YEMASSEE, S.C. — More than 236,000 acres of rice fields spanning 160 miles once covered coastal South Carolina, according to a recent mapping project that used modern tools to document the massive footprint of the Lowcountry’s antebellum rice culture.
Building the ponds and dikes and maintaining them with slaves could be deadly work, with disease such as malaria, extreme heat and even alligators constant threats.
“Imagine the labor it took two centuries ago to convert our woodland swamps and coastal marshes into agricultural fields and how these workers learned to use the river tides to water and drain these fields,” said Ernie Wiggers. “It is an uncomfortable story to tell because enslaved people provided the labor.”
