Joshua John Ward, of Georgetown County, South Carolina, is known as the American who was the largest slaveholder at the time of his death in 1853,[1] dubbed "the king of the rice planters".
[3] Ward married Joanna Douglas Hasell in South Carolina on March 14, 1825.
[3] Born into the planter class, Ward was taught the skills and knowledge to take on such responsibilities as an adult.
During his life, Ward inherited Brookgreen Plantation and acquired several others, using the land for rice production, the major commodity crop in antebellum South Carolina.
Ward became politically active in the Democratic Party, which plantation owners dominated in the antebellum years.