90 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and Enslavementfor rice, and in 1648, Virginia governor William Berke-
ley grew 15 bushels of the grain. From Virginia, colonists
may have brought rice to South Carolina. Alternatively, it
may have reached South Carolina by ship sometime before- Colonists struggled with the crop until they imported
a variety from Madagascar, an island to the east of Africa,
sometime between 1685 and 1696. Th is variety had a more
recent Asian origin than the varieties grown in West Af-
rica. Once in South Carolina, this variety hybridized, either
naturally or by human aid, with other rice plants to produce
a type of rice suitable for cultivation in the colony.
From the outset Africans were the prime movers of
rice culture. Th e growth in their number paralleled the in-
crease in rice production. By 1708, blacks edged out whites
in South Carolina 4,100 to 3,500. By 1720, the planters of
South Carolina were importing 600 slaves per year and by
1725, 1,000. By 1730, blacks outnumbered whites two to
one. Between 1771 and 1775, slave owners imported nearly
20,000 Africans. Coincident with this growth, rice exports
from South Carolina rose from 10,000 pounds in 1698 to
394,000 in 1700 to 81,476,325 in 1773. Th e planters inter-
twined labor and production by seeking slaves who knew
how to grow rice. As early as 1700, ships from South Caro-
lina rounded up Africans from Gambia, an area where they
had grown rice for centuries. In the 18th century, 43 per-
cent of slaves imported into South Carolina had lived in the
rice-growing regions of West Africa or Madagascar.
Th ese Africans brought to the New World the meth-
ods for cultivating rice. Because rice is a semiaquatic plant,
much of its cultivation centers on the amassing and trans-
porting of water to the fi elds upon which rice is sown. Rice is
a variable plant, and although some varieties may be grown
on land that receives periodic rain but is otherwise not
saturated, most varieties must be grown on land inundated
with water. Th is requirement necessitates the cultivation of
rice on soil impervious to the percolation of water through
it. Clay or a loam with clay subsoil is best. Once he had cho-
sen suitable land, the farmer relied until roughly 1720 on
rainfall to supply water, a practice that produced low yields.
In this system the farmer broadcast seed on dry land and
hoped for enough rain to nourish his crop. As they had for
centuries, the African workers sought to augment rain with
whatever freshwater (rice will not grow in saline soils) was
close at hand. By situating farmland below the elevation of
a pond or swamp and by digging trenches along the banks
of these pools, laborers enabled gravity to bring water to a
made possible through an education in Córdoba. Th e bot-
anist Ibn al-Baitar and his groundbreaking pharmaceuti-
cal works was also a product of Muslim Spain.
Th e fi eld of architecture within Spain during the
Reconquista period was greatly infl uenced by Muslim
thought. Grand enduring works were constructed through-
out occupied Spain. Th e Great Mosque of Córdoba, an im-
pressive example of Islamic architecture, was erected in the
late eighth century and still stands as a Christian church. In
Granada the massive Alhambra was built to house the Mus-
lim rulers in the 14th century. It too still stands today, as
a popular tourist attraction. Certain signature elements of
“Moorish” architecture, such as intersecting and multifoil
arches, remain part of the Spanish tradition today.
Muslim occupation and the resulting population
surge transformed whole areas of Spain from rural into
high-population urban centers. Th is brought many diff er-
ent merchants and industries into Spain, including high-
demand manufacturing such as paper making and textile
production, which created a complex trading network with
the rest of Europe. When all of these considerations are fac-
tored in, the term “Reconquista” takes on a much broader
meaning; one that encompasses not just the centuries-long
warfare between Muslims and Christians and the struggle
for the possession of land and the hearts of the people, but
one that also means a period of great change and growth in
the civilization of Western Europe.
See also: John, Prester
Michael CokerBibliography
Elliott, John Huxtable. Imperial Spain 1469 – 171 6. London: Pen-
guin, 2002.
Fletcher, Richard. Moorish Spain. Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1993.
O’Callaghan, Joseph F. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1975.
Pierson, Peter. Th e History of Spain. London: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Watt, Montgomery W. A History of Islamic Spain. Edinburgh, UK:
Edinburgh University Press, 1965.
Rice Cultivation
A pamphlet of 1609 is the earliest evidence that farmers
thought of introducing rice into North America. Th e pam-
phlet suggested Virginia rather than the Carolinas as ideal