Rice is King

Rice is King. . , Rice was introduced to the area as early as 1690, but did not become a major crop until after the Revolutionary War. Local planters made large fortune cultivating rice - Carolina Gold - in the area's low-lying river estuaries. This crop required a large labor force which meant more African slaves were imported. The slave population was about 85% of the total population of the County throughout the 1800's. Though spared much of the ravages of the War Between the States, the social, political and economic upheaval that followed caused the rice culture to ultimately collapse. Without slave labor to cultivate the rice crop, most of the plantations were doomed. A series of severe hurricanes in the late 1900's delivered a final, devastating blow which ended the rice culture of Georgetown.