Based on the life of the real Eliza Lucas Pinckney, The Indigo Girl (#701) by Natasha Boyd is an engrossing read. At sixteen, Eliza is entrusted with the running of three estates in South Carolina when her father's military ambitions call him back to Antigua, leaving his wife and two daughters behind.
Eliza struggles to make the plantations profitable in the early eighteenth century with rice and timber. Her interest in botany leads her to experiment with other potential cash crops. She learns that the French are making a fortune selling indigo dye, grown on their Caribbean plantations; the climate around Charles Town seems similar. Could the crop succeed here?
How she eventually succeeds in profitably growing indigo, surmounting seemingly impossible obstacles with the support of some influential friends and supporters, make for a page turning read interspersed with excerpts from Eliza's own letters.
I found this book particularly interesting because we onw property in the area where indigo was grown in South Carolina. It was so important to the colony's economy, that South Carolina's state flag is indigo blue in acknowledgement, an interesting fact that Ms. Boyd notes at the end of the book. If you are interested in learning about a strong and influential Early American woman who today is little known outside the Charleston, South Carolina area, this book is just the ticket. Highly recommended.
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