The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F. W. Allston

Book excerpt: The reissue of The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F.W. Allston makes available for a new generation of readers a firsthand look at one of South Carolinas most influential antebellum dynasties and the institutions of slavery and plantation agriculture upon which it was built. Often cited by historians, Robert F.W. Allstons letters, speeches, receipts, and ledger entries chronicle both the heyday of the rice industry and its precipitate crash during the Civil War. As Daniel C. Littlefield underscores in his introduction to the new edition, these papers are significant not only because of Allstons position at the apex of planter society but also because his views represented those of the rice planter elite.