Money, Trade, and Power

Money, Trade, and Power

The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina's Plantation Society

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.

  • Cover
  • MONEY, TRADE, AND POWER
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • Contents
  • Colonial South Carolina: An Introduction
  • I Creating a Plantation Province Proprietary Land Policies and Early Settlement Patterns
  • II The Huguenots of Proprietary South Carolina Patterns of Migration and Integration
  • III The State in the Planters’ Service Politics and the Emergence of a Plantation Economy in South Carolina
  • IV The Organization of Trade and Finance in the Atlantic Economy Britain and South Carolina, 1670–1775
  • V Colonial South Carolina’s Rice Industry and the Atlantic Economy Patterns of Trade, Shipping, and Growth, 1715–1775
  • VI Indian Traders, Charles Town, and London’s Vital Links to the Interior of North America, 1717–1755
  • VII “All & Singular the Slaves” A Demographic Profile of Indian Slavery in Colonial South Carolina
  • VIII This is “Mines” Slavery and Reproduction in Colonial Barbados and South Carolina
  • IX Affiliation without Affinity Skilled Slaves in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina
  • X “Practical Justice” The Justice of the Peace, the Slave Court, and Local Authority in Mid-Eighteenth-Century South Carolina ROBERT OLWELL
  • XI “Melancholy and Fatal Calamities” Disaster and Society in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina
  • XII “Planters Full of Money” The Self-Fashioning of the Eighteenth-Century South Carolina Elite
  • XIII Economic Power among Eighteenth-Century Women of the Carolina Lowcountry Four Generations of Middleton Women, 1678–1800
  • XIV Investing Widows Autonomy in a Nascent Capitalist Society
  • XV “Adding to the Church Such As Shall Be Saved” The Growth in Influence of Evangelicalism in Colonial South Carolina, 1740–1775
  • List of Contributors
  • Index