AN OLD INDUSTRY. 653 



Large importations of indigo soon came to England from the 

 East Indies, which lowered the price, and the palmy days of 

 indigo for South Carolina were gone forever. 



As its value declined, other crops took its place. Rice super- 

 seded indigo in the coast districts. In North Carolina, where 

 indigo had been extensively raised also, tohacco became the prin- 

 cipal export, and was used as a medium of exchange, as indigo 

 had formerly been. But the climax of decline was reached in 

 1794, when a certain Yankee schoolmaster of Georgia, named Eli 

 Whitney, brought to perfection the saw gin, which relieved the 

 necessity of tedious manual operations in the cleaning of cotton. 

 The value of cotton and of negro labor to cultivate it became 

 suddenly very great. So the reign of indigo passed away ; cotton 

 became king, and a new industrial era dawned, leading to tre- 

 mendous historical consequences in the State and nation. 



But although indigo was no longer a staple or article of ex- 

 portj yet during the early part of the nineteenth century it was 

 still produced in small amounts for domestic use. In his Random 

 Recollections of a Long Life, published in 1876, Mr. Edwin J. 

 Scott tells us of the process as he saw it carried on in his boy- 

 hood. The plants were immersed in water and the coloring mat- 

 ter extracted. This was allowed to sink by its own weight to the 

 bottom of the vat, when the water was drawn off and the sedi- 

 ment left to harden. He continues : " When broken, the cleavage 

 in good indigo was smooth, and showed a copper-colored tinge. 

 The recipe of a traditional old lady of South Carolina for judging 

 of the quality of indigo is said to have been as follows : ' Take 

 a clean new cedar or cypress piggin ; fill it three thirds full with 

 clean spring water ; put into it a lump of indigo as big as an Qgg 

 and if good it will sink or swim, I have forgotten which ! ' " 



But simple as the process sounds in the descriptions of Mr. 

 Scott, the indigo industry was one which involved much risk, 

 and required great skill and untiring attention day and night. 

 Through the whole of the " making season " a periodical change 

 of hands was kept up, except in the case of the "indigo-maker," 

 who, we are told, " could no more leave his post than the captain 

 of a ship on a lee shore.'' 



In his Reminiscences of St. Stephen's Parish,* Mr. Du Bose 

 says : " I have often heard it said that during the manufacturing 

 season Mr. Peter Sinkler [Mr. Du Bose's grandfather, who was 

 an indigo-maker of high reputation] would be three weeks with- 

 out seeing his wife, though he slept at home every night. He 

 would come home late, when she was asleep, and return to his 

 professional labors before she awoke in the morning." 



* Du Bose's Keminiscences of St. Stephen's Parish, printed in 1852. 



