Coastal Heritage VOLUME 21, NUMBER 1 SUMMER 2006

African roots, Carolina gold

Summer 2006 •  CONTENTS

3 African roots, Carolina gold The African contribution to the immensely lucrative industry.

8 Coastal Heritage is a quarterly publication Carolina gold’s trail of the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, a university- Researchers are using molecular tools to study Carolina Gold’s genetics. based network supporting research, education, and outreach to conserve coastal resources and 11 enhance economic opportunity for the people of South Carolina. Comments regarding this or Former rice fields, disappeAring future issues of Coastal Heritage are welcomed. A rare habitat could soon fade away along the Cooper River. Subscriptions are free upon request by contacting: 12 S.C. Sea Grant Consortium 287 Meeting Street Rediscovering Carolina rice Charleston, S.C. 29401 There is a growing interest in reviving heirloom rice varieties such as Carolina Gold. phone: (843) 727-2078 e-mail: [email protected] 14 Executive Director Ebbs and Flows M. Richard DeVoe • Beach Sweep/River Sweep Annual Litter Cleanup Director of Communications • 9th International Conference on Shellfish Restoration Susan Ferris Hill

Editor John H. Tibbetts

Art Director ON THE COVER: Inside a former rice mill at Middleton Place Carl Turner on the Ashley River, a pestle rests in a mortar. These tools were used to pound rice to remove the husks. PHOTO/WADE SPEES  Board of Directors The Consortium’s Board of Directors is composed of the chief executive officers of its member institutions:

Dr. Andrew A. Sorensen, Chair President, University of South Carolina James F. Barker President, Clemson University John E. Frampton Executive Director S.C. Department of Natural Resources Dr. Raymond S. Greenberg President, Medical University of South Carolina Dr. Conrad D. Festa Interim President, College of Charleston Dr. Andrew H. Hugine, Jr. President, S.C. State University LINE DRAWING COURTESY OF MIDDLETON PLACE Dr. Ronald R. Ingle President, Coastal Carolina University Lt. General John W. Rosa COPYRIGHT © 2006 by the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium. All rights reserved. President, The Citadel

 • Coastal Heritage African roots, Carolina gold By John H. Tibbetts

n the early 1960s, when Emory S. Campbell was a young RICE TRADITION. The people “cook and man, he moved from his family home on Hilton Head eat rice today as we always did,” says Emory S. Island to Boston and suffered a bout of culinary shock. Campbell, former executive director of the Penn “It took me a long time,” he says, “to adjust to the fact that Center on St. Helena Island. Ithere was something other than rice that people could eat PHOTO/WADE SPEES for dinner.” Hilton Head’s population was tiny during Campbell’s youth, with only 1,125 residents in 1950. Connected to the Island. Since his retirement in 2003, Campbell has mainland by ferry, the island was isolated, and the Campbell continued as an educator and consultant, describing the family—like other African Americans on the island— culture of his fellow Gullah/Geechee people, descendants embraced traditional folkways. And that included eating rice of African slaves who labored on antebellum rice planta- at every evening meal. tions. Along the coast of the Carolinas, they are known The Campbells would simmer meats, vegetables, beans, as Gullah, but in and northern Florida they are or field peas in a stew, which was poured over rice. In winter, called Geechee. they’d add oysters to the mix; in the summer, shrimp or garden The Gullah people have struggled to sustain their greens. “You’d have fish or vegetables prepared in such a way folkways in a time of rapid coastal development. While that you put it over rice,” says Campbell. “ greens, pressures of the modern world have diluted their creole cabbage, lima beans—all those are cooked in a soup or gravy language and culture, a blend of African and European that you’d put over the rice.” For breakfast the family usually influences, the Gullah attachment to rice remains strong. ate grits, but on special occasions the children might be lucky Scholars in recent years have gained insights into enough to eat rice, a “real treat.” the African contribution to Carolina rice’s origins, rice’s After a few years in Boston, Campbell returned to South place in lowcountry history and its creole , and the Carolina as executive director of the Penn Center on St. Helena grain’s role in the Atlantic world of trade and slavery.

Summer 2006 •  Joseph Opala, who teaches similar ways? Because Africans of the the region in the mid-fifteenth century. African-American history at James Rice Coast and many lowcountry blacks Before European contact, West Madison University in Harrisonburg, have a shared ancestry split by slavery. Africans knew how to grow it in dry , has examined the similarities Centuries and human bondage didn’t upland areas and in irrigated wetlands; between lowcountry Gullah culture destroy many cultural links, particularly and how to plug hollow tree trunks as and that of the “Rice Coast” of West those of traditional foodways. irrigation devices for cultivation, Africa, a 700-mile, six-nation region. Says Opala, “The dishes prepared among other techniques. Opala worked for 17 years in in are very similar to By the 1720s, Carolina rice Sierra Leone, where rice is not only the ones that are traditionally prepared in growers were telling slave traders that nation’s staple crop but it is also central South Carolina, and in some cases they wanted skilled Africans from the to the people’s identity. “They’d say, have exactly the same names. When I Rice Coast above all others. During ‘Joe, we’re Sierra Leoneans, we’re rice told Sierra Leoneans that the Gullah the eighteenth century, more enslaved eaters. We eat rice three times a day, eat okra soup, red rice, and rice and Africans from the Rice Coast were morning, noon, and night. Other foods greens, they became convinced that hauled into the ports of Charleston are fine, but if we ever go to bed with lowcountry people were family.” and Savannah than any other African our bellies empty of rice, we’re just region. “Rice growing was a particu- miserable.’ ” ATTACHMENT TO RICE larly complex form of agriculture, and When Opala later visited the that’s why planters needed people from South Carolina , Campbell Over the past few decades, that part of Africa,” says Opala. met him at the airport and explained, scholars have unearthed evidence that “There’s a pretty substantial “Joe, this is your first time here on the many cultivation techniques used on literature now on technical connec- islands, and I’ve got to tell you. We’re early rice plantations in North tions between the Rice Coast and the Gullah, we’re rice eaters. If we don’t America originated on the Rice Coast lowcountry,” of South Carolina and have rice, we’re miserable.” of West Africa. Georgia, Opala adds. “We know what How could two peoples thousands West Africans had been growing kinds of rice-growing techniques of miles apart, separated by the Atlantic rice for thousands of years before existed along the Rice Coast and how Ocean, describe themselves in such Portuguese mariners began exploring that knowledge affected the rice

“The slaves knew more about the business of the rice plantation than the family that had owned that plantation for generations.” — Joseph Opala

In early March through April, female slaves walked barefoot between rows, dropping rice seed into holes created by their toes, then tamping it down Lowcountry slaves hoed fields three with their heels. or four times from early June to early August. Hoeing was exhausting. The month of June, not surprisingly, was 4 •• Coastal HHeritage the month highest in runaway slaves. industry of the eighteenth century the best of everything: horses, houses, were completed. In the early nine- lowcountry. The slaves knew more clothes, art, furniture, and food. One teenth century, a lowcountry slave about the business of the rice observer pointed out that their noted, “Most everybody have rice of plantation than the family that had luxuries denote “a higher degree of their own, for we all had land to plant, owned that plantation for genera- taste and love of show” than those and most everyday we done our task tions. But one of the things that found in northern states. time enough to work for ourselves.” hasn’t been written about much is Although they could afford a To supplement rice dishes, Africans how rice is central to the cultures cornucopia of grains, planters paid would add fish or wild game or use of the Gullah and of the people of thrice-daily respects to rice. In planta- leftovers from the planters’ hog killings the Rice Coast.” tion houses and summer homes, rice was such as pig’s feet, ears, heads, and entrails. Rice was also precious to the at the heart of every course of every After the Civil War, the Carolina lowcountry aristocrats who enslaved meal: soups, main dishes, side dishes, rice economy struggled and then died West Africans. Particularly before desserts, and breads. Carolina Gold rice out. The grain’s importance to high the Civil War, the swells of —the variety named for its dazzling color society faded. For the Gullah people, Charleston, Savannah, Beaufort, in fields—was famous for its however, rice has sustained its central and Georgetown revered the grain. qualities, aroma, flavor, and texture. place through generations, though it was From the 1720s to 1860, no other Monthly rations of rice, mean- either grown locally as a subsistence crop commodity was remotely as impor- while, were given to plantation slaves. or purchased from commercial growers tant to the region as rice. Indigo, But Africans had to stretch rations by elsewhere in the . Gullah cotton, forest products, and manufac- growing subsistence crops in private people, living on isolated sea islands or turing never came close to matching garden plots after their daily tasks in mainland pockets, continued to grow the riches that planters drew from slave-based rice production. Lowcountry wealth seemed exotic, even decadent, to visitors, especially American northerners. The Rice Growers of Africa Rice planters took pride in having Gambia Bissau Guinea Sierra Leone Lowcountry planters imitated many agricultural methods used along West Africa’s Rice Coast, a 700-mile region that, today, includes six nations. Planters especially sought Africans from Slaves used a “fanner” this region who already knew how to grow rice. basket, usually made of sweetgrass, to separate rice grains from the chaff.

Pounding the rice by hand to remove its husk began in late November or early December and sometimes extended into February.

LINE DRAWINGS COURTESY OF MIDDLETON PLACE Summer 20062006 •• 5 rice in their gardens and in some usually experimented with crops in plant subsistence gardens. cases in freshwater swamps until the North America only after planters As early as the 1540s, ships were 1950s and ‘60s. had already tried them out in the transporting rice to the emerging sugar Still, for most lowcountry whites West Indies. plantations of the Brazilian tropics. For and many urban blacks, rice holds no There were exceptions, however. generations afterward in Brazil, slaves special meaning now—with one At least some rice varieties were carried and escaped slaves—called maroons— exception. On New Year’s Day, South directly from Africa to the North planted rice in small-scale gardens. Carolinians enjoy a dish of rice and American colonies as food for slaves Early South American colonies, then, black-eyed peas or tiny red field peas, and were probably never intended to used rice primarily as food for captives usually cooked with bacon, called be planted for export. or as livestock fodder. “Hoppin’ John,” which is supposed to Following favorable trade winds Another century passed before rice bring good luck. Folklore says that from homeports, Europeans would was grown extensively in a North people who “eat poor New Year’s Day American British colony. By 1648, eat rich the rest of the year.” “Hoppin’ JUDITH CARNEY pamphlets and letters from Virginia John,” writes culinary historian Karen mentioned its cultivation there, though Hess, “is the signature dish of South probably not for export markets. One Carolina, black and white.” Africans grew crops that Virginia colonist pointed out that “we Hoppin’ John is a pilau dish perceive the ground and Climate (pronounced “perlow” by the Gullah), they preferred, creating a very proper for (rice cultivation) as a kind of stew. To make a Gullah pilau, parallel system of transfer our Negroes affirme, which in their you heat a broth fattened by bacon or Country is most of their food.” But of many plants to the saltpork or seafood. Once the broth is the Virginia climate was not suitable simmering, long-grained rice is Americas. for large-scale rice production. added—two parts liquid to one part of rice by volume. The pot is then RICE TRAVELS THE WORLD covered, the rice steamed until nearly pilot their ships to the West African dry and its separate grains visible and coast, where captains would buy slaves No one knows exactly when rice glistening. and provisions for the was introduced to Carolina. Two rice “You’d name the pilau after what across the Atlantic. Once loaded, ships species might have been grown in you put in it,” says Campbell. “If you would continue following trade winds, Carolina very soon after the colony’s put oysters in, that was an oyster pilau; southerly and westerly, to the New World. beginnings—the only two species put in shrimp, that was a shrimp pilau.” By 1700, when the Carolina settle- available anywhere in the world for In the case of Hoppin’ John, ment was only 30 years old, Europeans cultivation: one Asian (Oryza sativa), black-eyed peas and pork are mixed already had more than a century of and the other African (Oryza glaber- in. Its name likely comes from the slaving experience. Ship captains ex- rima). Within the two species are French Creole term for black-eyed changed information on how to keep as countless rice varieties with various peas: pois pigeons (pronounced many captives alive as possible, as characteristics. Commercial rice “pwah pee-JON”). cheaply as possible. It became common farming in North America was based First known as a dish popular knowledge among ship captains that if on Asian rice, but Carolina colonists with slaves, Hoppin’ John’s begin- kidnapped Africans from the Rice Coast originally thought that their rice was nings trace to Africa and the sugar were fed familiar foods, they would be less of African origin. islands of the Caribbean. Botanically, likely to revolt during the Atlantic crossing. In the traditional “foundation” the Carolina black-eyed pea (Vigna “Captains routinely purchased rice story of Carolina rice, a storm-damaged unguiculata) is closer to the bean than from African communities to feed human ship en route from Madagascar in 1685 the pea. The slave trade brought the cargo during the Atlantic passage,” says limped into Charleston for repairs. black-eyed pea from West Africa to Judith Carney, a geographer at the The English ship captain gave some the West Indies. By the early eigh- University of California at Los Angeles. rice seeds to a Charleston doctor, and teenth century, colonists carried it to Slave women milled the cereal by the Carolina colony’s rice industry Carolina, where slaves grew it in hand, working above deck with mortars supposedly grew from them. provision gardens. and pestles to remove the husk from the Some historians are skeptical of This is just one example of grain, which was fed to the crew and to the Madagascar story because it too hundreds of plants that arrived by slaves below deck. conveniently shows Europeans as the circuitous routes from the Old World Surplus food rice, arriving on slave exclusive agents of early Carolina rice to the 13 British colonies. Europeans ships to the New World, was used to cultivation. It might be an accurate

 • Coastal Heritage Global trade. South Carolina rice was grown for international markets, particularly for Europe. From the 1720s to the Civil War, the lowcountry economy flourished as ship after ship loaded with rice left Charleston Harbor. PHOTO/S.C. HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Summer 2006 • 7 account—no one really knows—but instance, according to the traditional some historians argue that Africans Madagascar story, white colonists were more likely to have been the first believed that the Asian rice brought CAROLINA GOLD’S to plant rice in Carolina. Africans had into Carolina was an African plant. Trail expertise growing rice, and Europeans Searching for suitable crops to did not. grow for export markets, colonists in Where was Carolina Gold rice planted For generations, Europeans were the American Deep South usually before it arrived in the New World? Was it given exclusive credit for introducing looked for agricultural successes in the brought here from rice farms in Madagas- valuable crops into the Americas. Now Mediterranean, China and Southeast car? Or was it grown in West Africa before perhaps Africans should be given more Asia, and the Caribbean. Southern arriving in Carolina on slave ships? due for their own largely hidden agri- planters would invest commercially in Answers to these questions could complete cultural exchanges from the Old World African plants only after crops had the story of the rice variety that once dominated the lowcountry economy. to the New World. been successfully grown in the West Researchers are using molecular tools “Africans grew crops that they Indies or after slaves in America had to study Carolina Gold’s genetics, looking preferred, creating a parallel system of cultivated them in garden plots. for clues to regions where it was planted transfer of many plants to the Rather than directly importing before it arrived here. Scientists know that Americas,” says Carney. “It was an African crops, “planters more often Carolina Gold is a variety from Southeast amazing form of technology transfer.” discovered them in the gardens of Asia and that it likely originated in In their small private plots, Africans their slaves,” writes Joyce E. Chaplin, Indonesia. It was later planted in various created what Carney calls “the a Harvard University historian in a locations, but its genetic trail has been botanical garden of the dispossessed.” 1993 book. difficult to trace. The first planting of rice in Southern planters, for instance, A traditional farmer would have kept Carolina was most likely a subsistence found lucrative commercial uses for some of the healthiest seeds to plant each following year. Therefore the seed from gen- crop by Africans, says Opala. In their sesame seed (known locally as benne), eration to generation changes slightly over small gardens, Africans in Carolina which had originated in Africa, after time based partly on the farmer’s selection. were growing numerous rice varieties— seeing it grown in slave gardens. When the seed is carried to another perhaps both African and Asian environment and planted there, plants species—from various sources. Some MOVING INTO THE BIG HOUSE could change in the new conditions. rice varieties were carried over on “The plants that are most robust in slave ships and intended as food for Before the Carolina colony was South Carolina might not have been most slaves, according to Carney. founded in 1670, colonists in the robust in Southeast Asia,” says Merle Slaves in the early Carolina British West Indies had already Shepard, entomologist and former resident colony probably were familiar with become enormously rich from growing director at Clemson University’s Coastal Research and Education Center. Shepard is Asian rice. By the sixteenth century, and exporting sugar. The Virginia growing a plot of Carolina Gold at the the Portuguese had brought Asian rice colony flourished by cultivating center. “You’ll find differences that occur in varieties to the Rice Coast of West tobacco and exporting it to Europe. a rice variety if it’s being taken around the Africa, where it was planted widely. The earliest Carolina colonists were world and grown in different locations. We Could Asian rice have flourished searching for similar opportunities to don’t know whether the Carolina rice we in a Carolina slave’s garden and caught grow a lucrative staple. are growing right now is the same rice that a European’s attention? Says Opala, After someone—white or black— was grown in the 1600s in South Carolina “A planter likely saw a patch of rice proved that Asian rice thrived in or the same as (what was grown) 2,000 growing in a slave’s food patch and Carolina soil, some European planters years ago in Southeast Asia.” decided to use it. That’s speculation, took it up, hoping they’d found the But scientists are searching for threads but it seems a logical way” that an commodity that would make them of evidence that trace Carolina Gold’s path from Southeast Asia to the lowcountry. Asian rice variety could have been wealthy. Asian rice soon proved to Anna McClung, a U.S. Department of introduced to Europeans, who then offer higher yields than any available Agriculture plant breeder, has examined planted the slave’s seeds in an effort African rice. The Asian rice, more- genetic markers of 1,600 different rice to produce a crop for export. over, didn’t break as easily during the varieties. Carolina Gold “markers don’t At the very least, the earliest milling process as did African occur very often in other rice (varieties),” Carolina rice industry was a creole varieties. This made Asian rice more she says. She found that it’s unique phenomenon, a blending of African valuable on the European market. genetic markers do not trace to West Africa and European knowledge. White The resulting Carolina rice or Madagascar, which means that its path planters in the Southern Colonies industry flourished almost immedi- to South Carolina remains a mystery. usually did not experiment with crops ately. By 1700, Carolina was cultivat-

brought directly from Africa. For ing more rice than there were ships in

 • Coastal Heritage SELECT SEEDS. This Carolina Gold rice seed was planted in June 2006 at Clemson University’s Coastal Research and Education Center. A 1911 hurricane destroyed the last major commercial crop of South Carolina rice, and Carolina Gold disappeared from the lowcountry for generations. But a U.S. Department of Agriculture research institute kept the seed in a special collection. Scientists want to make sure that valuable genes aren’t lost when plant varieties go out of fashion. Now farmers are growing Carolina Gold for niche markets as well. PHOTO/WADE SPEES

WINNOWER. A plantation worker winnows rice from the husk after milling in the early twentieth century. INSET PHOTO/ S.C. HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Summer 2006 •  port to carry it across the Atlantic. sought to cultivate Carolina Gold But after 1800, South Carolina Planters then moved rice fields from exclusively for future crops, he would planters increasingly faced competition upland areas to more productive try to take out Carolina White plants from growers overseas, particularly inland swamps. By 1720, rice was from his field. from British colonies in Asia. the lowcountry’s most valuable Carolina rice planters pursued a Slaves continued cultivating rice export commodity. disciplined breeding effort that lasted in their private gardens, though To expand their profits, the until the Civil War. “It was an extraor- probably not Carolina Gold. A tall cleverest Carolina planters were dinary task to get Carolina Gold seed, plant that tends to fall over and break always trying to outwit their competi- keep the seed vigorous, and make it easily, Carolina Gold is difficult to tion. The most successful growers widely planted,” says Glenn Roberts, grow. Slaves also cultivated greens, continuously invested in irrigation a rice grower and proprietor of Anson field peas, and beans, among other and cultivation technologies and land Mills in Columbia, S.C., and president crops. The combination of rice and improvements. of the Carolina Gold Foundation, a beans was crucial for slave sustenance, Rice planting in the Southern nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an inexpensive, filling Colonies was labor-intensive, and it reviving interest in the heirloom grain. complete protein. Slaveholders demanded specialized knowledge. “To have one kind of rice planted in a encouraged Africans to grow rice and Searching for a competitive edge, region is very difficult” because other beans, which were inexpensive foods planters imported West Africans from varieties or classes compete with it. that could keep slaves productive. the Rice Coast who already under- “To think that the lowcountry’s major Almost every region in the New stood the complexities of growing the export commodity became associated World that established a slave-based grain. Certain African ethnic groups with just one name—Carolina Gold— economy created a creole cuisine based were sought because they had an that’s just amazing.” on rice and beans. “Rice and beans was ancient tradition of rice cultivation. the signature dish of the African “These were learned people who were K A R E N H E S S diaspora,” says John Martin Taylor, a held in bondage, who had the food writer and historian. In her book, knowledge of rice from West Africa,” Karen Hess lists some of these dishes: says Carney. Hoppin’ John was an rice and field peas of Jamaica; Pois et Although planters built upon African dish that moved Riz Colles´ (red beans and rice) of West African knowledge, they also Haiti; and Feijoada (black beans, constantly improved familiar seed into the Big House meat, and rice) of Brazil. varieties and experimented with new and stayed there. Over time, Hoppin’ John, the seeds, selecting for special character- slave dish of South Carolina, became istics—disease and pest resistance, the state’s universal food. Barriers for example. By the 1750s, some planters began between white and black in antebel- During the eighteenth century, moving rice fields from inland swamps lum Carolina were often porous in planters experimented with rice to riverine lowlands to capture tidal matters of cuisine. Enslaved cooks varieties from West Africa, Louisiana, flows of fresh water. Slaves were used to used African cooking techniques and the West Indies, and Asia. As a result build huge flood-control structures seasoning to transform ingredients of field experiments and trial by error, along rivers, giving planters access to available to them in plantation a new high-yielding Asian variety larger, steadier supplies of water for field kitchens. The wives of slaveholders called Carolina Gold rice emerged for irrigation. Planters who had opportuni- ordered meals of European origin, but the first time at about the time of the ties to use the tidal method grew African cooks creatively made these American Revolution. fabulously wealthy. A slave could recipes their own. This mixing of Carolina Gold and Carolina harvest five or six times more rice per traditions was central to the creole White—actually two classes of one acre in a tidally irrigated rice field than character of lowcountry cuisine. The variety—were named for their in an inland swamp. tastes and smells of Africa became part different colors in the field, though The second half of the eighteenth of the slaveholders’ diet and sparked they had similar characteristics. One century (with the exception of the interest in dishes like Hoppin’ John that with a yellow husk was known as American Revolutionary War years) slaves cooked in their own homes. Carolina Gold, the most valued rice was the economic high point of South By the 1840s, the old slave dish commodity on the marketplace; its Carolina rice. Several hundred rice had found its way into the homes of pale sister was called Carolina White. planters consolidated their power, the super-wealthy elite. “Hoppin’ In any field of Carolina Gold, dominating every aspect of coastal South John,” says Hess, “was an African some Carolina White plants would Carolina, creating one of the richest dish that moved into the Big House also grow naturally. If a farmer agricultural dynasties of their era. and stayed there.”

10 • Coastal Heritage Former Rice Fields, Disappearing, Provide Water-Quality Benefits

unique habitat is disappearing on the South Carolina prises predominately submerged aquatic plants. Acoast, one of the last of its kind along the entire A second field is predominately intertidal, its plants sub- eastern seaboard. Remnant rice fields with breached dikes, merged only at high tide. And the third is an intermedi- valuable for wildlife and water quality, have been changing ate stage between those two, shallow subtidal with from open-water environments to swamp forests. In floating leaf plants. breached fields, these changes, called ecological succession, “During the day, the submerged plants are photosyn- have occurred at various rates in every river basin in thesizing and they’re releasing that oxygen into the water,” coastal South Carolina. says Tufford. “And if the tide is going out at that time, The early-stage, open-water environments provide then all of that high-oxygen water is going out into the habitat diversity for birds and fish. Only eight open-water river.” At night, the submerged-vegetation field’s “oxygen- breached fields (50 percent or more open water) remain production machine is shut down because there’s no in South Carolina—all on the Cooper River. sunlight,” and submerged plants use up more oxygen “These are special places,” says S.C. Sea Grant through biochemical respiration than they produce.” researcher B.J. Kelley, a retired biologist at The Citadel. In total, the submerged-vegetation field has a “We need to take a hard look at whether these habitats potentially positive effect on water quality, providing a should be allowed to disappear.” For generations before net source of oxygen to the river. the Civil War, landowners used slaves to clear cypress forests along the coastal rivers of the Southeast and build extensive dikes to control flooding of rice fields. Planters drained or irrigated these fields to kill weeds and encour- age rice to germinate. After the Civil War, the lowcountry rice industry faded, and landowners eventually abandoned the im- poundments. When many dikes broke, sediments depos- ited by tidewaters raised field bottoms, triggering the plant succession process. In 1985, a portion of the Cooper River flow was diverted to the Santee River, and average PHOTO/DANIEL TUFFORD, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA water levels dropped farther, encouraging more rapid growth of plants and trees. Approximately 50 percent By contrast, the two remnant fields with shallow of the open-water habitat on the Cooper River has subtidal and intertidal vegetation provide a neutral net progressed to later stages since 1985. oxygen effect to the river. “At low tide their green stems Vegetation continues to grow in remnant fields in the and leaves are always above water, and the oxygen river basins of coastal Carolina, altering their ecology and produced goes out into the air,” Tufford says. potentially their water quality. Submerged-vegetation fields, meanwhile, are Daniel Tufford, a University of South Carolina important habitat for wading birds, waterfowl, and fish. biologist, and Kelley have been studying the processes Previous Sea Grant studies showed that submerged and effects of plant communities’ change in former fields vegetation absorbs nitrogen and phosphorus. Such open- of the upper Cooper River. water rice fields that are owned by state agencies also Tufford has examined the degree to which various provide places for the public to fish and hunt. Yet these successional stages affect dissolved oxygen levels in the particular ecosystems are becoming increasingly rare. upper Cooper River. Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) For years, resource agencies and landowners have load is an important—and controversial—water-quality been discussing which management options are best for parameter applied to industries that have permitted the future of the state’s former rice fields. One question is discharges. Several industries are permitted dischargers of whether to allow ecological succession to continue or to BOD in the Cooper River, but its upper section is largely establish active management of the fields. undeveloped perhaps because of the former rice fields Preserving the early-stage fields, says Kelley, would along its banks. require deepening topography in selected fields to create The scientists chose three fields representative of open-water habitat, or building flood-control “trunks” to various stages of ecological succession. One field com- allow for increased water flow and public access.

Summer 2006 • 11 mud work. In June 2006, Don McConaughy, a volunteer, prepared a furrow for Carolina Gold rice seed in a quarter-acre demonstration plot at Middleton Place. PHOTO/WADE SPEES

RediscoveringCarolina Rice

owcountry rice plantations depended on slave labor century, however, it was far more common for Gullah families and expertise, but after the Civil War many freedmen to purchase rice from the grocery store. L looked for other opportunities. They didn’t want to Then, in the early 1980s, Richard Schulze, a Savannah go back into the malarial rice fields. The Gullah people would eye surgeon, began searching for Carolina Gold rice seed. An say, “I don’t want that mud work.” Instead, they acquired avid duck hunter, he had been cultivating various rice varieties small landholdings where they farmed, fished, or worked in on Turnbridge Plantation in Jasper County, South Carolina, as phosphate mines and timber mills for wages. food for waterfowl. Over the next half-century, rice plantations struggled Schulze contacted Charles Bollich, a plant geneticist at with labor scarcity, hurricanes, and competition from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural producers overseas and in the Old American Southwest— Research Service in Beaumont, Texas. Bollich found Carolina Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Gold seed preserved in a USDA gene bank collection. After The last sizable stand of South Carolina rice was preparing the rice seed for two years, Bollich sent 14 pounds of destroyed in a 1911 hurricane. Rice fields were abandoned Carolina Gold to Schulze, who planted 12 acres in 1986 and and returned to wildness or purchased by wealthy northern has every spring since. Now his son, Richard Shulze, Jr., owns industrialists for duck-hunting plantations. Carolina Gold the property and is considering planting 18 acres next year. and Carolina White disappeared, extirpated from the region Why did the USDA hold Carolina Gold? “Old grain where they had made the planter elite immensely rich. varieties are disappearing,” says Merle Shepard, entomologist In some communities, Gullah people continued growing and former resident director at Clemson University’s Coastal rice until the 1960s. Some people grew it in dry, upland areas, Research and Education Center. “Preserving an old grain is others in freshwater swamps. By the middle of the twentieth almost like preserving a species.”

12 • Coastal Heritage As growers and plant breeders have Now there is growing interest in selected and improved grains for certain reviving some of the older, heirloom traits, genes could have been lost in the varieties. Carolina Gold rice has made a process. To preserve genetic values, agri- small comeback as a gourmet product. cultural research institutes around the In 2002, a group of South Carolina world have kept older varieties in farmers asked Anna McClung, a USDA special collections. plant breeder, for purified samples of “You want to make sure you don’t Carolina Gold for the historical cuisine Rice lose a gene that has a value later on,” market. This was not an uncommon request AS A SURVIVING TRADITION says Shepard, who also serves as vice- for McClung. Over the last decade, she has president and acting chairman of the been selecting and purifying varieties For generations, the modern board of the Carolina Gold Rice primarily for niche markets. world has frayed the Gullah culture, Foundation. “For example, in selecting About 60 percent of U.S.-grown rice is originally forged in the isolation of and improving grains, you can lose a consumed domestically, and about 40 antebellum rice plantations. Since gene resisting against disease that can percent is sold overseas. Overseas growers, the 1950s, resort development, racial wipe out a whole crop, or a gene that particularly in Asia, are flooding the world integration, the civil-rights movement, resists insects, or a gene that imparts a with inexpensive rice, forcing many U.S. and economic opportunities have certain flavor. If you lose that old grain, farmers to search for new niche markets. transformed the coast and hastened you can’t go back again, you lose it forever.” McClung studied Carolina Gold seed Gullah’s decline. Many African words In the late nineteenth century, five from a USDA collection in Aberdeen, in the have been to 10 rice varieties—including Carolina Idaho, which includes 22,000 different plant lost. Moving to the North, searching Gold—were cultivated in the American varieties. Carolina Gold, in fact, had been for work in New York, Philadelphia, South. Plant breeders used these plants one of the very first plant varieties to be and industrial centers of the Midwest, to select characteristics for new rice placed in the Aberdeen collection. “It went or to cities in South Carolina, many varieties. Crops that emerged became the in there in 1902,” she says. “We don’t know Gullah people have lost contact with long-grain rice varieties that Americans who sent it to the collection. It was their culture. consume today. Carolina Gold, as a probably someone associated with growers, One aspect of Gullah, however, result, is one of the parents of today’s who knew Carolina Gold was important.” still thrives among many who left U.S. rice industry. Nearly all of the rice Numerous variations of Carolina Gold home. Says Emory S. Campbell, an that Americans eat is cultivated in the and Carolina White had been preserved in expert on Gullah, “When I go out and United States. Aberdeen. Plants always mutate in the field, talk to groups about various aspects of and each version of Carolina Gold is unique, the Gullah/Geechee culture and I a “variation on a single variety,” says McClung. mention rice, people raise their hands To provide a single, reliable version of and say, ‘Oh, that’s why I like rice!’ or Carolina Gold rice seed for farmers, ‘That’s why my father eats rice!’ ” McClung has used molecular fingerprint Anthropologist Joseph Opala markers in the process of characterizing and agrees. “When I lecture around the purifying it. She has eliminated Carolina U.S., I’ve always encountered black White and any other easily displaying people whose ancestors come from classes of this variety. The resulting seed, the lowcountry, and one of the stories called Carolina Gold Select, is being grown that I hear again and again is that rice by farmers in several southern states, (is central to their foodways), and this including South Carolina, and sold to has continued for generations. When upscale restaurants and gourmets interested every other element of Gullah culture is in using authentic ingredients called for in gone, rice will remain.” historical recipes. On both sides of the Atlantic “It’s a unique, beautiful crop,” says Ocean, in the rice-growing areas of Campbell Coxe, owner of Carolina Plantation Africa and in the lowcountry among Rice. He grows 20 acres of Carolina Gold many Gullah descendants, “having Select on his 200-acre farm along the Pee insufficient rice is a condition of people power. Volunteers drop Dee River in Darlington County. But Coxe misery,” Opala says. “Without rice, Carolina Gold rice seed into furrows also points out that Carolina Gold “falls the world is not right. By contrast, at Middleton Place. The plants grow down in any kind of wind, which makes it having enough rice is associated with to a height of about four feet at extremely difficult to harvest mechanically. prosperity, with the good life.” harvest time. PHOTO/WADE SPEES It’s a labor of love.”

Summer 2006 • 13 Beach Sweep/River Sweep 9th International Conference Annual Litter Cleanup on ShellfishR estoration Statewide Charleston, South Carolina September 16, 2006 November 15-19, 2006

Are you concerned about litter trashing sensitive ecosystems? This conference will provide an opportunity for govern- Then join thousands of like-minded volunteers for the 18th annual ment officials, resource managers, users, and residents to Beach Sweep/River Sweep on Saturday, September 16, 2006. discuss approaches to restore coastal shellfish ecosystems There are hundreds of locations from which to choose across through remediation and pollution abatement, habitat South Carolina. Get together with an existing group or tackle a restoration, and stock enhancement. The conference will particularly needy area that you’ve noticed. Beach Sweep/River feature a series of invited keynote and panel presentations, Sweep is a great way to show your community spirit. case studies, and contributed oral and poster presentations. The annual cleanup—organized by S.C. Sea Grant Consortium Three focused restoration science/policy issue sessions and S.C. Department of Natural Resources—is part of the will be held on Water Quality Issues in Shellfish Restoration, International Coastal Cleanup, a worldwide effort to eliminate Shellfish Restoration and Public Health, and Establishing unsightly and dangerous debris. Goals and Success Criteria for Shellfish Restoration Programs. To volunteer on the coast, contact Sue Schweikart at To participate, contact Elaine Knight via e-mail at (843) 727-2078 or [email protected]. To volunteer inland, [email protected]; voice mail (843) 727-6406; contact Bill Marshall at (803) 734-9096 or [email protected]. For a or fax (843) 727-2080. The conference Web site is list of coastal site captains, areas covered, and cleanup results and www.scseagrant.org/icsr.htm. photos from previous Sweeps, visit http://www.scseagrant.org.

ATTENTION SCHOOL TEACHERS! The S.C. Sea Grant Consortium has designed supplemental classroom resources for this and past issues of Coastal Heritage magazine. Coastal Heritage Curriculum Connection, written for both middle- and high-school students, is aligned with the South Carolina state standards for the appropriate grade levels. Includes standards-based inquiry questions to lead students through explorations of the topic discussed. Curriculum Connection is available on-line at www.scseagrant.org/education.htm.

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