![]() ![]() ![]() Ultimately this meant that a “black majority” came to serve the economic interests of a white minority, not only as field hands in the rice paddies but also as carpenters, butchers, boatmen, gunsmiths, hunters, fishermen, silk culturists, household servants, stevedores, producers of naval stores, and a host of other occupations. At first slaves engaged in mixed farming and cattle raising, but by 1695 with the introduction of rice, perhaps by the slaves themselves, increasing numbers of blacks flowed into the colony to plant and harvest this crop. The first black slaves came to South Carolina from Barbados in 1670 with the initial wave of white settlers. For comparative purposes, for what it shows about Spanish influence on slave revolts in this English colony, and for what it reveals about demographic trends, disease, and language patterns, this is a valuable work. This excellent study of slavery in early colonial South Carolina should be of more than just passing interest for historians of colonial Hispanic America. ![]()
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