From King Rice to King Cotton: Aristocrats beaten by Yeomen

During the latter part of the Roman Republic latifundiae[1] replaced the small farmer. The American Civil War created the opposite situation. Large plantations gave way to small tenant farms. This conversion was due to the decline of rice in the American South, and the rise of cotton. Rice in the antebellum South had been the number one crop.[2] After the Civil War, rice production dropped dramatically, the decline was 73% for South Carolina, and 58% for Georgia.[3] This decline was mainly related to the abolition of slavery in the immediate aftereffects of the war; though, the Northern policy of total war did not help these numbers in the early years.

The sources used here focus on Georgia, although there is information from Louisiana and South Carolina as well. Prior to the Civil War, South Carolina was the preeminent southern state. The rice culture was extremely similar in coastal places e.g. Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. Louisiana’s information is used to describe a major reason for the change in the production of rice in both Georgia and South Carolina.

Rice cultivation was extremely labor intensive. The conditions were extremely hot, and these areas are already prone to gnats (as anyone who has traveled to this area of the U.S. can vouch.) This was also exacerbated by the fact that rice crops needed marshy conditions. It also required massive amounts of land to work properly. Small farmers could not compete economically with larger farms prior to the Civil War. This was due to the slave labor that was employed on a massive scale. The ancient Roman latifundiae had knocked out the small farmer in the same manner. The end of slavery changed all of this. Emancipated slaves stayed in farm labor, but they went to work on easier crops such as cotton or oats.[4] Profit margins shrank due to the payment of workers, and eventually required higher pay to entice workers back to rice cultivation. This ate into profits, and Latzko argued, “The newly freed slaves, owning little non-movable property, had less reason than whites to remain where economic prospects were meager and greater incentive to move where such opportunities were more ample.”[5] Now these men had choice, and this would prove a crippling blow to the rice economy of the south. The production of rice increased 13% in Georgia from 1870 to 1880 to over 25,000,000 pounds; however, by 1890 this production dropped to 945,000 pounds a 96% decrease.[6] In a ten year span rice fell from the number one crop, and became only the sixth biggest agricultural product in Georgia.[7] The production of rice from the low country and coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina shifted to Louisiana. There were several reasons for this: increased productions costs in the south; cheaper land in the south-west; technological improvements in Louisiana; finally, a new type of rice. According to Clifton, rice production increased ten to twenty-fold per man due the creation of pumps to drain water off the rice crop.[8] Another important development was the use of Japanese Kiushu rice, which improved rice yields a further 25%.[9] The growth of rice went from 15,854,012 pounds in 1869 to 75,645,433 in 1889 Louisiana, by 1899 they had 70% of the nation’s rice production.[10]

The shift was a net positive for the Georgia economy specifically. The value of farms increased from $75,647,574 in 1870 to $111,910,540 in 1880, and by 1890 farms were worth $152,006,230.[11] Despite the drop in their principal crop, rice over 90%, over the twenty-year period the value of farms doubled. The cash crops of tobacco almost quadrupled and cotton nearly tripled.[12] During the same time period the average farm sized decreased by more than half. In 1870 Georgia the average farm was 338 acres, by 1890 that number fell to 147.3 acres.[13] The small farmer was able to become more competitive than the massive plantation. In part, this was due to their ability to farm themselves, and their requirement of less money to run the operation. Additionally, they could pivot to crops that made more money, and had lower switching costs. The bigger farms had become economically unwieldy. The aristocratic plantation owners had been “run out of town” by the small yeomen farmer.

[1] Plantation/corporate slave farms

[2] Rice production in pounds in 1859 South Carolina 119,100,528. Georgia production was 52,507,652. Clifton, James M. “Twilight Comes to the Rice Kingdom: Postbellum Rice Culture on the South Atlantic Coast.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 62, no. 2 (1978): 146. Accessed April 1, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40580467.

[3] South Carolina dropped to 32,304,825 pounds. Georgia production fell to 22,227,380 pounds.

Ibid.,146.

[4] Production of these crops doubled and tripled respectively. Christopher Meyers. Eds. The Empire State of the South. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008), 205.

[5] David A. Latzko. “Mapping The Short-Run Impact Of The Civil War And Emancipation On The South Carolina Economy.” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 116, no. 4 (2015): 276. Accessed April 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44289835.

[6] Christopher Meyers. Eds. The Empire State of the South. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008), 205.

[7] Corn, oats, cotton, wheat, tobacco, and rice in order of production.

Ibid.

[8] James M. Clifton. “Twilight Comes to the Rice Kingdom: Postbellum Rice Culture on the South Atlantic Coast.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 62, no. 2 (1978): 151. Accessed April 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40580467.

[9] Ibid., 152.

[10] Ibid., 150–151.

[11] Christopher Meyers. Eds. The Empire State of the South. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008), 205.

[12] Tobacco went from 288,596 pounds to 960,000 pounds. Cotton increased from 473,934 pounds to 1,191,846 from 1870–1890

Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

Bibliography

Clifton, James. “Twilight Comes to the Rice Kingdom: Postbellum Rice Culture on the South Atlantic Coast.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 62, no. 2 (1978): 146–154. Accessed April 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40580467.

Latzko, David. “Mapping The Short-Run Impact Of The Civil War And Emancipation On The South Carolina Economy.” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 116, no. 4 (2015): 258–279. Accessed April 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44289835.

Meyers, Christopher. Eds. The Empire State of the South. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008.

Ring, Natalie. “The White Plague of Cotton.” In The Problem South: Region, Empire, and the New Liberal State, 1880–1930, 95–134. University of Georgia Press, 2012. Accessed April 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n820.8.