Eight white master stevedores object to a bill before the legislature proposed by the "Committee on Collored Population" that would grant licenses and badges to slaves to act as stevedores. They submit that such a law would not only deprive whites of work, but it would also put southern slaves in direct contact with "any emisary the North may think propper to send amongst us." In addition, allowing slaves to act as stevedores would contravene laws prohibiting the assemblage of slaves since "on board ships they Can Collect from 40 to 60 at any time without any White Person among them." Noting that they have invested upwards of forty thousand dollars in the business on which they have to pay taxes, the petitioners ask the legislature to "place us on equality with Our fellow Citizens the Mechanics, and not to Class us with Slaves."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
