Explain the impact of rice cultivation on South Carolina.

In the earliest days of the Carolina colony (South
Carolina split off from North Carolina in 1712), rice was the engine of the colonial
economy.  Rice also helped to make the colony into a slave
society.

Rice became the most important export crop for
Carolina (mostly in the part that would become South Carolina) in the late 1600s.  Rice
was a food that had been cultivated in Africa for a long time.  As rice became important
to Carolina's economy, more and more slaves were brought over.  Slaves who knew how to
grow rice were particularly prized.  The owners of the rice plantations became the
elites of the colony.

Rice, then, caused South Carolina to
become a plantation society with planter elites on the top and slaves at the very bottom
of the social hierarchy.