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Slave
Badges and the Slave-Hire System in Charleston, South
Carolina, 1783-1865
Harlan
Greene, Harry S. Hutchins, Jr., with Brian E. Hutchins
The slave-hire system of Charleston, South Carolina,
in the 1700s and the 1800s produced a curious object
the slave badge. The badges were intended to legislate
the practice of hiring a slave from one master to another,
and slaves were required by law to wear them. Slave
badges have become quite collectible and have excited
both scholarly and popular interest in recent years.
This
work documents how the slave-hire system in Charleston
came about, how it worked, who was in charge of it,
and who enforced the laws regarding slave badges. Numerous
badge makers are identified and photographs of badges,
with commentary on what the data stamped on them mean,
are included. The authors located income and expense
statements for Charleston from 1783 to 1865, and deduced
how many slaves were hired out in the city every year
from 1800 on. The work also discusses forgeries of slave
badges, now quite
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