Fenwick Indigo Vats

Front: On this site are the rare surviving remnants of four 18th century indigo vats. Indigo is a blue dye derived from several varieties of the Indigofera plant genus. Commercially viable in S.C. starting in the 1740s, it was one of the colony’s most valuable cash crops along with rice. It was produced on Lowcountry plantations, usually by large groups of enslaved people who seeded, harvested, and processed the plants into dye. Reverse: The vats at this site were part of Fenwick Plantation and likely built during the ownership (1747-1775) of Edward Fenwick. They include two steeper vats used to ferment and agitate plants, as well as two battery vats where the resulting liquid was beaten, treated with lime, and drained to leave a mud that could be shaped into bricks and dried. Indigo production in S.C. largely ended after the American Revolution.