Rice Cultivation on the Ogeechee River

Rice production on Bryan Neck relied on upstream fresh water and the tidal influences of the Ogeechee River. Heavy wooden trunks, or tidegates, along levees and embankments in the rice fields controlled the inflow and outflow of fresh water in an elaborate irrigation and hydraulic system during the summer growing season. A network of canals gave large forces of enslaved workers access to tend the fields. This activity reached its peak in 1860, when 1.6 million pounds of rice was shipped from Bryan Neck plantations along the river. After the Civil War, the labor supply was no longer readily available, and with a series of destructive hurricanes in the 1880s, rice cultivation on the Ogeechee ended by 1900.

Richmond Hill, Georgia · United States