ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the cultural origins of rice cultivation in the United States, arguing that its appearance in South Carolina with settlement of the colony from 1670 is an African knowledge system that transferred across the Middle Passage of slavery. The origins of this wetland farming system are explored in relationship to other ethnic groups found in the colony at the time, the English, French Huguenots and native Americans. In examining the cultural origins of rice cultivation in South Carolina, Littlefield illuminated its African antecedents. From an early period of settlement planters were aware of rice cultivation in Africa even though the consolidation of slavery during the ante-bellum period effaced the common knowledge of an earlier era. A crucial component of the successful establishment of rice cultivation in South Carolina was the transfer of a farming and crop processing system deeply associated with female knowledge.