Sea Island Cotton An Introduction to its Revival

I've begun a project at the Edisto Island Open Land Trust to revive Sea Island Cotton at the Hutchinson Hoiuse.
Sea Island Cotton, a cultivar of the species Gossypium barbadense, was an economic juggernaut on the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The cultivar produced the longest and softest fibers of any cotton species. The garments woven from this crop were highly prized throughout Europe. This plant grew best in the sandy soils and temperate climates of the Sea Islands of South Carolina. Producing Sea Island Cotton was an immensely labor intensive process. The cash crop yielded staggering profits for producers at the expense of the slaves they owned. Slavery ended with the Civil War and spelled the beginning of the end for Sea Island Cotton. Cotton is a fickle plant and, without cheap slave labor, the reduced profits and associated risks were less enticing to farmers than the alternatives. Despite hardships, Sea Island Cotton survived the War between the States but met its end in the belly of a beetle. The Boll Weevil made its way to the South Carolina sea islands in 1920 and, with its arrival, Sea Island Cotton disappeared forever. A once proud and prized produce reduced to mere memories, or so we thought.
In 2005, botanist Dr. Richard Porcher and historian Sarah Fick published “The Story of Sea Island Cotton.” An ecological, architectural, and historical memoir for the long lost plant. In 2011, Bob Sherman secured some seeds from the USDA that were a hybrid between Sea Island Cotton and an unknown cultivar. He grew the plants at Middleton Plantation on the Ashley River with the help of Dr. Porcher. An article was published in the local paper showcasing the project. Charleston lawyer Bill McLean happened to read that article. Intrigued, he looked into the subject and read Porcher and Fick’s book. He couldn’t believe a crop this significant was truly extinct. So he started digging.
McLean discovered a long since forgotten batch of seeds in a USDA seed vault in Texas labelled “Bleak Hall Cotton.” He requested seeds from the USDA and, surprisingly, received 25 seeds in the mail. He planted them on a friend’s property on Edisto Island in South Carolina, not more than a mile and a half from Bleak Hall Plantation itself. The ruins of the plantation visible from the plot over the marshes of Ocella Creek. The same Bleak Hall where this lineage of Sea Island Cotton was developed. The seeds germinated. They grew. They grew taller than a man. They flowered. They bore fruit. A white, fluffy fruit. A fruit called a boll. A fruit with long locks of ivory staples. The bolls were sent to lab and the cultivar was confirmed. Sea Island Cotton had survived.
Working with the Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission and Dr. Richard Porcher, Bill McLean helped cultivate Sea Island Cotton in 2017 at McLeod Plantation on James Island. From that crop, I was given some 200 seeds.
My name is Tom Austin. I’m a descendent of some pivotal cotton planters, including James King of Little Britain Island and Kinsey Burden, Sr. of Saint John’s Island. My great great great great grandfather and double great great great great great grandfather, respectively. I’m the Land Protection Specialist for the Edisto Island Open Land Trust and a biologist by trade. Although I’m no agriculturalist, I hope I can help revive this long lost cultivar that fell from grace nearly a century before. Our land is not the same as it once was, something I am acutely aware of in my line of work. Plantations scarred the land, the ecosystem, the people, the culture, and the country. Sea Island Cotton will never return to this land on the scale it once had and as far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. However, my roots are on this island we call Edisto and Sea Island Cotton is my family tree. It’s what brought my ancestors to this island, to this nation. It is every bit a part of me as their blood in my veins. It is their legacy, as am I. A living memorial of past life, my forgotten sibling.
Join me on my adventure to grow Sea Island Cotton on Edisto Island. I’m planting on the Edisto Island Open Land Trust’s Hutchinson House property. Where stands the home built by the freed slave Henry Hutchinson after the Civil War. The land where he grew crops to feed his family and Sea Island Cotton to sell to Britain. His home still stands and our organization is restoring it to some of its former glory, for future generations to enjoy. We hope to plant Sea Island Cotton on the property as part of demonstrational gardens for an interpretive park. This year is only a trail run. I’m planting a small experimental plot to gather initial data on the cultivar. I hope to learn a lot along the and my goal is for you to do the same.