The Rice That Built Carolina... Then Got Erased

One of the most important crops in history ended up being treated like it didn’t matter.

Oryza glaberrima was domesticated in West Africa around 3,000 years ago, likely in the inland delta of the Upper Niger River in what is now Mali.¹ It’s tougher than the Asian rice most people know. More drought-tolerant.² Better at handling poor soils, local pests, and diseases like rice blast and African rice gall midge.³ It smothers weeds through profuse vegetative growth.⁴

But when European colonists in Carolina tried growing rice in the 1600s and early 1700s, they had no idea how to cultivate a complex tropical crop in tidal swamps.⁵ So slave traders did something specific: they deliberately targeted regions of West Africa where people knew how to grow rice.⁶