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In her public-spirited way, Eliza gave up one whole year’s crop to making seed, for she had great difficulty in getting it from the East Indies in time for the crops to ripen before a frost. This home-grown seed she presented to those planters who were interested in raising indigo, and it was a generous gift, for the seed was by no means cheap. By the gift many planters were induced to try the new seed and at that time Eliza wrote to her father:

“Out of a small patch of Indigo growing at Wappoo (which Mama made a present to Mr. P.) the brother of Nicholas Cromwell besides saving a quantity of Seed, made us 17 pounds of very good Indigo, so different from N C’s, that we are convinced he was a mere bungler at it. Mr. Deveaux has made some likewise, and the people in gen

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very sanguine about it. Mr. P. sent to England by the last man of warr 6 pounds to try how t’is approved of there. If it is I hope we shall have a bounty from home, we have already a bounty of 5

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currancy from this province upon it. We please ourselves with the prospect of exporting in a few years a good quantity from hence, and supplying our Mother Country with a manifacture for w

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she has so great a demand, and which she is now supplyd with from the French Collonys, and many thousand pounds per annum thereby lost to the nation, when she might as well be supplyd here, if the matter was applyd to in earnest.”

After this there are several letters from Governor Lucas, showing how earnestly he wished to have the raising of indigo a success, and he suggested that the brick vats may have been the cause of the failure, and advised trying wood, but the truth of the trouble lay in the fact that the two overseers sent by the Governor had been traitors, who purposely achieved poor results, so that the American product should not compete with that exported from their native island of Monserrat. When Eliza discovered this her father at once sent a negro from one of the French islands to replace them, and from that time the results were steadily satisfactory. Soon enough indigo was raised to make it worth while to export to England, and the English at once offered a bounty of sixpence a pound. It is said that as long as this was paid, the planters doubled their capital every three or four years, and in order to commemorate the source of their wealth they formed what was at first merely a social club, called the “Winyah Indigo Club,” but later established the first free school in the province outside of Charles Town, a school which, handsomely endowed and supported, continued a useful existence down to 1865.

Indigo continued to be a chief staple of the country for more than thirty years, history tells us, and after the Revolution it was again cultivated, but the loss of the British bounty, the rivalry of the East Indies with their cheaper labour and the easier cultivation of cotton, all contributed to its abandonment about the end of the century. However, just before the Revolution, the annual export amounted to the enormous quantity of one million, one hundred and seven thousand, six hundred and sixty pounds, and all this revenue to the province of Carolina, and its added benefits to all classes of citizens, was the direct result of the perseverance and intelligence of Eliza Lucas, the girl planter of the eighteenth century. Let the girls of our day look to their laurels if they wish to be enrolled in the same class with this indomitable little maid of South Carolina!