As
Lieutenant Governor of Antigua, Colonel George Lucas must have had
every intention of setting up one of his sons to run his three
plantations in the American colonies. He could not have imagined
that his sixteen year old daughter, educated in England with French,
drawing and music, would ever need to draw upon botany, her best
loved subject, to run the family’s plantations upon the death of
his wife and his recall to Antigua during the War of Jenkins’ Ear.
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| "I beg here to acknowledge particularly my obligation to you (father) for the pains and money laid out in my education, which I esteem a more valuable fortune than any you could have given me, as I hope it will tend to make me happy thru my future life, and those in whom I am most nearly concerned" (Pinckney, xi) |
Whatever
her schooling prepared her for, it certainly would not have been the
challenges of caring for a large slave population in a brutal
climate, mortgaged plantations, crop failures, and hostilities
abounding from all sides, all whilst endeavouring to maintain a
genteel facade.
Despite
her tender age and deep longing to return to English society, she
plunged in to the life of a plantation owner, experimenting with many
different crops including silk, figs, flax, and hemp.
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| This dress was woven out of silk from the Pinckney plantation and made for Eliza Pinckney in London whilst the family were in residence there. |
By 1738 she
managed to grow a modestly successful crop of the notoriously
difficult to cultivate indigo. Her hope was to circumvent the
French, who heavily taxed the crop they grew in the West Indies, and
to provide the English textile industry with this highly sought after
deep blue purple dye.
Used
since ancient times, indigo was introduced to England by a wealthy
secular community for ink, paint, and cloth dyeing. It was a costly
and superior alternative to European woad. Despite sabotage from her island competitors, Eliza proved so successful
at developing this labour intensive crop that by the 1740s indigo
accounted for over a third of the colony’s exports and was
successfully cultivated on various plantations, with her help and support, throughout the
South Carolina Sea Islands.
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| This late eighteenth century resist printed indigo American quilt was pictured in Florence Petit's book "America's Indigo Blues" and is now being sold for a substantial amount by an American dealer. It is hard to imagine now but the making of this quilt may have taken as much as six months and used an amount of indigo more pricey than gold |
Perhaps
because of her independence she was at liberty to entertain Charles
Pinckney as a suitor, and was married to the widower, who helped her
maintain her interests in their plantations, numbering seven in
total. They returned to England to Ripley in Surrey to live in 1753,
planning to stay for at least the tenure of her two sons’
educations. Alas these plans were cut short as the war with France
hastened her husband’s return to the Carolinas to protect their
financial interests.
Upon
their return he was immediately struck with fever and died, leaving
Eliza largely friendless, her family far away in the Islands and her two sons in England, in debt with the plantations that had been run down in their
absence, her hopes of returning to England dashed.
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| The spire of St. Philip's, Charleston, est. 1680 is one of the oldest surviving and continually in use Anglican churches in North America. Photo taken near Charles Pinckney's grave. |
Although she
maintained a lifelong correspondence with her English friends,
modestly stating in many letters how her main entertainments were her
books and a few neighbours, there was no turning back and she pressed
forward, working tirelessly to promote her sons in the new colonial
society and hold on to whatever property remained. Her sons
eventually returned from England, her son Thomas eventually becoming
the American Minister to Britain. Her powerful friends included
George Washington, who would be her guest at Hampton Plantation in
1792 just before her death.
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| Hampton Plantation, 35 miles west of Charleston, SC where Eliza Pinckney spent her later years. The Adams style portico was added in honour of George Washington's visit, hero of the revolutionary war that destroyed her crops and her livelihood. |
