Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

whites, whereas Negro slaves outnumbered whites in South Carolina by a
good margin.
South Carolina cultivation, taking place in swampland, was also much
unhealthier than the tobacco growing of the upper South. The plantation
owners, more fortunate than their slaves, could escape the malarial climate and
did so, choosing to live in mansions in Charleston rather than on their estates.
This contrasted to the decentralized plantation life of the great Virginia landlords.
Another and more important reason for the intensive growth of
Charleston was the shallowness of the rivers, which prevented ships from
going directly to the plantation wharves as in the upper South. Hence, a central
port became economically necessary.
Rice and indigo cultivation became economic only through the large-scale
use of slaves; but indigo needed an additional subsidy to become profitable.
Great Britain in 1748 granted a bounty of six pence for each pound of indigo
exported to England.
There were slave plots and insurrections in many American colonies, but
the especial brutality toward and the high concentration of slaves made
South Carolina the focal point for slave rebellion. As early as 1702, the South
Carolina Assembly reprimanded the constables of Charleston for negligence in
controlling the slaves, reprimanded a William Harvey of the city for allowing
"cabals of Negroes at his house," and listened to the saga of a Negro slave
who had threatened his master with a general slave revolt in the colony. In
the spring of 1711, the South Carolinians were terrified by an uprising of several
armed Negroes. Led by a slave named Sebastian, they plundered the plantations
of their oppressors. Presumably, the fear came not from the few
marauders but from the apprehension that they might light the spark of a
general slave revolution in the colony. Governor Robert Gibbes lamented to
the Assembly: "How insolent and mischievous the Negroes are become," and
recommended some exemplary form of punishment as well as a possible
improvement in the slaves' subsistence standard. In 1713, a slave plot in the
Goose Creek section was betrayed and stamped out, the Assembly rewarding
the Negro informer with a gift of five pounds sterling.
A plan for a massive slave revolt, goaded by an economic depression, was
uncovered in 1720, and a considerable number of Negroes were arrested,
burned, hanged, or banished. A report to the king the following year declared
in horror that the "black slaves . . . have lately attempted and were very near
succeeding in a new revolution which would probably have been attended by
the utter extirpation of all Your Majesty's subjects in this province. . . ."
In 1729, a severe epidemic of influenza decimated the ranks of the South
Carolina Negroes. Perhaps goaded by this extra burden, the slaves planned
another massive revolt the following year. But the Negroes differed over tactics—some
urging each group of slaves to destroy its own master, others
urging a united uprising against all the masters. In the meanwhile, the plans
were uncovered and the leader placed in irons.
98