Terry H. answered • 05/23/19
Coach for national Geography Bee finalist
The hot swamps of coastal South Carolina and Coastal Georgia, which represented the majority of Georgia's population up to the late 1790s, were ideal for rice production. Not only was rice production labor intensive, but dangerous. Aside from the dangers of alligators, snakes, and disease carrying mosquitoes, a cut on a rock in the swamp could result in a deadly infection. As a result, rice cultivation was carried out almost entirely by slaves, mostly from West African areas where they had grown rice as free people. In fact, many planters relied entirely on African expertise for help in setting up rice farms, a more complicated process than many realize.
Slave life was wretched, but being allowed to work with little supervision and to cultivate their own gardens and grow livestock to sell meant that slaves on rice plantations might be less likely to escape. The work was treacherous, but slaves on rice farms often finished their required work long before their counterparts on other farms, giving them a chance to farm for themselves. Furthermore, rice farms were usually plantations with many slaves, so that entire families could live on them. Since the principal reason for slave escapes was to rejoin with family, those with intact families were less likely to escape.
There are many factors that play into the answer to your question, but, ultimately, rice farms were relegated to slaves, meaning that ongoing labor costs were very minimal, especially if slave families could feed themselves. This meant high profits and therefore, a pretty attractive business to get into. The wealthiest plantation owner in Georgia turns out to be the absentee rice planter who continued living in Massachusetts.
The change to cotton occurred because of how profitable its production became after the invention of the cotton gin. By the early 1800s cotton production throughout the states dwarfed that of rice.
