Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina (review)

In this book, Edelson examines the rise and operation of the plantation system in the South Carolina lowcountry, from the beginning of settlement at the end of the seventeenth century until the end of the American Revolution 100 years later. Edelson sets the early modern plantation in its historic context as "a dynamic instrument of colonization and economic development" (4). Rather than magnolia-scented settings of civility and refinement, colonial plantations were "slave labor camps" where masters were intent upon the cultivation of plants convertible into cash in the Atlantic market (165).

The book's first three chapters, covering the period from the beginning of the colony to the mid-eighteenth century, plows ground similar to that of Peter Wood's Black Majority (New York, 1974). However, Edelson complicates Wood's emphasis upon "black agency" (59). One chapter, for example, is devoted to refuting the argument, advanced by Wood and Daniel Littlefield—Rice and Slaves (Baton Rouge, 1981)—that South Carolina rice culture had African roots. In this chapter, and in the entire book, Edelson aims to balance a "revisionist counternarrative" focused on slaves' contributions by paying closer attention to the role of masters in shaping the lowcountry landscape (60).

The second half of the book, chapters 4 through 6, examines the operation of the colonial lowcountry's plantation complex during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. In these pages, Edelson breaks new ground and offers a number of new insights.

Chapter 5 investigates how the identity of Carolina masters was constructed in the Atlantic marketplace. Market valuations determined price and profit but also pegged the reputation of individual planters' and of the entire colony. Carolina rice was considered high quality. But to lowcountry masters' chagrin, their indigo was constantly judged to be of an inferior grade. Yet, Carolinians used their expertise and local knowledge to ridicule the attraction that British correspondents had for plantation ventures in Georgia or Florida.

This cultural approach is bracketed by the more traditional economic analysis of chapters 4 and 6. Edelson posits a core–periphery model of colonial lowcountry development. Charleston, the metropolis of the region, and its immediate hinterland were the core. An outlying region between the Santee and the Edisto formed a "secondary zone." Port Royal, to the south, and Winyah Bay, to the north, were "frontier zones." The expansion of rice and slavery into coastal Georgia after 1750 offered another plantation frontier.

The final chapter of the book scrutinizes the "empire" of one master, Henry Laurens, to illustrate in microcosm how the entire system functioned. From account books and letters, Edelson reveals how Laurens, from his desk in Charleston, managed an extensive enterprise of two "core" genteel plantations and three markedly less genteel outlying ones as a well-integrated machine. The system was extraordinarily lucrative. By the early 1770s, Laurens expected an annual rate of return of 20 percent.

Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina is an insightful, original, and well-written book. Edelson may be right in suggesting that the portrait of Africans' key role in creating the colonial lowcountry has been overdrawn. Yet, viewing the rise of South Carolina's plantation regime from the masters' perspective is not without it own ironies. Seen from Laurens' desk, what might fairly be described as a human tragedy becomes instead a tale of entrepreneurial ingenuity and economic success. Lowcountry blacks were naturally less inclined to see it that way. Edelson quotes one of Laurens' slaves in a letter telling his "hounerable master" that "w[e] are all ways in the dreding w[ay" (251).