 The Spanish hold on Guale was steadily eroded after the founding of Charleston in 1670 as, throughout most of the following century English settle-
48

49
ments extended southward along the coast. 2 In 1721, Carolinians, prompted by the Yamasee War of 1715 and feeling the need of a buffer outpost, founded Fort King George at the mouth of the Altamaha. This blatant display of military force was followed in rapid succession by the settlement of the colony of Georgia at Savannah in 1733, and the towns of Darien on the Altamaha and Frederica on St. Simons Island. 3 A storm of Spanish protests was the result and, in diplomatic gestures, England encouraged the idea of a neutral zone south of the Altamaha, supporting this by refusing to grant any of that land. 4 This concession was largely unsuccessful. With the Great War for Empire, Spain entered what was to be the last of a series of conflicts over the "Debateable Lands," and, in 1763,
5 lost all claim to the lands east of the Mississippi to England.
Immediately after the ratification of the 1763 Peace of Paris, Governor Thomas Boone of South Carolina announced his intentions to begin granting lands south of the Altamaha, basing .his claims to the land on the proprietary charters of the colony which had marked Carolina's southern boundary at the twenty-ninth parallel. 6 Georgia Governor James Wright and the Council immediately went into action, first serving Governor Boone with a protest and caveat, which was refused, and then launching an appeal to the Board of Trade. Governor Wright's letters to the Board protested that the Crown alone had the right to set the limits of Carolina, that the grants were of a speculative nature and would limit the expansion of the frontier, and that annexation of the lands south of the Altamaha to Georgia would be more favorable for trade. He concluded with the most convincing argument of all: that it was the Georgians and not the Carolinians, who had suffered the hardships of serving as the Spanish buffer and should benefit therefore. 7
It was not until October 7, 1763 that a royal proclamation was issued annexing to the colony of Georgia "all the Lands between the Rivers St. Mary and

50
8 Altamaha," and by this time fifty-six petitions for land totalling 90,200 acres
9 had been granted by South Carolina. The controversy lingered on for over a decade, the p~tential rice lands remaining idle until after the Revolution. Finally, of the South Carolinians who petitioned for grants, only four made any real effort to develop their Georgia lands. 10
One of these Carolinians was Henry Laurens, a prominent Charlestonian who was to succeed John Hancock as president of the Continental Congress in 1777. 11 Previously a wealthy merchant, primarily in the business of exporting rice and i~ porting slaves, he began acquiring large tracts of land and shifting his interests to planting in the 1760's, owning by the outbreak of the Revolution some 20,000 acres in Georgia and South Carolina. 12 Blessed with the foresight, as well as the resources, to acquire portions of the limited rice lands early, Laurens also sought to obtain tracts of land in the newly opened territory for several of his friends, notably Lachlan Mcintosh of Georgia. 13
Mcintosh, a Revolutionary war general probably best known for his infamous duel with Button Gwinett, met Henry Laurens in Charleston as a young man. While the tradition that he worked in the Laurens counting house cannot be doc~mented, it
14 is certain that the two men became good friends, as well as b.us.i.ness partners. When Mcintosh returned to Georgia in the 1750's, he had the advantage of access to South Carolina credit and the good advice of his friend and began petitioning for
15 and acquiring large tracts of land. In this way Mcintosh, though not a shrewd businessman himself, was able to establish himself as a member of the planter
16 aristocracy.
There is little documentation to show the actual buying, selling, trading and political pulling which must have taken place in the second half of the eighteenth century as each planter maneuvered to obtain particular sections of land. The three tracts which became Broadfield-Hofwyl: Broughton Island, Broadface and New

51

Hope are no exception.

Broughton Island, located in the Altamaha River and therefore not subject to

the English restrictions on grants, had, on July 4, 1758, been granted to John-

athan Bryan, a South Carolinian who was to become an important figure in the affairs of coastal Georgia, especially the Savannah area. 17 Two days later,

Bryan traded Broughton, along with Doboy Island, to Lachlan Mcintosh and his 18
brother William for land which had been granted to them in Newport District.

Another swap, this time for a 1,200 acre tract on the mainland across from Broughton, brought the island into the hands of Henry Laurens 19

Laurens obtained other tracts of land south of the Altamaha River in the

1763 South Carolina giveaway, in particular a 3,000 acre tract opposite Broughton Island which Laurens named New Hope. 20 Edmund Egan, Laurens' surveyor, was dis-

patched to survey the land, followed immediately by another surveyor, John B.

Giradeau, who had been directed by another South Carolinian, Colonel Thomas

Middleton, to lay off the land for him. Middleton later claimed that Lachlan

Mcintosh waylaid Giradeau, getting him drunk, in order that Egan might survey

21

'

the land for Laurens first. Whether th~ alleged incident actually transpired

or not, it reveals much of the "land fever" which was rampant in South Carolina

at the time.

Laurens lost in another controversial land grant, this time for a 1,200

acre tract which came to be known as Broadface. Laurens attempted to obtain the

land, which adjoined New Hope to the northwest, for Lachlan Mcintosh, but the

land was granted instead to a small Charleston businessman named Darby Pendergrass. 22 Laurens entered a caveat against Pendergrass, lost, and eventually purchased the land for ~1,000. 23 A year later he sold the land to Mcintosh, probably as part of the Broughton Island deal. 24

Since Laurens ownership of New Hope was insecure, Broughton Island was

52
selected as the site of Henry Laurens' first Georgia plantation. The South Carolinian, however, had difficulties finding someone to manage the property. Entering into an agreement with two other Charleston grantees, he contracted a developer for the island, then left the supervision of the venture to the direction of another of the partners, who failed to obtain results. 25 It was two years later, in April of 1766, before a competent manager went to work, clearing Broughton Island and embanking the rice fields. 26 This time, however, Laurens took the precaution of touring the Altamaha area in May, June and July
27 of that year. Although Mcintosh never actually managed Broughton Island, he did keep a close eye on it for his friend, and the plantation became a strong tie between the two men, despite one incident which occurred during one of Laurens' diplomatic absences. At that time the overseer resigned, due to Mcintosh 1 s a.ttempts to direct the entire operation. 28
Laurens began planting Broughton Island in 1767, growing rice and hemp for market and experimenting in corn, pea and cotton production. 29 The 1767 crop cleared enough to pay the expenses of establishing the plantation and of clearing and errbank.ing additional rice acreage for the next year. 30 Laurens was encouraged by this success to begin developing New Hope the following year. 31
Lachlan Mcintosh, in the meantime, was busy with his General's Island plantation and Broadface was one of many tracts of land which he owned but did not develop. He did, however, petition for and receive 300 acres of "surplus land in a tract purchased by Lachlan Mcintosh from Henry Laurens originally surveyed and granted for 1,200 acres to total 1,500 acres."32
Although the Revolution was crippling to Laurens financially, it was an economic death blow to Mcintosh. In spite of his efforts, he could not regain his pre-war status, and consequently withdrew gradually from public life. In 1785, Mcintosh handled what was to be the lastrecorded business deal between

53
himself and Henry Laurens, obtaining renewal certificates, "in a frenzy of activity," for their land south of the Altamaha which had not previously been registered and was on the verge of being declared vacant. 33
When Laurens died in 1792, he had recouped his losses from the war, stating 34
that had it not been for the Revolution he would have been too rich. Mcintosh survived his friend by fourteen years, never regaining financial stability. 35

54

FOOTNOTES Laurens and MCintosh

1 Herbert E. Bolton and Mary Ross, Th~ Debateable Land (Berkeley, 1925),
p. 6.
2 Ibid., p. 3.

3Ibid., pp. 4, 72.

4..!..!.2.. ' p 5
5~., pp. 108, 109.

6Ibid., p. 109; David Rogers Chesnutt, South Carolina's Expansion into Coloni3l Georgia, 1720-1765 (PhD, University of Georgia, 1973), pp. 177,178.

7 ~., pp. 179, 181; Allen D. Candler and Lucien Lamar Knight, eds., ~ Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, v. 28, p. 736. (cited afterwards as CRG.)

8Referred to in a letter to the King, recorded in CRG, v. 34, p. 535.

9Chesnutt, .. cit., p. 1.78.

10~' p. 187.

11David Duncan Wa.llace, Life of Henry Laurens !!!.!:.h.! Sketch ,.2! ~ Life Ei His Son (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons~ 1915), p. 235.

12~., p. 130. 13
Ibid., p. 126.

14

Ibid., n.; Harvey Hardaway Jackson, General Lachlan Mcintosh, 1727-1806:

A Biogra~(PhD, Universi.ty of Georgia, 1973), p. 13.

--

15 Ibid., p. 16.

16 ~., pp. 17-19.

17 Georgia Grant Book! (1756-1758), p. 652; located in the Office of the
Surveyor General, Georgia Department of Archives and History.
18 Georgia Colonial Conveyance~ C-2 (1761-1766), pp. 632-633; on micro-
film reel 40/19, Georgia Department of Archives 'and History.

19 Georgia Colonial Conveyance ~ c-2 (176~-1766), pp. 990-992; on micro-
film reel 40/19, Georgia Department of Archives and History.

55

20 South Carolina Grant Book XX (1763-1764), p. 64; microfilm reel 145/49,
Georgia Department of Archives andlHistory.

21Jackson, ~ cit., p. 27; Chesnutt,~ cit., p. 188; letter from Henry
Laurens to Lachlan Mcintosh, May 4, 1763, the Letterbooks, Henry Laurens Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: "People say that you contrived to detain Col. Middleton's surveyor to drink . Middleton informs me that . you made him drunk and kept him so while our surveyor went ahead of him "
22 Chesnutt,~ cit., p. 190; South Carol~. na Grant Book XX,~ cit., p. 105.
23 Chesnutt, loc. cit.; Charleston County, South Carolina Deed Book C-3,
pp. 711-16; letter from Henry Laurens to Lachlan Mcintosh, August 15~6~the Letterbooks, Henry Laurens Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: "I am in treaty with Mr. Pendergrass for your favourite 1200 Acre Tract upon Altamaha he offerd it------ he has this moment agreed to sell it to me for One Thousand Pounds currency & I hope he will be as good as his word I shall endeavour to gett the platt & Grant from him in order to prevent fallbacks if possible for he seems to be very unsteady & in fact has no will of his own-------"
24 Charleston County, S.C. Deed~ E-3, p. 136.

25Chesnutt, .. cit., pp. 192, 193.

26Ibid. , p. 19 3.

27Wallace, .. cit. , p. 166.

28 Jacks on, .2

.!.E.. ,

pp.

28,

43.

29 Wallace, . cit., p. 131.

30Chesnutt, .. ..!!.., p. 194.

31 Ibid.

32 Georgia

Grant ~I

(1770-1774),

p.

951,

located

in

the

Surveyor

General's

Office, Georgia Department of Archives and His tory.

33Jackson, cit., P 222.

34 Wallace, .. cit., p. 136.

35 Jackson,

.. .!.!.,

p.

246.

THE BRAILS FORDS
After Henry Laurens' death, Broughton Island was placed on the market by his heirs. Although there is little to document it, it seems apparent that the man who eventually came to own Broughton was William Brailsford of Charleston.
William Brailsford's grandfather, Edmund Brailsford, seems to have been the first of his family to emmigrate to South Carolina. Correspondence bet\<leen Edmund and his father in England indicates that the young Brailsford married against his father's wishes; the father writing in the late 1720's requesting that Edmtmd allow at least one of the old man's grandsons to return to England. 1 Whether or not this was accomplished at that time is not known, but after Edmtmd Brailsford's death in the spring of 17332 at least some of the children returned to England.
Samuel Brailsford, a younger son of Edmund and his controversial wife, became "a respectable merchant," dealing in the colonial trade between South Carolina and England, and appears to have quite successfully negotiated two lives on e1. ther side of the Atlantic. 3 He married Susan Holmes of Charleston, but seems to hav~ made his home primarily in England. 4 Whether the couple's children, Susan, Elizabeth and William, were born in England or in South Carolina is not known, but Ophelia Troup Dent recalls in her Hemoirs that her grandfather, William, . grew up in England, "a gay yotmg man, visiting Paris, dressing in fine silks,
5 laces, silk stockings and buckles."
Although Samuel's business was in England, he retained his ties l<rith South Carolina. He was a founding member of the Charleston Library Society in 17486 and, as tensions between the colonies and Great Britain grew increasingly explosive,
56

57
joined with several other merchants to ~raft an address to the King on "the
7
situation of affairs between Great Britain and the American colonies."
The Revolution must have put an end, however temporary, to Samuel Brails-
ford's business and Mrs. Dent stated t r:a t a "mercantil ~ failure" (unnamed) brought 8
the family back to South Carolina. While Samuel eventually returned to Bristol and died there, 9 his son, William, apparently chose to remain in South Carolina.
He married Maria He~vard, a daughter of the great South Carolina rice-planting
dynasty, in June of 1786. 10 Maria's half-brother, Thom~s, was a signer of the
11 Declaration of Independence and her brother, Nathaniel, was acknowledged to be
the largest plante~ of his day, owning at least 2,500 slaves and seventeen rice 12
plantations . By the time William Brailsford acquired Broughton Island, he 13
had amassed a small fortune, in addition to his wife's, and a large family.
Of the sale of Broughton Island little is known, and existing documentation
is frequently contradictory. Sometime prior to 1802, Johnathan Fabian of Liberty
County, Georgia obtained possession of a portion of Broughton Island, one-third
of which he offered fer sale in the May 25, 1802 edition of the Columbia Museum
and Savannah Advertiser:
The Subscriber being desirous of increasing his number of Field Negroes, and possessing a much larger surplusage of land than he conceives any way expedient for him to retain, offers for sale, at private contract , one undivided third part of Broughton Island, on the Altamaha R~ver, in the South of Georgia, which by. an accurate resurvey thereof as late as the year 1795, is represented to contain 2,880 acres of as prime river swamp as any in the two states without exception; which from its peculiar quality is highly adapted to the culture of either cotton or rice. About 300 acres of the Island are under substantial banks, and in a state of progressive improvement-of about 230 acres under the growth /of rice last year, 15,000 bushels (at least) of grain were brought off the ground, although the force employed in gathering in and securing were by no means adequate for so ponderous a crop.
To compound the confusion, David Ramsay of Charleston, the son-in-law of
Henry Laurens, also advertised one-third of Broughton to be sold or rented

58
in the January 1, 1803 edition of the Georgia Republican and State Intelligencer. Mrs. Dent stated that her grandfather "bought Broughton Island from General Laurens' heirs, the Ramsays of Charleston. " 14 This seems the more likely, as the Charleston connection remained very strong for the Brailsfords and the two families were certainly acquainted: Martha Laurens Ramsay was a close friend of William Brailsford ' s sister, Elizabeth.. 15
There is, however, a deed dated December 2, 1803 between the administrator of the estate of Johna.than Fabian and William Brailsford, located in the Liberty County recor.ds. 16 It conveys ~-thirds of Broughton Island by means of an agreement wherein Brailsford takes up "certain bonds" executed by Fabian to, among others, Dr. Ramsay. There is no deed from Ramsay directly to Brailsford until, in 1816, after Brailsford's death, a deed between the children of David Ramsay and Maria Brailsford appears in the Charleston County, South Carolina records. 17 It records, rather obscurely, the division of Broughton Island and conveys onethird of it to Mrs. Brailsford. Some legal dispute apparently took place over the island, which is not clearly recorded in the deed.
At any rate, sometime during 1803, William Brailsford believed himself the owner of Broughton Island and came to Georgia with Heyward family slaves, experienced in rice planting, to staff the island, returning to Charleston convinced that the plantation would be in capable hands. 18 Unfortunately, he appears to have made a bad choice of overseers, for, during the great hurricane of 1804, the lives of seventy slaves were lost and Broughton Island devastated, apparently due to the negligence of the overseer. 19
"The Charleston life was at an end," according to Mrs. Dent, and the family "moved to Broughton Island as soon as a rough house, put up by plantation carpenters,
20 could be built." In addition to the personal tragedy involved in the death of the slaves, the event constituted an enormous financial loss. Once again, the

59
fate of Broughton Island is unknown. Mrs. Dent related that although one creditor
retracted the sale, "the others were wiser and held on, - Miss Eleanor Ramsay for
one, I know, receiving interest on $9,000 for fif~y years, when the debt was paid by my father's executors." 21 Mrs. Ramsay's memoirs, however, tell a different
22
StO:t")':
Near~y the whole of Mrs. Ramsay's paternal estate consisted of unproductive Georgia lands, which, from the unsettled state of our foreign relations for the last fifteen years of her life would either not sell or if previously sold, were not paid for The hurricane of 1804 frustrated a verbal contract for the sale of another portion of her paternal Georgia lands, for 5,000 pounds sterling which still remains unsold and unproductive.
Whatever the disposition, Broughton Island had proved to be unsafe, and,
although in a financial bind, Brailsford was in the market for a more secure loca-
tion for his plantation.
The Broadface tract was advertised for sale in the (Savannah) Georgia
Republican of February 2, 1806:
Prime Rice Lands for Sale - All that valuable tract of land fronted and being on the south side of the Altamaha River, known by the name of Broadface Tract, late the property of General Lachlan Mcintosh, containing 1,755 acres, of which 1,100 acres are prime tide swamp of the first quality and very best pitch of tide; the balance high (well timbered) pineland, and well calculated for a settlement or settlements~ This tract is divided into three parts, through the upper third runs a large navigable creek leading to a landing on which may be erected a Rice Mill, Saw Mill, or Grist Mill. This property is situated immediately opposite Major Butler's, Demere's Island; and from its local advantages is the most desirable river estate in Georgia."
Lachlan Mcintosh had sold this property to his son, Henry Laurens Mcintosh,
according to the deed which William Brailsford obtained upon purchasing the lower
th~d of this tract, 23 and the land was rechristened Broadfield, as the young
BDkilsfords preferred the name. 24 Although Mrs. Dent did not record a description
of Broadfield House, another source described it as "a wide spreading, two-storied
house with great chimneys at either end, hand-hewn timbers above, tabby walls
below. A carriage drive led through the center of the first story to a courtyard

60

in the rear." 25 There is no documentation for this description, although it

seems to have been fairly typical of the plantation houses of the area, and is

probably close to accurate. Many rice plantation houses utilized the high base-

ment with the main entrance on the second floor reached by a long flight of ex-

terior steps; the second story entrance most likely designed to raise the living

quarters of the house above the miasma of low-lying places and perhaps to avoid

.

26

flooding.

In addition, the family required a summer home and, "until a house was

built on the north point of Cumberland Island, the [Brailsford] family sunnnered in Charleston or in Mcintosh Cotmty."27 They retained the planter transience;

in 1806, for reasons not innnediately apparent, but probably having to do with

non-payment of debts, a federal court fotind it necessary to declare William
Brailsford a citizen of the State of (;_eorgia_:_~~-
In the Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser of December 16, 1810,

the death of the Georgia citizen was duly noted: "DIED, on Monday the 25th

ult. on St. Simons [Island] WILLIAM BRAILSFORD, Esq. formerly of South Carolina."

No will has been discovered for Brailsford, but he appears to have left all of

his property to the care of his wife, Maria, "a widow with an estate heavily in

debt." Unforttmately, Mrs. Dent tells little of her grandmother's "brave strug-

gle to pay her debts and save her property." The management of the property was

apparently entirely in the control of Mrs. Brailsford and her daughter, Camilla.

.

29

Cotton was planted on the high ground, as it brought a high price, and they

must have been successful rice planters as one source says that "the fields .[at

Broadfield] produced such a fine quality of grain that according to government

record, the superior 'Broadfield Rice' on the Charleston market took its name from the Brailsford plantati.on. 1130

61
FOOTNOTES
~ Brails fords
1"correspondence between Edmund Brailsford and his Father," South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, VIII (1909), pp. 165, 166.
2Lothrop Withington, "South Carolina Gleanings in England," South Carolina Historical~ Genealogical Magazine, V (1904), pp. 165, 166.
3ophelia Troup Dent, Memoirs, unpublished, original manuscript located at Hofwyl Plantation; transcript in appendix, pages a75-a86; Jeanie_Heyward Register, "Marriage and Death Notices from the City Gazette,".South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, XXVI (1925), p. 135.
4 Dent, loc. cit.
5Ibid. 6 Arthur Mazyck, "Preface to the Catalogue of the Charleston Library Society, 1786," South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, XXIII (1922), p. 163.
7The (Savannah) Georgia Gazette, January 17, 1776. 8
Dent, loc. cit. 9Register, loc. cit. 10
Joseph W. Barnwell and Mabel L. Webber, "St. Helena's Parish Register," South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, XXIII (1922), p. 22; Mabel L. \olebber, "Marriage and Death notices from the Charleston Morning Post and Daily Advertiser," South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, XX (1919), p. 144.
11Dent , lo c. cit. 12
Duncan Clinch Heyward,~!!! Madagascar (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937), p. 74; Heyward devotes a chapter to his ancestor, "The L~rgest Planter of His Day."
13Dent, loc. cit. 14~, p. a172. 15
Martha Laurens Ramsay, Memoirs of the~ of Martha Laurens Ramsay, ~
~ 1.!l Charleston, South Carolina~~ .!.Q!!!. !June, 1811 l!!, ~~year of
her age {Privately printed, n.d.), contains a section of letters to her "attached and affectionate friend, Elizabeth Brailsford."
16Liberty County, Georgia Deed Book F (1804-1809), p. 119, located on m.1crofilm reel 30/17, Georgia Departm~of Archives and History.

62

17

.

Charleston County, South Carolina Deed Book 0-8, pp. 106=107.

18 Dent, lac. cit.
19 Ibid.; Katherine M. Jones, The Plantation South (Indianapolis: Babbs
Merrill, 1957), p. 92, quoting from Mathew Davis' Memoirs of Aaron Burr, v.7.
20 Dent, lac. cit.
21 Ibid ..

22Ramsay, op. cit., p. 47n. 23
Glynn County, Georgia Deed Book ABEF (1787-1808), pp. 483-485, on microfilm reel 82/32, Georgia Department~Archives and History.
24 Dent, lac. cit.
25 Burnette Vanstory, Georgia's Land of the Golden Isles (Athens: Univer-
sity of Georgia Press, 1970), p. 102.

26Jack Nelson Averitt, Georgia's Coastal Plain (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1964), p. 710; Mason Crum, Gullah (Durham: Duke University Press, 1940; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968), p. 235.

27Dent, lac. cit.; a letter from William Brailsford to Thomas Spalding of Sapelo, dated Augus~, 1807 and located at Hofwyl Plantation, mentions an impending move to Cumberland, "where I have built a small House."

28Hinutes of the Circuit Court of the Sixth District, Georgia, 1806-1816 - D, p. 917.

29Dent, lac. cit. 30
Vanstory, lac. cit.

THE TROUPS
Camilla Brailsford married James McGilvray (spelling varies) Troup in 1813 or
1814 1 Troup, a phys1. cian, was .the brother of Georgia Governor George M. Troup, and
had lately taken up residence in Darien. 2 Dr. Troup took over management of Broadfield and the other Brailsford properties, making his winter home in Darien and his summer home at Baisden's Bluff, later Crescent, in Mcintosh County. 3
Troup must have been a successful planter, for he "brought [his lands] to the highest state of cultivation."4 In addition to the Brailsford lands, he also owned and managed a "fine tract of land known as the 'Court House' on the old stage road, planted cotton and corn, and kept cattle . an overseer was in charge. In the summer it was his custom to take a daily ride [there] on horseback, except on Monday and Tuesday when he visited Broadfield. "5
Troup was also active in the social, political and financial affairs of Darien, a small but bustling town at that time, with an active port. 6 It boasted, in 1845, a courthouse, jail, five churches, one hotel, an academy and twelve
7 stores. The lands along the Altamaha, 5,000 acres of which were devoted to
8 tidal-flow rice plantations, were considered second in value of all Georgia lands, superceeded only by the Savannah River area. The Altamaha soil, nonetheless, was considered superior, having "more of vegetable mould than the .lands on the Savannah," and lY,eing "more easily cultivated .,g Three plantation-owned steam engines on the Altamaha did the threshing and pounding of the local rice production. Social life along both sides of the river was extensive: ''hunting, dancing, visiting and fishing" and, typical of the rice society which based its existence on water, boat racing, with each planter priding himself on the swiftness of his boat and its crew of slaves. 10
63

64

The Union Agricultural Society, one of the earliest such societie~ in Georgia,

u was formed in Darien in 1823,ll James Troup serving as treasurer in 1825.

That

same year, having served as a director of the Bank of Darien since 1818, he was

elected president pro tern, 13 following with three terms as bank president beginning

14

. 15 .

in 1828. Troup was also elected treasurer of Darien in 1812 and mayor in

16

17

1829, and served terms as alderman and state senator.

James and Camilla Troup had six children who lived to adulthood, and the

daughters of Governor Troup, Florida and Oralie, grew up in the home of their

18 aunt and uncle in Darien, as well. Fanny Kemble remarked on the beauty of Ora-

.

19

lie Troup during her ill-fated "residence," but gave little indication of her

20

.

impressions of Camilla Troup, who paid the actress a visit. Similarly, when

Hr . and Hrs. Basil Hall visited James Hamilton Couper at his Altamaha plantation,

Hopeton, in 1827, Dr. and Hrs. Troup were invited to dinner, however Mr. Hall

does not mention the incident in his accounts of his travels and Mrs. Hall appear~d

more

impressed with

former

Governor Troup, \oTho "t-Tas

also a

21 guest.

Dr. and Mrs.

Troup's daughter, Ophelia, described the Troups in her Memoirs as "reserved and

silent," a marked contrast to the Brailsfords, who \vere "spirited and gay, spend-
22
ing money lavishly." Another contemporary, Charles S. Hylly, remembered that

"at the Troup's a stricter etiquette of manner and behaviour prevailed than in r1ost

of the houses I visited."
Mrs. Brailsford, grandmother of the younger people, to1as a strict disciplinarian, and had brought from Carolina to Georgia wuch of the habit of life that belonged to that older state. Dr. Troup, a son of Catherine Mcintosh of Alabama, was hitll.self something of a formalist Mrs. Call'.illa Troup herself "tolas a stickler for propriety of bearing and demeanor. As a mere boy I remember witnessinp the lessons given her daughters as to the corr~3t and proper mode of entering a room where company was asset'1bled

. Tile Troup homes were undoubtedly the showplaces of the Darien vicinity.

Baia.den 's Bluff ,was apparently a r~sort community_ and, although the planters and

their families who sununered there considered therr.selves "roughinr. it," the ckrellings

65
were rather grand. 'The only description of the Troup's summer home is brief:
"of tabby with very large parlour and dining room, and confined sleeping compartments, " 24 but the description of a home for sale on 'The Ridge, just south of
Baisden's Bluff, is more detailed:
The Subscriber offers for Sale his Summer Residence, named 1fizar situated in that pleasant neip;hborhood called the Ridge, about three miles from Darien.- TI1e prospect is a COIT'.manding one, having the vim-1 of three inlets - Li.ttle St. Simons, Doboy and Sapelo, and "t<lith respect to the health of said neighborhood, it has for several years been tested.
On the premises are a comfortable Dwelling House, 'vith four bedroorr,s, a hall, and piazzas extendinr; around three sides, v!ith a stoop in front; a kitchen and Hash room, a storeroom, stable and carriag~ house, and two provision and several servant's houses ornamented l.Jith a Vineyard, (which lvill be in full bearing in the year 1831) occupying the space of about four acres, with selectioning of the best quality for wine and table use, and two or three years ago, obtained direct from the Island of Haderia, Prince's and Labat's Vineyard in the State of Nc"t--1 York, and different parts of Georgia and South Carolina; so that with rerard to variety, it is equal to any in the Southern States.
There is also attached a large nursery of several thousand of these different varieties, together Hith raising orange, fip and peach trees - ~lith a kitchen garden; and a few acres besides of choice ground for farming.25
In 1824, James H. Troup "began buildinr; his beautiful 'tabby' house, employ-
inr, the same architect, Jay, ~1ho had pet up the old Habernnam and 0\-1ens Houses in 26
Savannah. " The architect referred to is probably Hilliam Jay, trained in Fnplanc, 27
and active for a period of time in Georgia and South Carolina. Little docurnen-
tation is available on his career in the South, and Hrs. Dent's statement is the 28
only one which connects hir.1 'vith the Troups. Unfortunately, she does not describe
the house, nor does she say on which of her father's properties it vJas constructed.
Although tradition holds that the hor.1e v!as built on I\roadfield Plantation,
Jl-!rs. Dent maintained that the familiy' s winter home was in Darien "until the '40's,
29
when for the great advantage to the plantation, '"e moved over [to Broadfield]"
As it seems unlikely that even as wealthy a planter as Dr. Troup would have
gone to the expense of building a seldom-occupied home, it would appear that the

66
Jay house would have been built in Darien, and would have been burned in 1863, when a fire destroyed that city.
Broadfield, in fact, was at least partially owned by Camilla Brailsford Troup's brother, Daniel Heyward Brailsford, 30 who was murdered in 1833 by an overseer whom he had discharged. 31 Mrs. Brailsford, the daughter of Thomas Spalding of Sapelo, 32 "preferred keeping her cotton plantation, Sutherland's Bluff. . .intact, and letting the Broadfield property be sold in 1834," Mrs. Dent remembered. "My father [James Troup] had no alternative but to buy." 33 In this way, James Troup became sole owner of Broadfield Plantation. In addition, Henry Laurens 1 heirs had sold New Hope Plantation in 1829 to Camilla Brailsford Troup's future brother-in-law, John G. Be11. 34 Bell married Eugenia Brailsford in 1838, and both died that same year without children. New Hope was left to Bell's family and was again put on the market. 35 "The purchase was put off as long as possible," Mrs. Dent recalled. "Biddle's Bank, in Philadelphia, had failed, and the country was passing through a monied crisis, rice selling as low as forty cents a bushel. eventually New Hope was bought at $26,000."36
When Dr. Troup died, nine years later, he left a heavily mortgaged property. His will directed that all debts be paid immediately, with no part of Broadfield being sold to pay these debts, and that none of the land be divided until all the debts were paid. Executors of this monumental task were Troup's eldest son, Brailsford, and his neighbor, James Hamilton Couper of Hopeton and Altama. 37 Charles S. Wylly suggested that the debt consisted of "$70,000 as a lien on land and negroes,"38 and Mrs. Dent remembered that the debt was "close on to $80,000, au~ the estate was thought again insolvent, as in my grandmother's time."39
At the time of his death, Troup was the owner of approximately 7,300 acres of land, two tabby houses, one wooden house, and 357 slaves. 40 As the settlement of the estate took approximately six years, there are, as can be expected, exten-

67
sive estate records, the accounts of which contain invaluable information on the day-to-day operation of Broadfield Plantation in its years of greatest production.
By far the largest number of entries relate to the sale and shipment of rice and attendant expenses, such as cooperage, wharfage, freight, d.rayage, porterage and insurance. The overseer's salary of $1,000 was no longer an item after 1850, when Daniel Heyward BrailsfordTroup began managing Broadfield personally, taking as his fee $750 for superintendence and $200 for medical services. 41 (Young Troup, like his father and younger brother, Robert, was a physician.) Foodstuffs ordered by the plantation included molasses, corn, slat, sugar, coffee, pork, bacon, oats and prunes, augmented by claret, champagne, brandy, whiskey, beer, ale and tobacco. One barrel of whiskey, ordered in August, was specifically designated "for the negroes," and was probably intended for the harvest festival. 42 Clothing for the slaves was ordered occasionally, but a large number of entries are for cloth: 251 yards of shirting, 477 1/4' yards of heavy twill, 630 yards of white "plains," 975 yards of blue stripes, and 1, 794 yards of "cotton oznaburgs. " 43 There are also or-
ders for eighteen pounds of thread and eighteen gross of "bone buttons. ,r44 Medical
supplies include eight gallons of castor oil, four gallons of spirits of turpentine, six ounces of "calomel," one pound of "Dover's Powder," two rolls of blister plaster, two quarts of paragoric, two ounces of laudanum, one ounce of opium, two pounds of sulphur, four ounces of tincture of myrrh and three gallons of alcoho1. 45 Other entries of ~nterest include jailer's fees for imprisoned slaves, eighty-two blankets at 35 cents each, a subscription to the Literary Messenger, and a bill for "machinery erected at Broadfield;" most likely a rice rni11. 46
James Troup's property was divided in 1856, 47 but it was not until two years later that a deed was issued which made the division officia1. 48 Broadfield and New Hope were divided into three portions, the largest and northernmost part cornposed entirely of Broadfield and held jointly by J. Robert Troup, Matilda B. Troup

68

Clelia Troup; the center section and northern part of New Hope became the property

of Ophelia Troup and her husl>and; George C. Dent; and the lower portion was deeded

to Daniel Heyward Brailsford Troup. Charles Manigault Morris, the husband of

Hannah Heyward Troup who had died during the settlement of the estate, agreed to re-

ceive only slaves and money as his share, rather than a portion of the plantations.

He, along with the other heirs; also received a one-sixth interest in James Troup's Mcintosh county >properties, including Broughton Island. 49

The exact disposition of Broughton remains as obscure as its original acquis-

ition. The Bryan family lived on it and planted it, apparently owning it jointly

50

51

with the Troups for many years. By coincidence, Mrs. Bryan was Florida Troup.

69

FOOTNOTES The Troups

1 Ophelia Troup Dent, Memoirs, unpublished, original manuscript located at
Hofwyl Plantation; transcript in appendix, pages a75-a86.
2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.,

p.

al77;

Charles

s.~ Wylly,

Annals

and

Statistics

of

Glynn

County,

Georgia (Privately printed, 1896), p. 66.

4 Wylly,



cit.,

p.

16.

5 Dent, loc. cit.

6 Joseph Warren Smith, Visits to Brunswick, Georgia and Travels South (Boston,
190 7) ' p 19 .
7 George White, Statistics of the State of Georgia (Savannah, 1849), p. 415.

8 Albert Virgil House, Jr., '~abor Management Problems on Georgia Rice Plantations, 1840-1860," Agricultural History, XXVIII (1954), p. 149.

9

.

J.D.B. DeBow, The Industrial Resources of the Southern and Western States

(New York: DeBow's :- Revew, 1853), v. I, p. 355':"" - -

--

10 White,. cit., pp. 286, 284.

A 11 James C. Bonner, History of Georgia Agriculture, 1732-1860 (Athens: University of Georgia Press), p. 110.

12The Savannah (Georgia) Republican, February 19, 1825.

13 The Savannah Republican, March 12, 1825; The Columbia Museum and Savannah
Daily Gazette, December 30, 1818, November 23, 1819, etc. Discussions of the financial role of the Bank of Darien may be found in Milton Sidney Heath, Constructive Liberalism: The Role of the State in the Economic Development of Georgia to 1860 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), E. M~rton Ooulter, Thomas Spalding of Sapelo (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1949), chapter 8, and Thomas P. Govan, "The Banking and Credit System in Georgia, 1810-1860," Journal of Southern History, IV (1939), pp. 164-184.

14 The Savannah Georgian, January 12, 1828.

15The Republican and Savannah Evening Ledger, January 4, 1812.

16 The (Savannah) Georgian, November 28, 1829.

17 Burnette Vanstory, Georgia's Land of the Golden Isles (Athens: University
of Georgia Press, 1970), p. 64; The Darien (Georgia) Gazette, January 1, 1821.

70
18 Frances Anne Kemble, Journal of ~ Residence ~ ~ Georgian Plantation in
1838-1839, edited with an introduction by John A. Scott (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), p. 150n; Dent, loc. cit.
19 Kemble,.!?.. cit., p. 150.
20 Ibid., p. 176.
21Margaret Hunter Hall, The Ar~.stocratic Journey: Being the Outspoken Letters of Mrs. Basil Hall Written during !!.. Fourteen Months' Sojourn in America; 1827-1828 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons', 1931), pp. 233, 234.
22 Dent, loc. cit,
23 Wylly, .2. cit., p. 67.
24 Ibid.
25 The Savannah Georgian, March 2, 1829.
26 Dent, loc. cit. 27
James Vernon McDonough, William Jay: Regency Architect in Georgia and South Carolina (PhD, Princeton University, 1950), p. 1.
28 Ibid., p. 75.
29 Dent, loc. cit.
30 Ibid. 31
The Savannah Georgian, August 27, September 3, November 26, 28, 30, 1833. 32
The Savannah Republican, June 21, 1821. 33
Dent, . loc. cit.
34Glynn County, Georgia Deed Book~ (1824-1837), p. 212; microfilm reel 82/34, Georgia Department of Archives and History.
35 Dent, loc. cit.
36 Ibid.,; original deed located at Hofwyl Plantation.
37Glynn County, Georgia Wills, Inventories and Appraisements Book! (18441853), p. 135; microfilm reel 82/4, Georgia Department of Archives and History. see appendix, p. a53.
38 Wylly, .2. cit., p. 62.
39Dent, loc. cit. 40
Glynn County, Georgia Wills .Book!'.!?.. cit., pp. 156-159; see appendix, pp. a54-:-a57.

71
41.!.E.!, P 250.
42Glynn County, Georgia \-Jills, Inventories ~ Appraisements ~!. (18531859), p. 348; microfilm reel 82/5, Georgia Department of Archives and History.
43Glynn Coup.ty, Georgia lUlls ~ _!, .2. .!!, pp. 169, 246, 247, etc.
44~, P 247.
45.!!?...!2. , p. 246.
-46 Ibid., PP 201, 249, e.tc.
47 Original estate papers located at Hon.ryl Plantation.
48Glynn- County, Georgia~~ 1::.!: (1922-1923), P 755; tt.;o copies of
original at Hofwyl Plantation.
49.IE.!.; .original estate papers located at IIofwyl Plantation.
50 Georgia Bryan Conrad, "Reminiscences of a Southern Homan," printed in
the Southern \Jorkman, 1901; published in pamphlet form by the Hampton Institute Press, Hampton, Virginia, n.d., p. 5.
51TKemble, .E. ill, p. 278n.

THE DENTS
Ophelia Troup was the first child to be born in her father's Jay house, in 1827, and was married twenty years later in the "old Broadfield House on the twentysecond of November, 1847," to George Columbus Dent. 1 The bridegroom, a native of South Carolina, was the son of John Hubert Dent, a naval officer who at one time
commanded the u.s.s. Constitution, "Old Ironsides." 2 The elder Dent died when
George was less than two years old, and Mrs. Dent moved to Georgia, living the rest of her life at her plantation, Cedar Hill, near Darien. For eight years following their marriage, Ophelia and George Dent lived at Cedar Hill, managing his mother's plantation.3 In 1856, following the elder Mrs. Dent's death, Ophelia and George "moved over to Broadfield and Hofwyl was settled," Dent "calling it after the then great Hofwyl school in Switzerland . . .where he had been educated."4
The popular date of construction of Hofwyl House is 1851. According to local tradition it had been built as an overseer's cottage, the family moving into it when Broadfield House burned around 1858. Research, however, tends to negate these traditions. No documentation has been found for the burning of Broadfield
'
and, while the estate papers of James M. Troup record several orders for nails, lumber and shingles in the early years of the 1850's, they also ~ndicate that the construction of a rice mill was going on at that time and that no overseer was employed after 1850, at least until after the settlement of the estate. 5
Much also has been made of the simple nature of the design of Hofwyl House as appropriate for an overseer's house. Simple design, however, seems to have been the rule on the rice coast rather than the exception, as so ~any of the planters made their homes on their plantations for only part of the year. The only
72

73

truly unique feature of Hofwyl House's architecture is its proximity to the

ground, an exceptional characteristic for a residence in the malarial low country.

Charles S. Wylly, a contemporary of George and Ophelia Dent, believed that

the couple had built the house for themselves, 6 and Mrs. Dent stated that "the

house at Hofwyl was not finished when our Civil War broke out.

"7 although

she may have been referring to repairs and renovations. While a precise date

for Hofwyl House has not been determined to date, it can be assumed from Mrs.

Dent's comments that it was under construction at the latest in 1860.

The Dent's ownership of Hofwyl was brief before the outbreak of the Civil

War. The decade of the 1850's had been Georgia's most prosperous in terms of

rice production, the state producing forty-five per cent of South Carolina's crop in 1859, 8'\but the onset of war brought a halt to the rapidly increasing

production. Like numerous other planters, George C. Dent chose to serve the

Confederacy and organized and commanded the Glynn Rangers, "the first company

to be equipped and take the field. This company, forming a part of the 4th

Georgia Cavalry did good and efficient service on the coast of Georgia and Florida, greatly distinguishing itself for vigilance and daring. ''9 l.Vith the arrival of

Union warships off the coast of Georgia, the "uncertain condition. render[ed] it unpleasant for Ladies to be upon the plantation,"10 and, consequently, large

numbers of coastalJfamilies evacuated, one source estimating as much as seventyfive per cent of the total population. 11

For one who had never witnessed the cruel effects of War the mind can hardly realize its saddening tendencies upon all classes . In Savan-
nah quite a Panic had taken place. Numerous families were hastening to seek shelter in the interior of Georgia whilst all business was at a stand. The same feeling existed in Charleston; Indeed had the Enemy known the weakness of our two cities and the great consternation spread throughout the entire community in November, 1861, they would have caused us far more injury than they did .. 12

The Dents and Troups moved to Ware county for the duration of the war, living in what became a refugee settlement for coastal families called Tebeauville. 13

74
Little documentation survives concerning their exile and the fate of the plan-
tations left tenantless on the Altamaha. The principal account is that of Georgia
Bryan Conrad, the daughter of Florida Troup Bryan of Broughton Islapd, who lived
with her cousins for several years in .the "miserable, wirerrass country, nl4 where
they had "with many other rice planters, bought large stretches of pine barrens,
and settled them with their slaves. nlS
We all lived in log houses or rough frame ones, unplastered and unpainted. The land was so poor, after it was cleared, that it did not supply enough corn for man and beast. The man had to be considered first, so the beast suffered . My cousins had but small supplies of coffee, tea, and loaf-sugar put aside for emergencies, so we fared as all around us did, having many substitutes for coffee and tea, and using brown sugar to sweeten them. The last year of the war, bacon, corn-meal, and hominy were the chief of our diet. There was no complaining, though this rough home was called Repine- ville. Often the women and children on these plantations would be left entirely alone, withou.t a white man, surrounded by hundreds of Negroes. In all that time we never had a rude word or look from any of them, they pursuing their accustomed avocations as if there was no such thing as war.
t.fuen we could no longer purchase ~,rhat He needed, ~ve learned to make substitutes for many things. For instance, we knit stockings, socks, gloves, mits, shirts and even guantlets [sic] We ripped up old slippers and shoesi and using these for ; patterns, supplied ourselves with .cQverings for our feet. If the material used was too stiff for our fingers, the plantation shoemaker ~.;rould stitch them for us. tve plaited palmetto and wheat straw and made hats. For my mvn amusement I learned to spin and weave and at last accomplished six yards a day, which was the regular task for a weaver.
Nustard and arrm1root t-.1ere planted and gathered. Castor oil was ob~ained from the bean. Soap was made, even for toilet purposes Hyrtle berries an'd beeswax supplied us with candles. Some very pretty homespun dresses were made and Horn Everything possible \vas u.qed for clothing. A small Negro boy ~1ho helped in the dining-room appeared or.e day, much to our amusement, in an entire suit of clothes made of ingrain carpet 16
Conditions lorere much the same all along the coastline. While the rice
coast remained isolated from much. of the ~Jar until the last year, the effect
of the Union blockade was continuously felt. Those planters liTho remained on
their plantations and continued the cultivation of their crops, found that the
occupation of Port Royal cut them off from ~ater communication with their factors
in Charleston, and those who dealt lvith firms in Savannah faced the "great scC~.rcity

75
of schooners at Savannah such was the eagerness of Planters to eet their craft
to Market, on account of the uncertain and alarming state of affairs that freight
17
rose to a point never before kno"t-m." That most cornmon of foodstuffs on the
rice plantation, the fish, was not to be had. There were no fish hooks and "the
Overseer and Hyself have taken all of the bullets from the fishnets "tole could find
and moulded them into bullets for our pistols, whilst it is impossible to purchase
18
Yarn of any kind for a Net either in Charleston, Savannah or Augusta."
a But the major problem \~as described by Charles Manigault,' Savannah River
rice planter: the lack of morale.
Even in our secluded position "tole are not entirely exempt from the suffering of the times The most self possessed have their feelings worked upon He have taken every precaution, yet the Enemy are quite near at hand and no one can tell what is yet in Store to befall us Dealing as has nm.r been proved with an Enemy of no principle whatsoever, whose only aim is to spread desolation and ruin over our land; - to arm our mvn Negroes against their very Masters; and entice by every means this misguided Race to assist them in their diabolic programme. Hith this species of Warfare none of us can boast of our position, for never vlith more truth can it be said None of us can tell "what a day nay bring forth. "19
In order to make their escape, the slaves "had only to take one of the 20
many boats owned by ourselves and neighbors, and at night row out to the enemy."
It seems from Mrs. Conrad's account that few of the Hofwyl-Broadfield slaves
took advantage of this opportunity, although the fact that most of them had been
moved inland might have been a factor. She stated:
'65 saw the end of the contest, but not until my cousin, calling the Negroes together, told them that they "t-.rere free, and could leave when they chose, did they begin to go. Then they left in ttvos and threes, carrying "t\rith them their belongings tied in immense bundles, on their heads. Hhen the rice planters returned to the coast, they found that the Negroes had simply preceded them. There they 't-lere, settled dmm i~ their mm quarters again. After all, it tvas only a day's journey. 0
"Before \ole returned," Ophelia Troup Dent remetr'bered, "the extinguishinr cap
of defeat was on our heads, our pleasant things were all gone, and strangers in

76

our homes. Large tracts of valuable lands passed a'r1ay for taxes, it was not surprising that in many instances two generations passed away in this wreck and ruin. " 21

Burnette Vanstory recalls the local tradition of the return of the Troups and Dents:

Matilda, eldest of the Troup daughters, felt a fierce pro-
tective love for the river plantations of her grandparents.
Faced with the almost insurmountable task of restorinr; order out of the chaos wrought ry war, Hatilda took everything into her inexperienced hands~ supervised the planting and harvest-
ing, the repairing of sluice-gates, the clearing of ditches and canals. And gradually family, servant~~ and land responded to the indomitable courage of Natilda.

Hrs. Dent's Memoirs substantiate this, for in them the author described her sis-

ter Hatilda as "the head of the household at our mother's death; and if she ever

fell short in her great responsibilities we never knew it. .After the ruin of

the Civil tvar she catl'l.e still more to the front, saving from the wreckage what she

thought

most

valuable .



1123


But the rice coast could not recover from the effects of war. The cen-

tral question concerned who, in fact, owned the land. In an order of January

16, 1865, General Sherman had ordered that all islands south of Charleston and

land thirty miles back from the seacoast down to the St. John's River in Florida
be reserved for freed~en. 24 This order was substantiated in March when the

Freedman's llureau Act declared all land which had been abandoned (which included

all property owned by persons "absent aiding the rebellion") could be doled out to

loyal freedmen and refugees; the refugees allowed to purchase not more than forty
25
acres for each person at the end of three years. The order was rescinded in

October, but ten months had passed during 'r7hich time the former owners of most of

.

26

the rice land in Georgia and South Carolina ~vere unable to claim their O'rm land.

In addition, the occupation of Union troops had resulted in the destruction 27
of most of the plantations, along with the hydraulic systems and machinery.

"Dams and flood-gates, quarter drains and canals, mills, barns, and houses were

either dilapidated or destroyed, and the power to compel the laborers to go into

78
and introduced into the southwest in 1900 by the United States Department of Agriculture, the rice producers of this area were able to drive down prices to the extent that the east coast rice planters were soon driven out of business. 42
Although rice was planted there as late as 1915, Hofwyl Plantation's wealth
was of the past. The man whose unfortunate duty it was to preside over its decline was the next master of Hofwyl,"James Troup Dent. Described by Wylly as combining
"all the personal and mental gifts that men and even women can desire: manliness, and gentleness; simplicity and polish of demeanor; generosity of hand and of thought,"43 James T. Dent headed a household which strove to retain something of the ante-bellum way of life:
Here we find repeated . ' the life, both mental, and physical, which once made Broadfield famous. Its large surroundings are suggestive of olden days, its owner contributed in his conversation the latest views of .the best thinkers and writers of the present age, leavened by a sound judgm~nt, that has not forgotten the work and glories of the past.. . " 4
It was while James Dent was the owner of Hofwyl that possession was secured of all the former Brailsford-Troup river property with the exception of the lower part of New Hope plantation. It seems most likely that the acquisition may
have occurred through the two mortgage foreclosures on Hofwyl and Broadfield which took place in the late 1800's.
James Dent had married Miriam Cohen on November 30, 1880. 45 The daughter of Solomon Cohen, a prominent Savannah lawyer, 46 and descended from a line of prominent Charleston and Savannah busines~men, as well as the intelligent and
beautiful Rebecca Gratz, allegedly the model for Sir Walter Scott's "Rebecca" in Ivanhoe, 47 the new Mrs. Dent proved to be an excellent manager. All property
transactions took place in her name and, when in the midst of Reconstruction mortgages were foreclosed on both Broadfield and Hofwy1, 48 it was her successful efforts
which managed to save the plantations. Hofwyl was returned to her ownership in 1885 49 and Broadfield in 1895. 50

79
James Troup Dent was not without talents, as well. Of a scientific bent, like many of the ri.ce planters of South Carolina and Georgia, he was among the first to experiment with the connections between malaria and the anopheles mosquito. In 1903, Dent screened Hofwyl House and spent the summer there instead of moving his family to their summer home, the Parsonage on Carteret's Point, and the experiment proved successfu1. 51 The fireplace screens which he had made for the experiment are still in use at Hofwyl Plantation.
Hofwyl and Broadfield remained the property of Mrs. Dent until her death in 1931. In her will, 52 she bequeathed one-third interest in her property to each of her daughters, Miriam and Ophelia, and a one-third interest for life only, to her son, Gratz. When Gratz. Dent died in 1936, his share of the property reverted to his sisters and Ophelia Dent became the sole owner of the Hofwyl-Broadfield plantations at her sister Miriam's death in 1953.
Although substantial portions of the original Hofwyl and Broadfield plantations were conveyed in the twentieth century, at the time of her death in September of 1973, Ophelia Troup Dent was the owner of 1,268 acres of land. This property was left to the Georgia Historical Commission, now a part of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Formal acceptance of Hofwyl Plantation by the State of Georgia took place on November 20, 1974.

80

FOOTNOTES The Dents

1ophelia Troup Dent, Memoirs, unpublished, original manuscript located at Hofwyl Plantation; transcript in appendix, pages a75-a86.
2Papers relating to the application of James Troup Dent for admission to the Sons of the Revolution organization, containing letters, family trees, etc.; located at Hofwyl Plantation.

3Dent, lac. cit.

4Ibid.

5Glynn County, Georgia Wills, Inventories, Appraisements Book~ (18441853), pp. 201, 202, 204, 249; microfilm reel 82/4, Georgia Department of Archives and History.

6 Charles S. Wylly, Annals and Statistics of Glynn County, Georgia (Privately
printed, 1896), p. 67.

7

.

Dent, lac. cit.

8Albert Virgil House,' "Labor Management Problems on Georgia Rice Plantations, 1840-1860," Agricultural History, XXVIII (1954), p. 150.

9wylly, ~ cit., p. 20.
10 Albert Virgil House, "The Deterioration of a Georgia Rice Plantation During
Four Years of Civil War," Journal of Southern History, IX (1943), p. 102. quoting Charles Manigault.

11 Dennis T. Lawson, "No Heir to Take its Place" (Georgetown, S~ C.: The
Rice Museum, 1972), p. 22.

12 House, "The Deterioration ," p. 101.

13Georgia Bryan Conrad, "Reminiscences of a Southern Woman," printed in the Southern Workman, 1901; published in pamphlet form by the Hampton Institute Press, Hampton, Virginia, n.d., p. 23.

14Dent, 1 oc. .c~t.

15Conrad, loc. cit.

16 Ibid., pp. 23, 24 0

17House,

Th e D . . 11

eter~orat~on.



, II p.

10 3

81

18Ibid., p. 108.

lY Ibid., pp. 98, 105, 106, 107.

20 Conrad,

.2.

cit.,

p.

25.

21Dent, _1 c~. t.

22 Burnette Vanstory, Georgia's Land of the Golden Isles (Athens: Univer-
sity of Georgia Press, 1956), pp. 103-104.

23 Dent, loc. cit.

24 George

C.

Rogers,

!

History

of

Georgetown

County,

South

Carolina

(Columbia:

University of South Carolina Press, 1970), p. 423; Oscar Zeichner, "The Transition

from Slave to Free Labor in the Southern States," Agricultural History, XIII (19 39),

p. 22; Paul Wallace Gates, Agric'Jlture and the Civil War (New York: Knopf, 1965),

pp 363' 364

25 Zeichner, . cit., p. 24.

26 Ibid.

27Willard Range, ! Century of Georgia Agriculture, 1850-1950 (Athens: Uni-
versity of Georgia Press, 1954), p. 67; Bell I. Wiley, "Salient Changes in Southern
Agriculture Since the Civil War," Agricultural History, XIII (1939), p. 66.

28 Range, loc. cit., quoting the Annual Report of the Q~ Connnissioners o
Agriculture (1871), p. 43.
29 Frances Butler Simkins, "The Problems of South Carolina Agriculture after
the Civil War," North Carolina Historical Review, VII (1930), pp. 61, 77.

30Alber~ Virgil House, "A Reconstruction Share-Cropper Contract on a Georgia
Rice Plantation," Georgia Historical Quarterly, XXV (1941), pp. 208-217, gives an excellent de~cription of the conditions which led to adoption of the share-cropper
system, as well as the text of a contract; see also, Bell I Wiley, "Salient Changes. , " p. 65.

31 Frances Butler Simkins, "The Solution of Post-Bellum Agricultural Problems
in South Carolina," North Carolina Historical Review, VII (1930), p. 202.
32 Theodore D. Ravenel, "The Last Days of Rice Planting," in David Doar,
Rice and Rice Planting _in the South Carolina Low Country (Charleston: The Charleston Museum, 1936), p. 46; Frances Butler Leigh gives the best account of post war conditions on the Altamaha in her Ten Years~~ Georgia Plantation (London, 1883), and mentions the employment of Irish laborers.

33simkins, "The Problems. , 11 p. 47.
34 Alfred H. Stone, "The Cotton Factorage System of the Southern States,"
American Historical Review, XX (1915), p. 564; J. W. Leigh, Other Days (London, 1921)' p. 134.
35 Rogers, 2. cit., p. 436.

82

36Patrick Hues Mell, "lhe Conditions of Rice Culture in the South Since 1865," in val. VI of lhe South in the Building of the Nation (Richmond, Va.: The Southern Historical Publishing Society, 1909), p. 74.

37 .

.

Range,.. cit., p. 109.

38
R,ogers, E. , .!!~ p. 488; Albert Virgil House, ed. , Planter Management
and Capitalism in Ante-Bellum Georgia: The Journal of Hugh Fraser Grant, Ricegrower (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), p. 4.

39 Rogers, lac. cit.

40 Ibid., pp. 239, 245; Duncan Clinch Heywa:d, Seed From Madagascar (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937), pp. 239-245.

41 Joseph Schafer, The Social History of American Agriculture (New York:
Macmillan, 1936), p. 256.

42 Mell, .2..2. cit., p. 75.
43 Wylly, .2..2. cit., p. 68.
44 Ibid., p. 17.
45 The Dent Family Bible, located at Hofwyl Plantation.

46

.

Sidney Andrews, lhe South Since the War . (Boston, 1866), pp. 366, 367.

47 Personal Papers at Hofwyl Plantation; see also Rollin G. Osterveis, Rebecca
Gratz; !:_Study in Charm (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1935).

48 Glynn County, Georgia Deed Books T (1879-1882), p. 73 (reel 82/37); CC (1888), p. 23 (reel 82/43);! (1884-1885)~ p. 485.
49 Glynn County, Georgia Deed Booky (1885), p. 222; reel 82/39.
50 . Glynn County, Georgia Deed Book NN (1895), p. 49, reel 82/50.

51 Vanstory, .. cit., p. 104.

52 Glynn

County, Georgia

Will

Book .!!.

(1917-1933),

p.

201.

ILLUSTRATIONS
Credits: Family photographs and rice field photographs from the Hofwyl Plantation collection. Exterior photographs by Victoria R. Gunn and interior ones by Van Jones Martin in 1974 and 1975.

pl
William Brailsford c. 1760 - 1810

p2 George Columbus Dent
.. 1822 - 1R84

p3
Miriam Gratz Cohen Dent ? - 1931

p4

. : 1 ........... J

~. ; r>~- .-'

(.

..
Ophelia Troup Dent, Gratz Dent, Miriam Gratz Dent - c. 1890

p5
James Troup Dent, Miriam Cohen Dent, Miriam Gratz Dent, Ophelia Troup Dent
Date unknm-Jn

p6
Hofwyl Plantation 1.90lf

p7
Main Drive Hofwyl Plar.lation

p8
Side vie~,, Ho fwy 1 Howw

p9

__ -.. ... -- - - - -.

~- ----

---..

F'Lrst Fltwr (,Jindm..rs Il.lustrnt: n~~ p:.ul'.:h: for addi.t. ion;,]_ vent: tlution

plO
.l~r=~ 1~1
Hofwyl House
Hear Vie~"

pll
'
.-::.1:" :.: 7
1 '-=~_:1 - .. ..: :;;:;;.:..;;
.- ... ._._.:;.:.,. :.-~- ...~.~.!'-:,,;: .
. . ~-
Hoiwyl Hous Front

p12



1..

Side Vir_'\v House and Outbuild.i.np;s

p13
Side View Hous.e and outbuildings

p14
Rear Yard
Servit~,ts' Ouarters

pl5

<,-._ , _A.,"!\"'
, ~-- , 'I ,..._

... ,. ., ~.

Outbuildings tiarns and Pay Shed

p16 Ice l!,luse and Lc:!Undry Yard

;i t ...".h'~"' "~' ~~f :
:.i
, "'
,;,,

pl8 Main Hall

pl9 Parlor

p20
: .~ . .
,
ffJ "'.l t:J
ParloJ:

It
I
I
____ ~
__..................~~ ..._

p22 Downsta"lrs Bedroom

p2.3
.. 'i
Upstairs Hall

p24
.r....... . , 'j ' .,.
Upstairs Bedroom South Corner

p25
Upstairs Bedroom East Corner Rice Red

p26
Rice Bed t~oti f Detail

,
., - " ,; -~'}t ""J i.~ _,. . II

p27

Upstairs Bedroom Uorth Corner

p28

.-'
.t .
,~ .....~
-~
~~~ ,\,: : ~.~~ . ..... ...!t.:'fl. /
l'

':'
i. "' ",
) f)
":

"~;\. .
.,
':.
'i,t f
~

Small Second Floor Bedroom

p29
Rice Fields 1975

p30
Rice Field Workers Planting

p31
Rice Field Horkers Date unknovm

p32

,. :./ ., . . ~~:, ';~ ~

~-\>'?'.' :s.i.f.;,. , ':, .,.

.. ' ~: 'j ~.
.,., J! :.~:}

. ,'
,

':;,\,'!,,,I

~

,.,

.. '
. ~ ~).....
; ...... ',

. . . .. ~
.'

'

Rice Fields Harvest

p33
Rice Harkers Threshing and \-Jinnowing

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Manuscripts and other unpublished materials

1. At the Department of Archives and History, State of Georgia:

Register of Grants; Office of the Suryeyor General.

Books of Conveyances (Colonial); Office of the Surveyor General; Microfilm Library.

Fiats for Grants; Microfilm Library.

United States Census Records, Glynn and Mcintosh Counties, Georgia, 1820-1880;

Microfilm Library.

United States A&riculture Census Records, Glynn County, Georgia, 1860-1880;

Microfilm Library.

Tax Digests, Glynn County, Georgia, 1874-1960; Manuscript Collection; 1965;

Microfilm Library.



Glynn County, Georgia Records: Deed Books, 1765-1908, and indexes; Hicrofilm

Library; Estate Records, 1810-1916; Microfilm Library.

Liberty County, Georgia Records: Deed Book, 1804-1809; Microfilm Library.

Papers relating to the Bank of Darien; Microfilm Library.

Dent-Horry-Troup-Brailsford Genealogy; Microfilm Library, originals at Hofwyl

Plantation and the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah.

South Carolina Grant ~ook!! (1763-1764); Microfilm Library.

2. At the Glynn County Courthouse, Brcunswick, Georgia.

Glynn County, Georgia Deed Books, 1908~present.

3. At the Charleston County Courthouse, Charleston, South Carolina:

Charleston County, South Carolina Deed Books, 1765-1816.

4. At the South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, South Carolina:

Henry Laurens' Papers; also on microfilm at the University of Georgia Library.

5. At the Hist;oric_al Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:

Henry Laurens' Letterbooks.

6. At Hofwyl Plantation:

Family genealogies. Original deeds, mortgages, marriage agre~ments, estate records. Newspaper clippings. Letters. Photographs. Maps. Unpublished memoirs of Ophelia Troup Dent, 19d2-1904. Account book of James Troup Dent, ca. 1900.
7. At the Federal Records Center, Atlanta, Georgia:

Minutes of the Circuit Court of the Sixth District, Georgia, 1806-1816, Vol. D.

bl

b2
B. Contemporary Reports: Periodicals, Newspapers
1. Newspapers (as cited) :
Brunswick, Georgia:
~ Brunswick Advertiser.
Darien, Georgia:
The Darien Gazette. The Darien Timber Gazette.
Savannah, Georgia:
The American Patriot. The Columbia Uuseum and Savannah Advertiser. The Columbia Huseum and Savannah Daily Gazette. ~ Daily Georgian.
,!h!:. Gazette E.f l l i State E.f Georgia.
~ Georgia Gazette.
1h! Georgia Republican.
~ Georgia Republican ~ State Intelligencer.
~Georgian.
~ Georgian ~ Evening Advertiser. ~ Public Intelligencer. ~ Republican ~ Savannah Evenins Ledger.
1h! Royal Georgia Gazette.
~ Savannah Georgian. ~ Savannah Republican
.:!:!.:!., Southern Patriot.
Charleston, South Carolina:
The South Carolina Gazette.
2. Periodicals (as cited):
~ American Agriculturist. ~ American Farmer. American Journal.of Science. DeBow 1s Review. Galaxy. Harper's Hagazine. Scribner's Magazine. ~ Southern Agricult