South Carolina Rice Mortar

The swampy environment of the South Carolina low country made it unsuitable for traditional English agricultural methods. In response, British colonists turned to non-traditional rice cultivation, combining the rice-growing knowledge of enslaved West Africans, with their own experimental agricultural techniques. Harvesting rice in the swampland was a laborious process, and required special tools. Mortars, such as this one, were used with a pestle in the milling process of rice, to remove the husk and chaff from the grain.