South Carolina Gold Rice Cultivation, A Woman's Experience

From findagrave.com

Elizabeth Allston Pringle was a Southern belle at the time of the American Civil War and the daughter of the Governor of South Carolina. When the Civil War ended, leaving her family impoverished, she and her mother opened a school. Motivated by sentiment, Elizabeth bought the plantation she grew up in, White House, and the plantation, Chicora Wood, where she lived as a married woman until her husband's untimely death. Both plantations still exist in Georgetown County, South Carolina, an area known as the Lowcountry. It was in hopes of paying the plantation mortgages that in the early years of the 20th century, she decided to re-cultivate old rice fields that had long since succumbed to the encroaching wild. She was a farmer, a foreman, and an entrepreneur at a time in history when women did not hold such positions.

We might have forgotten Elizabeth Allston Pringle if her journal hadn't been serialized in the New York Sun. This was another way Elizabeth made money to pay the mortgages on her beloved properties. The Sun journal was later published in a book called A Woman Rice Planter. The 1992 edition, published by the University of South Carolina press, is illustrated by famed artist Alice R. Huger Smith (whose paintings are in Charleston's Gibbes Museum of Art) and has an introduction written by South Carolina historian and writer Charles Joyner.

Reading A Woman Rice Planter, you may find the humor in some stories involving black characters to be condescending. I believe the Jim Crow era in which it was written had an unfortunate but partial influence on the author's outlook. However, if you read it thoroughly, I believe you'll also see Elizabeth's respect for blacks rising through this surface attitude. I get a sense that she felt they were all in this together, enjoying the bounty of the Lowcountry and enduring the caprice of its climate with faith and cheerfulness. I read A Woman Rice Planter as research while writing The Bad Death, an antebellum vampire novel set on a Lowcountry rice plantation. Two things stay with me from repeated readings.

Rice Barn at Chicora Wood

One is its detailed description of old rice-growing practices. Second is Elizabeth's love for the beautiful world around her. She was an excellent writer. Her descriptions shine through, transcending ink and paper and time. Here's an entry from June 1, 1903:

"The evening is beautiful; the sun, just sinking in a hazy, mellow light, is a fiery dark red, the air is fresh from the sea, only three miles to the east, the rice-field banks are gay with flowers, white and blue violets, blackberry blossoms, wistaria, and the lovely blue jessamine, which is as sweet as an orange blossom. Near the bridge two negro women are fishing with great strings of fish beside them. The streams are full of Virginia perch, bream, and trout; you have only to drop your line in with a wriggling worm at the end, and keep silent, and you have fine sport. Then the men set their canes securely in the bank just before dark and leave then, and almost invariably find a fish ready for breakfast in the morning. There is a saying that one cannot starve in this country and it is true."

Elizabeth's accounts of her workers' labor, their hunting and fishing, socializing, and storytelling helped me give life to The Bad Death's Gullah heroine, Anika, and her friends and neighbors. The Bad Death's antagonist, Julian Mouret, relies on his working partnership with his mother, Elisabeth. She shares her son's respect for the Lowcountry's wild strength. I'd be lying if I said Elizabeth Allston Pringle didn't partly inspire me when writing Elisabeth Mouret. Elizabeth Pringle was strong, independent, spiritual, and wise. So is Elisabeth Mouret. Anika finds in Miss Elisabeth a formidable foe and improbable ally. Miss Elisabeth is one of my favorite characters in The Bad Death. And Elizabeth Allston Pringle is one of my favorite characters in US history.

Racial Accuracy in Literature and Genre Fiction

The Bad Death is my historic paranormal novel with interracial romance. The protagonist is Anika, a slave woman. She's attracted to her master's brother, Julian. She becomes attracted to Marcus, an enslaved man who is a slave driver. A modern woman's spirit takes refuge in Anika's body and influences her mind. In adventure stories the hero prevails through gumption and daring. But how does The Bad Death align with historic reality? As Americans attend and react to 12 Years a Slave, a a new film based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, it seems a good time to examine the treatment of slavery in genre fiction and literature, particularly as it relates to autobiographies written by slaves.

Consider the critically acclaimed novel, Kindred by Octavia Butler. The heroine, Dana, is a modern African-American. She is repeatedly pulled through time to the antebellum south in order to protect the white boy destined to father the Caucasian side of her family. There (and then) Dana's treated as a slave. Kindred is a good book. I'm glad I read it. I can't say I enjoyed it. Why not? It's grueling. She's victimized relentlessly. She and her fellow slaves endure terrible conditions. The antebellum interracial liaisons are exploitative and cruel. Kindred isn't an adventure story. It is a historically accurate novel in the literary tradition.

Because the slave woman was chattel, she had no power to resist her master's advances. Even relationships based on affection and mutual attraction exploited her. Also, the environment of slavery varied from benign to brutal. Two autobiographies from that period recount the harshest conditions explicitly: The History of Mary Prince and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Mary Prince and Linda Brent worked on West Indies' plantations in conditions that injured and sickened them. When this affected their productivity, they were beaten and whipped till they couldn't stand and then made to somehow continue working. They were hounded sexually by their masters. They were unable to live healthy married lives to the free black men who courted them. Both women learned to read and write. Both escaped and became outspoken abolitionists. Both autobiographies are in The Classic Slave Narratives, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Slaves on South Carolina Lowcountry rice plantations worked under better conditions, as described in Charles Joyner's history Down by the Riverside: a South Carolina Slave Community. Anika's story is set in a South Carolina slave community like that documented by Joyner.

I wanted to write a paranormal historical with sexy romance and a crossbow-wielding adventuress. I could have written The Bad Death more realistically, but then it would be a book in a different genre. Due to the novel's setting, even the most benevolent white characters have racist viewpoints. I hope readers understand that these views belong to the characters – not to me. And I hope readers are moved to explore libraries and bookstores. There's great literature out there and inspiring nonfiction accounts of history's real heroes and heroines.

Winner Announced in Goodreads Giveaway

Martin Turner won an autographed print copy of The Bad Death. When I host a Goodreads Giveaway, I note with interest the geographical distance between entrants and my sandy little place on the Redneck Riviera. Today, I'm almost ridiculously psyched to send my novel to the quaintly named area of Bexhill on Sea in England.

If you're not Martin Turner, don't despair. You can buy an autographed e-book of The Bad Death (and my other books, too) from Authorgraph, for no more $ than you'd pay Amazon for the non-autographed copy. You're welcome ;-)

Win an Autographed Print Edition of The Bad Death

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Bad Death

by Naima Haviland

Giveaway ends September 05, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win