Nineteen Buncombe County residents express concern about the increasing number of free blacks in their midst. They realize that they "need not bring to the view of your honorable body all the many evils and inconveniences arising from an undue portion of this idle & marauding description of persons" and "that they are immoral idle & dissolute are facts of notoriety whenever they are numerous." The petitioners further argue that free people of color "infuse corruption and a spirit of insubordination into the slaves." Having "had enough of this unfortunate & troublesome portion of our species to feel them a public nuisance," they therefore pray that an additional tax be imposed "on all free persons of Colour now resident in the state, & on such as may subsequently emmigrate and settle amongst us a capitation tax of fifty dollars per annum."
Result: Senate: rejected by committee of finance.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
