Ninety-five Wilmington residents complain about transient traders who arrive during the winter and spring months and whose chief capital "is invested in spiritous liquors, & that the trade is almost exclusively confined to the black population." The petitioners remark that the effects of said trade are "truly alarming" since it "opens a wide field for the commission of the most nefarious acts and jeopardizes the best interests of our Town." They further charge that "these persons use the foulest stratagems to intice our slaves from his duty, & that they have, on many occasions, inveigled them from their owners, & conveyed them into the Northern States, from whence they are irrecoverable." Noting that "our youth may be insnared" as well, the petitioners ask that consideration be given on imposing "a Tax on all transient persons engaged in the vending of Goods, wares, & Merchandize, similar to that exacted by our sister States--South Carolina & Georgia."
Result: Rejected.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
