The Indigo Girl: A Novel

In 1739, sixteen-year-old Eliza Lucas is left in charge of her family's three plantations in rural South Carolina while her father pursues military ambitions elsewhere, draining the estates financially. With rising tensions between the British and Spanish, restless slaves, and her mother's desire to return to England, the family faces losing everything. Eliza believes indigo dye—highly valued by the French—could save them. Despite widespread resistance and refusal to share the production secret, she persists. Her unlikely allies include an aging horticulturalist, a married lawyer, and a slave with whom she makes a dangerous bargain: he teaches her the thousand-year-old process of making indigo dye, and she agrees to teach enslaved people to read, defying the laws of the time. Based on historical documents including Eliza's letters, this novel follows how her indigo production became one of South Carolina's largest exports, establishing wealth for prominent Southern families. When Eliza died in 1793, President George Washington served as a pallbearer at her funeral. Set between 1739 and 1744, the story weaves together romance, intrigue, forbidden friendships, and political and financial threats surrounding a young woman whose accomplishments were largely overlooked by historians.