Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina's Plantation Society

by Jack P. Greene (Editor), Rosemary Brana-Shute (Editor), Randy J. Sparks (Editor)

Overview

Examines the economic and cultural development of England's most British colony

Reflecting the burgeoning interest of colonial historians in South Carolina and its role as the economic and cultural center of the Lower South, Money, Trade, and Power is a comprehensive exploration of the colony's slave system, economy, and complex social and cultural life.

The first six chapters of this essay collection focus on the formative decades of South Carolina's history, from 1670 through the 1730s. Contributors Meaghan N. Duff, Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, and Gary L. Hewitt explore the colony's early settlement. R. C. Nash, Stephen G. Hardy, and Eirlys M. Barker investigate the rapidly expanding economy.

Turning to the colony's reliance on slave labor, William L. Ramsay analyzes the institution and abandonment of Indian slavery; Jennifer Lyle Morgan examines the reproductive capabilities of slave women; and S. Max Edelson looks at the distinctive social position of skilled slaves. Robert Olwell considers how South Carolina public officials adapted the office of justice of the peace to the needs of a slave society, while Matthew Mulcahy shows how calamities of fires and hurricanes exacerbated the problem of slave control.

Finally, Edward Pearson describes the ways in which South Carolina's emerging elite asserted their new status; G. Winston Lane and Elizabeth M. Pruden review the surprising economic independence of women; and Thomas Little examines the colony's religious life and spread of evangelicalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570033742
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	10/31/2001
Series:	Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jack P. Greene is the Andrew H. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at The Johns Hopkins University and the author of more than twenty-five books. Greene lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Colonial South Carolina: An Introduction, by Jack P. Greene
1. Creating a Plantation Province: Proprietary Land Policies and Early Settlement Patterns, by Meaghan N. Duff
2. The Huguenots of Proprietary South Carolina: Patterns of Migration and Integration, by Bertrand Van Ruymbeke
3. The State of the Planters' Service: Politics and the Emergence of a Plantation Economy in South Carolina, by Gary L. Hewitt
4. The Organization of Trade and Finance in the Atlantic Economy: Britain and South Carolina, 1670-1775, by R. C. Nash
5. Colonial South Carolina's Rice Industry and the Atlantic Economy: Patterns of Trade, Shipping, and Growth, 1715-1775, by Stephen G. Hardy
6. Indian Traders, Charles Town, and London's Vital Links to the Interior of North America, 1717-1755, by Eirlys M. Barker
7. "All & Singular the Slaves": A Demographic Profile of Indian Slavery in Colonial South Carolina, by William L. Ramsey
8. This is "Mines": Slavery and Reproduction in Colonial Barbados and South Carolina, by Jennifer L. Morgan
9. Affliation without Affinity: Skilled Slaves in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina, by S. Max Edelson
10. "Practical Justice": The Justice of the Peace, the Slave Court, and Local Authority in Mid-Eighteenth Century South Carolina, by Robert Olwell
11. "Melancholy and Fatal Calamities": Disaster and Society in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina, by Matthew Mulcahy
12. "Planters Full of Money": The Self-Fashioning of the Eighteenth-Century South Carolina Elite, by Edward Pearson
13. Economic Power among Eighteenth-Century Women of the Carolina Lowcountry: Four Generations of Middleton Women, 1678-1800, by G. Winston Lane, Jr.
14. Investing Widows: Autonomy in a Nascent Capitalist Society, by Elizabeth M. Pruden
15. "Adding to the Church Such as Shall Be Saved": The Growth in Influence of Evangelicalism in Colonial South Carolina, 1740-1775, by Thomas J. Little

What People are Saying About This

Thad W. Tate

These essays, largely the work of a promising group of younger scholars, establish an important groundwork for a new wave of significant scholarship on the colonial South Carolina lowcountry. Many offer useful and fresh evidence. Read collectively, they also provide a remarkably comprehensive account of the development of the region.

Betty Wood

The editors of this volume are to be warmly congratulated on having assembled a quite dazzling array of essays that represent the very best of recent scholarship on the colonial South Carolina Lowcountry.

Philip Morgan

With these fifteen essays, the Lower South and its central colony, South Carolina, is at last receiving the scrupulous attention and imaginative investigation once afforded New England, the Chesapeake, and the Mid-Atltantic regions. This collection reveals a colonial society that was dynamic as well as exploitative, diverse as well as hedonistic—but above all, infinitely fascinating.