"The condition of the Carolina negro slaves is in general harder and more
troublous than that of their northern brethren. On the rice plantations,
with wretched food, they are allotted more work and more tedious work; and
the treatment which they experience at the hands of the overseers and
owners is capricious and often tyrannical. In Carolina (and in no other of
the North American states) their severe handling has already caused several
uprisings among them. There is less concern here as to their moral
betterment, education, and instruction, and South Carolina appears little
inclined to initiate the praiseworthy and benevolent ordinances of its
sister states in regard to the negro. It is sufficient proof of the bad
situation in which these creatures find themselves here that they do not
multiply in the same proportions as the white inhabitants, although the
climate is more natural to them and agrees with them better. Their numbers
must be continually kept up by fresh importations; to be sure, the constant
taking up of new land requires more and more working hands, and the
pretended necessity of bringing in additional slaves is thus warranted in
part; but close investigation makes it certain that the increase of the
blacks in the northern states, where they are handled more gently, is
vastly more considerable. The gentlemen in the country have among their
negroes as the Russian nobility among the serfs, the most necessary
handicrafts-men, cobblers, tailors, carpenters, smiths, and the like, whose
work they command at the smallest possible price or for nothing almost.
There is hardly any trade or craft which has not been learned and is not
carried on by negroes, partly free, partly slave; the latter are hired out
by their owners for day's wages. Charleston swarms with blacks, mulattoes
and mestizos; their number greatly exceeds that of the whites, but they are
kept under strict order and discipline, and the police has a watchful eye
upon them. These may nowhere assemble more than 7 male negro slaves; their
dances and other assemblies must stop at 10 o'clock in the evening; without
permission of their owners none of them may sell beer or wine or brandy.
There are here many free negroes and mulattoes. They get their freedom if
by their own industry they earn enough to buy themselves off, or their
freedom is given them at the death of their masters or in other ways. Not
all of them know how to use their freedom to their own advantage; many give
themselves up to idleness and dissipation which bring them finally to
crafty deceptions and thievery. They are besides extraordinarily given to
vanity, and love to adorn themselves as much as they can and to conduct
themselves importantly."
--Johann D. Schoepf, "_Travels in the Confederation_," 1784, p. 220.