Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Indigo

In the first blog post I mentioned Eliza Lucas a lot of y'all might know who she is and some of you probably don't.  So here's her story.

Eliza Lucas was born in the West Indies and educated in England.  In 1738, Eliza's father Major George Lucas, feeling that the climate of South Carolina would be better for his invalid wife's health, moved his wife along with their two daughters to Wappoo Plantation in the Charleston, SC area.  Wappoo was one of 3 plantations he had inherited from his father John Lucas of Antigua.   In 1739, Captain Lucas was called back to Antigua leaving Eliza, at the age of 16, to manage his plantations in South Carolina.  Almost 50 years later, Eliza wrote, "I was very early fond of the vegetable world" and "My father was pleased with it and encouraged it".  In the encouragement of his daughter's curious mind and also in the effort to find a commercial crop to replace rice, Major Lucas continually sent Eliza various plants and seeds to try, indigo being one.  By 1740, Eliza was experimenting with indigo which she said had "greater hopes" than anything else he had sent her.  It took Eliza several years to get a viable crop.  Her first crop was cut down by frost and, from the seeds she saved from that crop, she only got enough for 100 plants the next year.  In the meantime, her father sent  Nicholas Cromwell, from Montserrat, an experienced dye maker, to make the vats and assist her in the process of extracting the dye.   Despite Cromwell's attempt to spoil the dye, the small 1741 crop produced "20 weight" of indigo.  The 1742 and 1743 plantings were not successful, but in 1744, she had a good enough crop and, with the help of a new dye maker, Patrick Cromwell, Eliza was able to produce 17 pounds of "very good indigo".  Six pounds of indigo was sent to England to be tested and, in a letter sent from London on December 3, 1744,  it was stated "I have shown your indigo to one of our noted Brokers in that Way, who tried it against some of the French, and in his opinion it is as good", and in another unidentified letter it was stated "the sample of Indigo sent here....has been tried and found better that the French indigo".  Most of the 1744 crop was saved for seed and was given away in small quantities to a great number of people.  In 1745, there were at least 5 other planters experimenting with indigo and by 1747, 135,000 pounds was produced for export.   On the eve of the Revolutionary War, over 1,000,000 pounds of indigo was being exported from the Charleston harbor.  All this started by a curious young girl.