4 - “To Depend Altogether on Reservoirs”

Summary

Chapter 4 highlights the collective effort of four rice plantations on the Wando River headwaters in Charleston County that enabled the owners to cultivate the crop up to the Civil War. This chapter explains how inland cultivation maintained an important presence in the Lowcountry landscape. To illustrate the complex role that inland rice plantations played in contrast to the predominant tidal system, this chapter provides a microanalysis of these four inland plantations – Charleywood, Fairlawn, Clayfield, and Wythewood – from 1783 to 1860.The owners of these tracts aggressively annexed surrounding plantations, intensified water management through canalization, and maintained a substantial enslaved labor population to carry out these tasks.Highlighting these four plantations, this chapter traces the evolution of inland rice culture and describes how it resembled and then swayed from tidal cultivation practices.