vers conspiracies, outrages, barbarities, murders, burglaries, thefts, and other notorious crimes and enormities, at sundry times, and especially of late, have been perpetrated and committed by Indians and other slaves within several of her majesty's plantations in America, being of a surly and revengeful spirit, rude and insolent in their behavior, and very ungovernable, the over great number and increase whereof within this province is likely to prove of pernicious and fatal consequences to her majesty's subjects and interest here unless speedily remedied, and is a discouragement to the importation of white Christian servants, this province being differently circumstanced from the plantations in the islands, and having great numbers of the Indian natives of the country within and about them, and at this time under the sorrowful effects of their rebellion and hostilities;" in consideration of all which, the further import of Indian slaves is totally prohibited, under pain of forfeiture to the crown.
Cotemporaneously with these prohibitory acts of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the first extant slave law of South Carolina was enacted, June, 1712, the basis of the existing slave code of that state. "Whereas," says the preamble of this remarkable statute, "the plantations and estates of this province can not be well and sufficiently managed and brought into use without the labor and service of negro and other slaves; and forasmuch as the said negroes and other slaves brought unto the people of this province for that purpose are of barbarous, wild, savage natures, and such as renders them wholly unqualified to be governed by the laws, customs, and practices of this province; but that it is absolutely necessary that such other constitutions, laws, and orders should in this province be made and enacted for the good regulation and ordering of them as may restrain the disorders, rapine, and inhumanity to which they are naturally prone and inclined, and may also tend to the safety and security of the people of this province and their estates," it is therefore enacted that "all negroes, mulattoes, mestizoes, or Indians, which at any time heretofore have been sold, and now are held or taken to be, or hereafter shall be bought or sold for slaves, are hereby declared slaves; and they and their children are hereby made and declared slaves to all intents and purposes, excepting all such negroes, mulattoes, mestizoes, and Indians which heretofore have been or hereafter shall be, for some particular merit, made and declared free, either by the governor and council of this province, pursuant to any act of this province, or by their respective masters and owners, and also excepting all such as can prove that they ought not to be sold for slaves."
Every person finding a slave abroad without a pass was to arrest him if possible, and punish him on the spot by "moderate chastisement," under a penalty of twenty shillings for neglecting it. All negro houses were to be searched once a fortnight for arms and stolen goods. A slave guilty of petty larceny, for the first offense was to be "publicly and severely whipped;" for tne second offense was to have "one of his ears cut off," or be "branded in the forehead with a hot iron, that the mark thereof may remain; "for the third offense was to "have his nose slit;" for the fourth offense was "to suffer death, or other punishment," at the discretion of the court. Any justice of the peace, on
