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slaveryThread Two: South Carolina and slavery
Similar to New Jersey, South Carolina was part of Restoration Colonies. Those colonies had owners or proprietors who could organize their colonies as they pleased. For that reason, Quakers in West Jersey could implement their ideas freely. Since each Restoration Colony reflected the interests of its owners, each colony was very different from each other, deepening our diversity as a nation. The owners of South Carolina had one goal in mind: profits.
Following the example of Virginia (Jamestown), the owners of South Carolina focused their attention on producing cash crops that could be exported. To accomplish this goal, the first step was establishing Charlestown (1680) as trading port. After trying with Tobacco, proprietor opted for Rice as a more profitable cash crops. As rice plantations expanded, also did slavery. Seduced by the promise of profits, South Carolina become a slave society.
Rice plantations and slave rebellions
Source: African Americans Hoe Rice on a South Carolina Plantation. early 20th century. online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17443&itemid=WEHRC&iid=46868. MCC access point: https://ezproxy.middlesexcc.edu/login?url=https://online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17443&itemid=WEHRC&iid=46868 Links to an external site.
Differently that Tobacco, Rice grows on wetlands. Slaves were tasked with clearing swap and prepare the soil for sowing. Then, slaves were tasked with planting rice seed on the clear swaps. After taking care of the plants, slaves harvest the rice and separate the rice from hulls using larger mortars. The technique was used until the twentieth century by the Gullah community in South Carolina, as you can see on the following picture:
Because the whole process took place on wetlands, slavery in South Carolina was more brutal than other southern colonies. Being on swaps all and every day, slaves were exposed to mosquito related deceases such as Malaria as well as other water related illness. Mortality rates on South Carolina plantations was so high that the colony always depended on importation of new slaves to replace the dying ones. Slave population in South Carolina did not experience natural growth (more birth than death) in 1760.
Under those conditions, South Carolina most likely experienced slave rebellions on its history. One of the most important ones was the Stono Rebellion (1739). Driven by Spanish promise of freedom if they reach Florida and convert to Catholicism, a group of 60 to 100 broke free and begun a march toward Florida. On the way there, those slaves killed several plantations owners and other white colonist. Before reaching Florida, most slaves were either capture or killed. Their bodies were left on public display, so other slaves would not attempt a rebellion.
Source: Sutherland, C. (2018, September 18) Stono Rebellion (1739). Retrieved from https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/stono-rebellion-1739/
In the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina legislature enacted the Negro Act of 1740 or Slave Act 1740.
Document Analysis: Excerpts Slave Act of 1740
Source: O’Neall, John Belton (ed.) The Negro Law of South Carolina, (John G. Bowan Publisher, Columbia SC.) 1848.
Available at Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/negrolawsouthca00goog/page/n4/mode/2up Links to an external site.
Section 1. “Declares all negroes and Indians, (free Indians in amity with this Government, negroes, mulattoes and mestizoes, who now are free, excepted) to be slaves: the offspring to follow the condition of the mother”
Section 2. “Under this provision it has been uniformly held, that color is prima facie evidence, that the party bearing the color of a negro. Hard mulatto or mestizo, is a slave…”
Section 5: “If a slave be out of the house or plantation, where such slave resides, or without some white person in company, and should refuse to submit to, and undergo the examination of any white person, it is lawful for such white person to pursue, apprehend, and moderately correct such slave, and if such slave shall assault and strike such white person, such slave may be lawfully killed.”
Section 16: “any slave, free negro, mulatto, Indian, or mestizo, who shall willfully and maliciously, burn or destroy any stack of rice, corn, or other grain, of the produce, growth, or manufacture of this State, or shall willfully and maliciously set fire to, burn or destroy any tar kiln, barrels of pitch, tar, turpentine or rosin, or any other goods or commodities, the growth, produce or manufacture of this State, or shall feloniously steal, take, or carry away any slave, being the property of another, with intent to carry such slave out of the State or shall willfully and maliciously poison, or administer any poison to any person, freeman, woman, servant, or slave, shall suffer death”
Section 30: “prohibits any slave residing in Charleston from buying, selling, dealing, trafficking, bartering, exchanging or using commerce for any goods, wares. provisions, grain, victuals of any sort or kind whatsoever”
Section 40: “prohibits them [slaves] from wearing any thing finer, other or of greater value than negro cloth duffils, kereeys, osnaburgs, blue linen, check linen, or coarse garlia, or calicoes, checked cottons or Scotch plaids ; and.declares all garments of finer or other kind, to be liable to seizure by any constable as forfeited.”
Section 43: “be unlawful for more than 7 male slaves in company, without some white person accompanying them, to travel together any of the public roads, and on doing so, makes it lawful for any white person to take them up and punish them by whipping, not exceeding 20 stripes”
Question
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Based on the 1740 Slave Act, demonstrate the following argument: “In the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina aimed at establishing absolute control over African Americans” (at least four paragraphs)
Epilogue.
Shaped by production and exportation of cash crops- first rice and later cotton- by slave labor, South Carolina become one of the wealthiest colony and later State in the Union. The best example are plantations houses, many of which are still standing as a testimony of how profitable slavery was.
Source: Bayless, Charles (photographer),Dirleton Plantation, Georgetown County, South Carolina. 1977. Available at Wikipedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org Links to an external site./wiki/File:Dirleton_Plantation,_Road_S-22-52_vicinity,_Georgetown_vicinity_(Georgetown_County,_South_Carolina).jpg
If you are interested on seeing other examples of how profitable slavery was, please visit the following page: https://south-carolina-plantations.com/
Slavery is always an experience of contrasts. Near the opulence of plantations owners, we see the living conditions of those who did the work. Here is an image of Cabins where slaves lived:
Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Negro Cabins On A Rice Plantation.”The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1874. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-40a5-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Given those conditions, it should not be surprised that South Carolina was the first state rebelling against the United States when Abraham Lincoln become president (1860). As the South Carolina Secession Convention stated “the slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.” [1] South Carolina could not conceived a future without slavery, hence they created the Confederation. All states that joined the Confederation shared the same feeling, killed and died to defend slavery.
Questions Thread Two
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Based on content from thread, explain how South Carolina become a slave society (one paragraph)
Endnotes
[1] South Carolina secession convention. “‘Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.’” Primary Source Documents: 1850 to 1874, Facts On File, 2014. History Research Center, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17443&itemid=WEHRC&articleId=364204. MC Library Access Point: https://ezproxy.middlesexcc.edu/login?url=https://online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=17443&itemid=WEHRC&primarySourceId=4994
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