Elizabeth Pinckney

Elizabeth Pinckney (born c. Dec. 28, 1722, Antigua—died May 26, 1793, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) was a British-American plantation manager known for the first successful cultivation of indigo in the United States, an accomplishment that subsequently helped to sustain the Carolina economy for 30 years.

When her father, George Lucas, was called to military duty in Antigua in the West Indies in 1739, Eliza Lucas remained to manage his three plantations in South Carolina. After three years of experimentation with ginger, cotton, indigo, and alfalfa, she succeeded in marketing the first crop of indigo. Parliament then subsidized the plant, and by 1754 South Carolina was exporting more than 1,000,000 pounds (454,000 kg) of the crop annually.

In 1744 she married Charles Pinckney, Carolina’s first native lawyer, and on his Charleston plantation she revived the cultivation of silkworms and manufacture of silk. When her husband died in 1758, Eliza again became a plantation manager, guiding her family’s extensive landholdings. Her sons Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Thomas Pinckney became diplomats for the young United States. Both were vice presidential candidates of the Federalist Party (Thomas in 1796, Charles in 1800), and Charles was also the party’s presidential candidate in 1804.