The Indigo Girl

Content Warning: This section includes depictions of the dehumanizing and violent treatment of enslaved individuals that reflect the historical realities of the colonial period and the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved people. Additionally, this section replicates the source material’s use of derogatory and offensive terms only in direct quotes.

Eliza Lucas reflects on the impact that indigo has had on her life, acknowledging that it has allowed her family to take part in the formation of a new nation. She is grateful to those who have helped her along the way, and she is also thankful for her father, who saw fit to leave her in charge of his plantations when she was only 16. In a letter to her former guardian, Mrs. Bodicott, Eliza relates how much she likes South Carolina, as it is in the “English taste.”

Eliza is awakened by the sound of the enslaved workers on her father’s plantation singing while they harvest the crops. After washing, she meets with her father, who tells her that he has been summoned back to Antigua, their former home and plantation, because war is brewing between the English and the Spanish. Hearing this, Eliza believes that she may reunite with her childhood friend, an enslaved boy named