Family biography
THE ALLSTONS OF CHICORA WOOD: Wealth, Honor, and Gentility in the South Carolina Lowcountry. By William Kauffman Scarborough. Louisiana State University Press. 183 pages. $35.
In the past four decades, a number of books have examined the rice planter culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry, and each author has addressed the practices of Robert F.W. Allston, who owned 650 slaves and seven plantations in the Georgetown District.
William Dusinberre, for example, presents a harsh depiction of him in his 1996 work "Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps."
William Kauffman Scarborough's new work on Allston and his family draws heavily on extensive contemporary accounts from both intimate and extended family members, as well as business and political associates. Allston emerges as a keen businessman and agriculturalist, astute political figure and family patriarch firmly grounded in his Episcopal faith.
Like many of his contemporaries, he suffered no moral conflict in building wealth by using enslaved labor. Yet unlike many of his fellow planters, he operated his plantations by frequently providing incentives and rewards for work performed, medical care and religious education.
Allston and his wife, Adele (Petigru) produced five children. He served nearly three decades in the South Carolina Legislature and as governor from 1856 to 1858.
But the political crisis of the 1860s and unfortunate business decisions left the family near bankruptcy at the time of his death in 1864.
Despite this, Adele and daughter Elizabeth (Pringle) were able to save Chicora Wood Plantation, which continued to produce rice until the turn of the 20th century.
The plantation house, built in the Greek Revival style, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
With Robert Allston at the center of the book, "The Allstons of Chicora Wood" excels as a family biography, a history of Lowcountry rice production and an account of the political turmoil of early to mid-19th-century South Carolina. It is quite simply a must-have for every local historian.
