[Footnote 31: David Ramsay, _History of South Carolina_ (Charleston, 1808),
II, 448-9.]
The exports mounted swiftly, but the world's market readily absorbed them
at rising prices until 1801 when the short-staple output was about forty
million pounds and the price at the ports about forty-four cents a pound.
A trade in slaves promptly arose to meet the eager demand for labor; and
migrants coming from the northward and the rice coast brought additional
slaves in their train. General Wade Hampton was the first conspicuous one
of these. With the masterful resolution which always characterized him, he
carried his great gang from the seaboard to the neighborhood of Columbia
and there in 1799 raised six hundred of the relatively light weight bales
of that day on as many acres.[32] His crop was reckoned to have a value of
some ninety thousand dollars.[33]
[Footnote 32: Seabrook, pp. 16, 17.]
[Footnote 33: Note made by L. C Draper from the Louisville, Ga., _Gazette_,
Draper MSS., series VV, vol. XVI, p. 84, Wisconsin Historical Society.]
The general run of the upland cultivators, however, continued as always to
operate on a minor scale; and the high cost of transportation caused them
generally to continue producing miscellaneous goods to meet their domestic
needs.
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