One hundred eleven "sundry mechanics of the City of Charleston" complain that they are suffering from a lack of trade and unemployment due to the unfair competition from "Negro and Colored Workmen." They suggest that the 1822 statute outlawing slave self-hire be amended “as to make it completely effective of its purpose.” They lament "that almost all the Trades, but especially those of Carpenters, Bricklayers, Plasterers, Wheelwrights, House-painters, Shoe-makers, &c are beginning to be engrossed by Black & Colored workmen; that they are multiplying in a prodigious ratio; and, that Charleston, already swarming with a population of Free blacks, and of Slaves, more Licentious than if they were Free, must in a very short time be in the condition of a West Indian Town, which it will be impossible to defend without a Regular Military Force." They therefore pray "for such relief in the premises, as to your Honorable Body it may seem most expedient to grant them." The petitioners also request permission to form “themselves into an Association by the style of ‘the Charleston Mechanics’ Association’.”
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
