Secessionist

Lowcountry Aristocrat.

Robert Barnwell Rhett was born Robert Barnwell Smith on 21 December 1800 in Beaufort, South Carolina, part of a small but significantly distinctive economic and social region of the South. Unlike the rest of the Lower South, which cultivated a hardy short-staple cotton, tidewater South Carolina offered conditions favorable to long-staple cotton, which commanded higher and more stable prices. Nearby was the rice-growing district, which similarly provided the economic base for a particularly aristocratic planter culture. Although Smith's family connections were distinguished, his own branch did not prosper, and with his brothers he changed his surname in 1837 to honor an illustrious ancestor, William Rhett. Shortly beforehand, he had established the foundation for his own wealth through the careful purchase of a plantation. By the 1850s he personified the ideal of the South Carolina planter, with almost two hundred slaves on two plantations, a...