Indigo significantly impacted the world in the start of production of indigo in the America's by Eliza Lucas Pickney, who started the trade of indigo through the slave trade route.
Indigo significantly impacted the world in the start of production of indigo in the America's by Eliza Lucas Pinckney, who started the trade of indigo through the slave trade route. Eliza Lucas Pinckney was the daughter of a British military officer, who received a package of seeds to attempt to grow it in the South Carolina to see if growth would be as abundant as in India, beginning in 1739.
"She is credited with introducing a crop more profitable than rice, which, because it had properties to repel mosquitoes carrying malaria and yellow fever that caused the deaths of slaves--then two thirds of the Carolinas-- had inestimably higher returns"(McKinley 3-4). |
The growth was a success, and indigo then became the second biggest cash crop, right behind rice. It even became a form of currency as dye squares in America. Production was booming, until the Revolutionary War, when production of indigo ceased due to a need for food over a need for dyes. After the Revolutionary War, there was less of a need for indigo. Therefore rice overtook the economy in America, and production of indigo plantations slowly began to decrease due to a loss of need from other traders.
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