Seventy-one white working men in Columbia seek legislation that prohibits slave owners from allowing skilled slaves to hire their own time. They suggest several "inconveniences & injuries arising from the aforesaid practice": that when slaves hire their time from their owners "to contract to do a job for any person, there is no remedy for his failing to do it"; a skilled slave, due to his "greater cheapness in his living ... is able to work cheaper & still make his wages than it is possible for white Journeymen to do & maintain their families"; and the wages of skilled slaves "in most cases" are "spent in the indulgence of vicious habits." The petitioners also request that "your Honourable Body see the necessity of prohibiting by Law such negro mechanics from taking apprentices to learn their respective Trades."
Result: Referred to judiciary committee.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
