From Flats and Fords to Causeways and Canals: Carolina Rice Plantations and the Construction of the Lowcountry

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Rice agriculture in colonial and antebellum North America transformed the coastal landscape between the Cape Fear River in southeastern North Carolina and the St. Johns River in northern Florida through the still-visible irrigation canals hand dug by enslaved Africans. These distinctive features and associated history of rice plantations characterize a region now known as the Lowcountry. Despite being part of the broader Lowcountry landscape, North Carolina was colonized later and had a lesser density of plantations than the other states. Consequently, it is often excluded from regional narratives. Additionally, compared with South Carolina and Georgia, where planter’s journals, land records, and traveler’s records have been preserved, there are far fewer historical sources about everyday life on plantations on the Cape Fear. This paper, then, will use recent archaeological evidence of rice plantation waterway infrastructure to compare North Carolina and South Carolina plantations within the broader context of the Southeastern Lowcountry.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow