USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The cash crops of the southern colonies included cotton, tobacco, rice, and indigo (a plant that was used to create blue dye). In Virginia and Maryland, the main cash crop was tobacco. In South Carolina and Georgia, the main cash crops were indigo and rice.

Detailed explanation-2: -Rice became the first major export crop from South Carolina. Prior to the Civil War, half of all the rice produced in America came from Georgetown County. However, after the Civil War most rice plantations either lay in ruins or were sold for taxes by their impoverished owners.

Detailed explanation-3: -For 50 years, starting in the late 1740s, indigo was a major South Carolina cash crop, second only to rice. At one time, the extracted pigment, dried and shaped into circular cakes, was so prized that it was sometimes called blue gold, and used as currency-even as barter for slaves.

Detailed explanation-4: -Indigo was grown in early South Carolina to produce blue dye that was exported to England for use in the British textile industry.

Detailed explanation-5: -Broilers, or chicken raised for meat, make up 40.2% of the state’s agricultural cash receipts.