She Put the Blue in Blue Jeans!

“Autumn is a place where words fall short. It is a magic that must be felt, breathed, experienced, and treasured.” Laura Jaworski

Hoping you all are enjoying the beautiful fall that is upon us, breathing it, experiencing it and hopefully treasuring it! 

I discovered a really interesting woman that I had not heard of and wanted to share her with you. She is the woman responsible for the Blue in Blue Jeans! 

Eliza Lucas was born on December 28th, 1722, in Antigua, in the colony of the British Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. Born “Elizabeth” she was the eldest child of Lieutenant Colonel George Local and Ann Lucas. She had two brothers and a younger sister. She spent her youth on one of her family’s three sugarcane plantations. 

Eliza’s parents sent her to boarding school in England during a time when most parents believed that a girl’s future was to be a wife and mother, deeming more than a rudimentary education unnecessary. However, her parents and teachers recognized Eliza’s keen intelligence and ability. She really loved learning, and she avidly studied French, music and botany. Her favorite was botany. In a letter home to her father, she said that her “education, which (she) esteems a more valuable fortune than any (he) could have given (her) … Will make me happy in my future life.”

When Eliza was sixteen, her family moved from Antigua to South Carolina as the Colonel had inherited three plantations there from his father, her grandfather, John Lucas. There were three tracts of land; Garden Hill on the Cambahee River comprising 1,500 acres, 3,000 acres on the Waccamaw River, and 600 acres on Wappoo Creek, a tidal creek that connected the Asgket and the Stone Rivers. The family settled on the Wappoo property, which was conveniently located only seventeen miles from Charleston by land and six miles on the river. 

Because after only a year in South Carolina, the Colonel was called to return to his post in Antigua to help ease political conflicts and tension between England and Spain that were ever increasing. They appointed the Colonel as the lieutenant governor of the island. Because of England’s involvement in the War of the Austrian Succession, he could not move back to his family in the states. Because her mother had died shortly after they moved to South Carolina, Eliza acted as head of household and managed all the plantations at a mere sixteen years old. She supervised twenty slaves and their overseers and the two other local plantations, one producing tar and timber and the other rice. Not only that, but she was caring for her very young sister. Her two brothers were still at school in London. She kept excellent records and kept all things functioning well. While separated, Eliza and her father corresponded regularly regarding business and family matters. The Colonel sent Eliza many types of seeds for her to try on the plantations. First, she experimented with ginger, cotton, alfalfa and hemp. They were eager to expand the variety of their crops. In 1939, she started experimenting with various strains of the indigo plant. There was an increasing demand in the textile markets for the dye the plant could produce. 

For three years, Eliza persisted and experienced many setbacks with the indigo plants, but finally she could demonstrate that she could grow and process it successfully in South Carolina. In 1744, she saved seed from her crop and shared it with other local planters, and that led to an expansion of her indigo production. Soon, planters could make a profit in a very competitive market. Because of Eliza’s successes, the volume of indigo dye exposed increased from 5,000 pounds in 1745-46, to 130,000 pounds by 1948. She had done it!  

By 1748, indigo was second only to rice as the South Carolina colony’s cash crop and was responsible for the wealth its planters enjoyed. Before the Revolutionary War, indigo was more that one third of the value of exports from the Americas. 

Eliza knew industry and independence from a very young age and it carried over the years into her personal life. Her father presented her with two suitors, both of which she rejected, unheard of during the 18th century! Her choice was Charles Pinckney, who was a planter on a nearby plantation. Mr. Pinckney had studied law in England and had become a politically active leader in the colony. He was South Carolina’s first native-born attorney, and served as advocate general of the Court of Vice-Admiralty, justice of the peace for Berkeley County, and attorney general. He became a member of the Commons House of Assembly and served as Speaker of that body intermittently, from 1736 to 1740. Additionally, he joined the Royal Provincial Council. 

He and his first wife had been very close to Eliza. When Charles’ wife passed away after a long illness, Eliza attended her in the last months, he and Eliza formed an even closer relationship. They wed on May 25, 1744. She was twenty-one years old and once again took family responsibilities seriously. She vowed: “to make a good wife to my dear Husband in all its several branches; to make all my actions Correspond with that sincere love and Duty I bear him… I am resolved to be a good mother to my children, to pray for them, to set them good examples, to give them good advice, to be careful both of their souls and bodies, to watch over their tender minds.”  

Eliza gave birth to three sons, Charles, Thomas, and George, then a daughter, Harriott. The youngest boy, George, named after her father, died shortly after birth. Eliza experimented with progressive early childhood education, subscribing to the tabula rasa theories of John Locke, where a person’s mind at birth is thought to be like a blank slate upon which personal experiences create an impression.

In 1753, the family moved to London, where they stayed for five years. Shortly after their return to South Carolina, Charles contracted malaria and died. Eliza managed their extensive plantations and all the Lucas holdings. Eliza was a rarity during this time as a very educated, independent and accomplished woman. When they lived in Charleston, she planted oaks and magnolias at their mansion overlooking the by and corresponded regularly with major British botanists. With the help of her daughter, Harriott, she also raised silkworms and produced silk. 

In 1793, President George Washington served as a pallbearer at Eliza’s funeral.

In 1989, Eliza Lucas Pinckney was the first woman to be inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame.  

The South Carolina Hall of Fame inducted Eliza Lucas Pinckney in 2008.