Life Story: Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)

Eliza Lucas was born in 1722 in the British colony of Antigua. She was the daughter of the Lieutenant Governor of the island George Lucas and his wife Ann. She had two younger brothers, Thomas and George, and a sister named Mary. Eliza grew up on a sugarcane plantation, where enslaved people were forced to work in life-threatening circumstances to enrich her family. 

As the wealthy daughter of a colonial official, Eliza received an excellent education. She showed early promise, so her parents took the unusual step of sending her to boarding school in England when she was only ten years old. Many elite colonial families sent their daughters to England to complete their training as gentlewomen, but they usually waited until they were teenagers. Eliza thrived at her boarding school. In addition to excelling in all of the traditional subjects wealthy girls were expected to master, she developed a special interest in botany, the study of plants.

Eliza’s family moved to Charleston, South Carolina in 1738 to escape political unrest in Antigua. They settled on Wappoo Plantation, seventeen miles from Charleston. Eliza’s mother passed away right after their move. At only sixteen years old Eliza was expected to become the leading woman of the household. Only a year later, due to political tensions between England and Spain, her father was called back to Antigua, leaving Eliza in charge of running not only the family but their three plantations. She personally oversaw Wappoo Plantation, including the twenty enslaved people there. She also managed the overseers of her family’s two other plantations in the area. 

Eliza soon identified an economic opportunity. Most plantations in the area grew Carolina Gold Rice to sell overseas, but Eliza’s interest in botany inspired her to try to diversify the crops her plantations grew to increase profits. Eliza experimented with seeds her father sent from Antigua, trying to find new cash crops that could be grown in South Carolina’s unique environment.  She successfully cultivated a fig tree orchard when she was nineteen, hoping to sell its fruits overseas. She also planted oak trees, knowing that their lumber would be valuable for the growing shipbuilding industry. Eliza was devoted to her work. Her father proposed two possible marriages to Eliza, but she turned both down. Most families left their plantations for Charleston in the summers to escape heat, but Eliza chose to stay to monitor her crops and manage the enslaved plantation workers.

During the hot summer months, she would visit with the neighboring plantation owners who had also chosen to stay. Elizabeth Lamb Pinckney and her husband Charles were about two decades older than Eliza and were friends and guardians to her while her father was away. Charles was skeptical of Eliza’s ambitions. He told her she would be better off focusing her attention on activities suitable for wealthy young women. But Eliza was undeterred. She was certain that her efforts would lead to success. 

Eliza was determined to figure out how to grow the indigo plant in South Carolina. Indigo was used to create a blue dye that fetched high prices in international trade. When Eliza began her experiments in 1739, indigo could only be grown in East Asia. The British government was eager to figure out a way to grow indigo in North America so that they did not need to rely on trade with other European nations to obtain it. Many plantation owners feared indigo would not grow in South Carolina because the climate was so different from its native habitat. But Eliza kept trying, and after years of trial and error she found success. By 1744 she had produced enough indigo to begin refining it into dyes. The process of growing and refining the indigo was costly and labor-intensive, but Eliza knew that it would make a profit. When he learned about her success, Eliza’s father sent a business manager to help her sell the dye to English merchants. Eliza invested her profits into expanding her indigo production, and other plantation owners in the area took notice. By the outbreak of the American Revolution, indigo accounted for one third of total exports from the South Carolina colony. 

Elizabeth Lamb Pinckney died in January 1744, and Charles proposed to Eliza soon after. The timing was fortunate. Eliza’s father had recently decided to move his family back to Antigua. The marriage would allow Eliza to stay in South Carolina and continue to develop her plantations and businesses there. Eliza was twenty-four years younger than Charles, but they built a happy life together. From 1746 to 1750 Eliza gave birth to four children, three of whom survived to adulthood. Her son Charles Cotesworth signed the Declaration of Independence, and her son Thomas served in Congress.  

Charles died of malaria in 1758. Eliza was left with three young children, but she was wealthy enough that she did not need to remarry. Instead, she focused on managing her family’s plantations and continuing her botany experiments.  

Toward the end of her life Eliza was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her family brought her to Philadelphia for medical care, but she died there in 1793 at the age of seventy-one. Eliza was buried in St. Peter’s Churchyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. George Washington was a pallbearer at her funeral, an honor he personally requested. 

Eliza was the first woman inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame in 1989, in recognition of her contributions to agriculture and the economic development of the state. In 2008 she was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.

• botany: The scientific study of plants.
• indigo: A type of plant in the bean family that was one of the original sources of indigo dye.
• merchant: A person whose business is buying and selling goods.
• pallbearer: A person who helps carry a coffin at a funeral.
• sugarcane: A tall grass from which sugar is harvested.

• Pair this life story with Life Story: Madame Montour to consider how women used their social and familial connections to build successful businesses.
• Contrast the successes of Eliza Lucas Pinckney with Life Story: McLennan’s Enslaved Woman. What privileges did Eliza Lucas Pinckney have that McLennan’s Enslaved Woman did not? How would someone like McLennan’s Enslaved Woman have served to ensure Eliza Lucas Pinckney’s success?
• For a lesson about groundbreaking women of science in the North American colonies, combine this life story with Life Story: Susanna Wright, Life Story: Maria Sibylla Merian, Patent for Cleaning and Curing Corn, and Indigenous Agricultural Innovation.
• To learn about the contributions of enslaved Black women to the development of the South Carolina colony, see Mortar and Pestle for Pounding Rice.

WORK, LABOR, AND ECONOMY