West African Enslaved People Introduce Rice Cultivation to South Carolina

Enslaved people from the rice-growing regions of West Africa — particularly present-day Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal — brought their knowledge of rice cultivation to the South Carolina lowcountry in the 1690s. Planters specifically sought enslaved people from 'the Rice Coast' for their agricultural expertise. This knowledge transfer, extracted under conditions of slavery, transformed South Carolina into one of the most profitable plantation colonies in North America, making a small white elite enormously wealthy while condemning enslaved Africans and their descendants to brutal labor in disease-ridden rice paddies.