Slavery and Revolution

Home , Henry Laurens, John Laurens

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………….1

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….3

Chapter 1: Henry Laurens’s Involvement in Slavery…………………………………..8

Chapter 2: Henry Laurens’s Attitudes toward Slavery and the Slave Trade in South

Carolina……………………………………………………………………19

Chapter 3: Henry Laurens’s Changing Views toward Slavery..………………………33

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..43

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………...46

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to thank Dr. John Sensbach for being my advisor. He was one of the first history professors I had when I transferred to the University of Florida, and his class about religion in colonial America sparked my interest in American history again. He encouraged me to frame the project the way I wanted, yet never hesitated to remind me to be realistic about my ambitions for this project. I also would like to thank Dr. Andrea Sterk for helping me to choose an advisor and for facilitating the Honors Seminar, which helped me to gain a better understanding of the technicalities that go into thesis writing and research. Thank you, Jonathan

Scholl for being there to answer my questions and for giving great advice about research. I also want to thank Dr. David Geggus—who probably knows more about the slave trade and slavery than humanly possible—for his writing and grammar advice, which helped me to communicate my thoughts in a more concise manner. Research librarian Shelly Arlen was also a great help to me in the beginning of my research, as she introduced me to the wonders of online and digital resources available through the University of Florida’s database. I thank her as well.

I am also very grateful to the Phillips family for creating a scholarship in memory of their daughter Bridget Phillips, which I received through the University of Florida’s history department in spring of 2013. The scholarship helped me fund my research trip to Charleston,

South Carolina in September of that same year. Next, I would like to thank the South Carolina

Historical Society for working hard to preserve American history for public use so that students like me can use just a piece of it to build a project. The librarians assisted me in my research and it was a great experience overall. I also want to show my gratitude to Smathers Library Special

Collections, which houses several volumes of Henry Laurens’s published papers. I easily

continued my research in Gainesville. I cannot forget how special the library’s U-Borrow Service was for me, as well. Thanks to you all who make this service work so wonderfully.

To my fellow honors students, it was great to get to know many of you through this process. I am so glad that I found people my age to talk to about history with and to befriend.

Good luck to you all on your endeavors.

Above all, I am eternally grateful to my family for all that they have done for me. My mother has instilled in me values of hard-work, persistence, and resilience that were foundational to my success in everything I have accomplished so far. She is a woman of faith and has supported me from the beginning. I love her and I am thankful to her no matter what. I also want to thank my sisters Kaydene and Trevina for their love and support, particularly through this thesis project. Thank you for listening to me ramble on and on about Henry Laurens and his plantations. Thank you for that extra help that made my trip to Charleston a success. I love you both.

INTRODUCTION

Among the portraits and statues of prominent historical figures that adorn the interior of the South Carolina Historical Society, more than one has the likeness of a man often neglected in

American history. Born on March 6, 1724 in Charleston, South Carolina to a Huguenot family,

Henry Laurens achieved a high level of recognition during the American colonial and revolutionary period before his death on December 8, 1792. He is best known for being a partner in the largest slave trading company—Austin and Laurens—in North America.1 He owned a grand total of seven plantations and about three-hundred slaves in both South Carolina and

Georgia and was one of the wealthiest men on the continent.2

After he married Eleanor Ball in 1750 and garnered success as merchant during this time,

Henry Laurens quickly pursued other interests. He served in the militia during the French Indian

War and eventually became actively involved in politics. First, in 1757, he became a representative for South Carolina in the Commons House of the Assembly, where he served for almost twenty years. Later, he became a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1777, and ultimately served as second President of the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1778. During the last eighteen years of his life, Laurens became heavily involved in the American revolutionary movement. Most of his contributions to the movement involved negotiations with foreign powers including the French and most notably the Dutch. In 1780, on his way to negotiate with the

Dutch for aid in the American Revolutionary war, Henry Laurens was captured at sea by the

British, accused of treason, and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was eventually released

1 Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, Slavery and Justice: Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice (Providence: Brown University, 2006), 14. 2 Leila Sellers, Charleston Business on the Eve of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), 61.

in 1782, in exchange for British General Lord Cornwallis. The harsh treatment Laurens endured during his captivity elevated him to a symbol of bravery for the cause of American independence.

Some historians credited Laurens for abandoning the slave trade for humanitarian reasons,3 and have stated that he abandoned it in order to soothe his conscience. Although

Laurens no longer advertised, bought, and sold slaves, he did not opt out of slavery entirely. He still owned and put slaves to work on his plantations in Georgia and South Carolina after he formally left the slave trade. Others who have written about Laurens often use a specific quote from an August 14, 1776 letter he wrote to his son, John Laurens. In this letter, he confessed that he abhorred slavery and pitied the Africans who were stolen and sold into slavery in the British

West Indies where “tenfold worse slavery” awaited them.4 This quote was made popular by a short anti-slavery publication in 1861 by the Zenger Club based in New York. The publication’s intention was to demonstrate evidence against “the Southern theory that the same antagonism that now prevails between the North and South on the subject of Slavery, existed at the time of the American Revolution.”5 What the author of the pamphlet and other historians have not explored is how Laurens arrived at this conclusion and what factors influenced his statement.

Anti-slavery sentiment was not common among the planters and merchants of South

Carolina. The colony was filled with merchants and slave owners who felt little to no remorse for their engagement in the slave trade and did not question their practices. In fact, as technology for rice cultivation improved, more planters were reluctant to let go of the African descendants

3 Ibid. 4 Zenger Club, “Henry Laurens to John Laurens, August 14th, 1776”, A South Carolina Protest Against Slavery (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1861), 20. 5 Zenger Club, A South Carolina Protest, 5.

they enslaved, even if it involved planters relinquishing more responsibilities to their slaves.6 It was a peculiar time in American history because slavery, an Old World institution, incongruently co-existed with the New World’s modern and enlightened period of American Revolution.

However, few planters in colonial America questioned the paradox of fighting for their own freedom while denying it to others.

Laurens often acknowledged this paradox in correspondences between him and his son, but it is too simplistic to conclude that this was due to humanitarian reasons. Several of

Laurens’s other letters demonstrated a more complex perception of the slave trade and slavery, as Laurens often expressed feelings of both sympathy and repulsion toward his slaves. He referred to them as human creatures, but also saw them as commodities to be bought and sold alongside deerskins, indigo, rice, and pitch. This image of Laurens as a well-educated, free- thinking American revolutionary called for reconciliation with his image as a perpetrator of the slave trade.

For this thesis, I observed the change in Henry Laurens’s perception of the slave trade by reading his papers. By examining how the slave trade operated in South Carolina during the eighteenth century, I gained insight into why many of its inhabitants viewed slavery as a necessary institution. Through chronicling this change, one can further understand how over time practices and beliefs about slavery once agreeable and accepted in society soon became antiquated, barbaric, and unacceptable. Instead of making a sweeping generalization about

Laurens and his contemporaries’ views of slavery, this thesis will provide a brief yet comprehensive view of slavery and how it affected the lives of those involved. This approach

6 Joyce E. Chaplin, “Tidal Rice Cultivation and the Problem of Slavery in South Carolina and Georgia” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Williamsburg: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1992), 30.

will clarify whether Laurens saw slavery as good, evil, or essential, and whether he challenged the institution explicitly.

In Chapter one, I chronicled his involvement in the slave trading business, his absence from it, and other factors that contributed to his subsequent change in perception. First I will look at his business partnership with Austin and Appleby, initially known as Austin and Laurens in

1748, and later known as Appleby, Laurens, and Austin after 1758. After looking at how the business operated, including its beginnings, successes, and end, the next important aspect of slavery to question is the dependence on African slaves. Among historians, it has become common knowledge that white, free laborers were the first to work the fields of colonial

America. By looking more closely at this change over time, it should reveal what factors prompted the use of Africans as the primary source of slave labor. Another component necessary to fully understanding slavery in South Carolina is the condition and treatment of slaves. The condition and treatment of slaves greatly influenced the potential gains and losses of planters because harsh treatment and illness contributed to slaves’ shorter life span. If slaves died or were sick and could not work, that meant the fields had less workers which meant less profit.

In the second chapter, I placed more focus on the general attitudes of slavery during 1763 to 1776. This chapter aims to set up the general ideology of the environment in which Laurens lived and how that ideology shaped his own perception of slavery. This chapter chronicles the perceptions of the inhabitants of South Carolina with some discussion on how Laurens felt regarding his involvement in slavery and about blacks in general. This chapter is divided into two main sections—the pre-Revolution era (1763 to 1769), and the Revolution era (1770 to

1776)—to contrast the shift in perspective Laurens had as the political climate and his personal matters changed.

In the final chapter, I further analyzed Laurens’s supposed attitude shift toward slavery.

Beginning with his perception of slaves as “poor, wretched, human creatures,” Laurens’s transformation from business-minded slave-trader to slave-owner and American revolutionary with a moral conscience will demonstrate how he reconciled these opposing views. The influences of the Revolutionary ideology in colonial America and of his son, John Laurens, are also important factors that contributed to Laurens’s purported anti-slave attitude, and therefore deserve analysis.

CHAPTER 1

Henry Laurens’s Involvement in Slavery

Commerce in British North America’s southern colonies played a major role in the economic development of South Carolina. Many merchants, if successful, enjoyed elite status in colonial American society often tied to opportunities for political involvement and influence over government policies. Henry Laurens was among the most established and wealthy of these merchants. After a failed business endeavor with London merchant James Crokatt in 1748,

Laurens solidified a co-partnership offer with English merchant George Austin. George Austin was a merchant for eighteen years prior to his business deal with Henry Laurens in 1748. Since

Laurens was already in England on account of his failed partnership with James Crokatt, he decided to garner support for his new business prospect with George Austin.7

The business he had in mind was the African slave trade. He penned numerous letters to many English merchants which introduced his new business and the terms by which he and his associate would carry it out. In one of these letters, addressed to Liverpool merchant Edward

Trafford, Laurens wrote, “I think there’s a prospect of most advantage to be made by the Guinea

Trade as we have reason to expect good Sales for Negroes in that colony.”8 On the terms he explained that he and Austin would, “Pay Coast Commission there, make good all debts, & remit the Amount according to the terms of Payment…if required we are ready to give security in

England…our Commission 10 per cent.”9

7 Henry Laurens (HL) to George Austin, December 17, 1748, Vol. 1, 182-183 from The Papers of Henry Laurens, ed(s). Philip M. Hamer, George C. Rogers, David R. Chesnutt, and Maude E. Lyles (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968). 8 HL to Edward Trafford, January 20, 1748, Vol. 1, 204. 9 Ibid. These terms for the sale of slaves were established in South Carolina after 1732 to ensure that British merchants would be paid accordingly. The factor, or coastal trader, present at a slave post in S.C. needed to pay the captain’s coast commissions, his crew’s half-wages, and settle bad debts.

Based in the port city of Charleston, South Carolina, the Austin and Laurens trading house became heavily involved in the slave trading business during the eighteenth-century.

Typically, a slave trading firm would purchase slaves from several countries and colonies off of the coast of West Africa, bring them to Charleston to unload for sale, load the boat with rice, indigo, deerskins, textiles and other goods, then ship the boat off across the Atlantic once more, headed for England. Rice and indigo were among the most profitable goods exported from South

Carolina, but Laurens knew greater profits would come from selling freshly imported slaves to wealthy and willing slave owners. In the 1750s alone, Austin and Laurens facilitated the sales of

8,000 slaves for various prices.10 The consistent price of each slave is a bit difficult to determine because of several factors that influenced the cost of human chattel, including their place of origin, age, sex, height, skill-level, and physique.

In an Austin and Laurens account book that dates from April 1750 to April 1758, the cargoes that carried enslaved Africans varied greatly in size. Some cargoes carried as few as four or as many as one hundred and thirty-nine slaves. Large cargoes, such as the one that contained one hundred and thirty-nine enslaved Africans, signify how profitable the slave trade was. For one particular cargo sale, recorded on August 22, 1753, Austin and Laurens sold one hundred and thirty-nine slaves on an average of £200, without accounting for the various factors that tended to influence price—with the exception of gender—including physical characteristics and places of origin.11

A total of sixty-one men, twenty-nine women, thirty-two boys, and seventeen girls were sold from this cargo. Men made up almost half of the cargo at around forty-three percent, while

10 Brown University, Slavery and Justice, 14. 11 George Austin and Henry Laurens’ Account Book, April 1751 to December 1758, made available by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3477172 (accessed 24 Jan. 2014) pages 12-13.

women made up only twenty percent. Males in general accounted for more than half of the cargo at nearly sixty-seven percent, while females made up the remaining thirty-three percent. Men cost more and were bought frequently, while young girls were bought the least and for cheaper prices. Since there were many instances where males and females were often sold together in groups instead of individually or in same-sex groups, it is hard to determine a specific figure for the average price based solely on the sex of the slaves. Still, it is apparent that males were typically preferred over females, although in some cases the young boys would cost less than some of the women. After subtracting costs due to advertisements, commission, provisions and other expenses from the revenue, the net profits of this cargo was £24,825.17.9.12 These numbers served as motivation enough for merchants to involve themselves in the slave trade, and the commodification of human beings hardly made the potential profits any less appealing. The prices paid for slaves were recorded in the same manner as the prices of any other sundry good.

Over the span of eight years, from 1751 to 1758, Austin and Laurens sold forty-five cargoes of slaves and paid a total of £45,120 duty.13 By 1759, George Appleby, nephew of

George Austin, joined the firm officially after he familiarized himself with the business. Under the new firm Austin, Laurens, and Appleby, sixteen cargoes were sold from 1759 to 1761 with a total of £22,890 duty.14 Their firm sold more than any other firm in South Carolina at that time.

In one year alone, from November 1, 1759 to November 1, 1760, Austin, Laurens, and Appleby sold five cargoes, which contained 1,000 slaves out of the 3,750 that were imported into the colony that year.15 During Laurens’s slave trading period, 1748 to 1762, it is difficult to find

12 Ibid. 13 W. Robert Higgins, “Charles Town Merchants and Factors Dealing in the External Negro Trade 1735-1775,” in The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Charleston: South Carolina Historical Society, 1964), 206. 14 Ibid. 15 Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, Vol. 4: The Border Colonies and the Southern Colonies (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1935), 375.

evidence that he contemplated the effects the slave trade had on the humans he saw as commodities. Many of his letters are formal and discuss business matters. He also frequently discussed the quality of preferred slaves. “The slaves from River Gambia are preferr’d to all others with us save from the Gold Coast.”16 Laurens and many other merchants had pride in their knowledge of which slaves from a particular African ethnic group were the best investments for rice plantations. In order to understand why Laurens preferred one ethnic group over another, it is important to first understand why African slaves were preferred over white indentured servants.

Henry Laurens did not explicitly state why he preferred African slaves. He obviously entered the slave trade because it was established in his lifetime and was profitable in most cases.

Laurens did not just sell slaves on consignment though; indentured servants were still a useful source of labor at the early stages of his business. An October 1751 ad printed in the Gazette by

Austin and Laurens featured a tempting opportunity to indenture any one of the 200 German passengers on board the Anne: “Amongst them are several handicraft Tradesmen and

Husbandmen, and likely young Boys and Girls.”17 This further complicates the issue of slavery, since the labor it consisted of was not always referred to as slave labor and was not necessarily completed by the people legally recognized as slaves.

Similar to other southern colonies in British America at the time, South Carolina quickly developed after a staple-crop was introduced in the late seventeenth century. The staple crop was rice, and after it increased in supply, the demand for field labor subsequently increased.18

16 HL to Richard Oswald & Co., May 17, 1756, Vol. 2, 186. 17 Austin & Laurens Advertisement, October 23, 1751, Vol. 1, 242. 18 David Galenson, White Servitude and the Growth of Black Slavery in Colonial America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 40.

Previously, white indentured servants were the main source of field hands and worked on small farms for until their term was completed. They were typically granted land after their service.

The supply of white indentured servants originally used to settle the colony of South Carolina became inelastic by the middle of the eighteenth century.19 The supply of white indentured servants—especially for skilled labor—dwindled as immigration increased in the colony and opportunities became slim for white servants in South Carolina.20 The labor of white servants initially cost less than that of enslaved blacks, but eventually the cost of white labor increased.21

Planters were unwilling to hire white laborers if they could hire and train black slaves for less and had them perpetually.

Unlike the indigenous American populations that were enslaved before, Africans were somewhat more accustomed to the agricultural labor needed to cultivate large-scale staple crops.22 In South Carolina, the climate was semitropical and humid, with marshlands in the low country along the region’s coast, a type of climate useful for rice cultivation. Africans from the sub-Saharan and West African regions, including Gambia, Congo, Angola, and the “Windward

Coast” cultivated rice in a similar climate. The oryza glaberrina type was native to this region, and West Africans already begun selling it to slave traders during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.23

The unusual thing about South Carolina during the eighteenth century was the presence of a black majority in the colony, a phenomenon atypical of British North America’s demography. From 1715 to 1775, the white population in South Carolina increased from 6,250 to

19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid, 42. 22 C. Duncan Rice, The Rise and Fall of Black Slavery (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1975), 34-35. 23 Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1974), 59.

60,000, while the black population grew from 10,500 to 100,000.24 This massive increase in the black slave population coincided with the establishment of rice as a staple crop in South

Carolina.25 Planters in South Carolina struggled with rice cultivation in the region’s early settlement days before they became selective about the types of African slaves they wanted.

They grew rice in the upland, dry areas, and depended on rainfall to effectively quench the rice crops.26 Needless to say, this technique proved to be fruitless. With the collaboration of black slaves and white planters, irrigation techniques emerged and rice cultivation moved to the coastal lowland marsh region where rice production was mastered.

Another reason why African slaves were chosen as the primary source of labor in South

Carolina was because of their unfamiliarity with colonial America’s customs and laws. As foreigners, it was harder for Africans to draw upon an ally to help them resist and escape this vicious form of labor. It was also easier to categorize and identify Africans as slaves by a permanent identifier such as skin color,27 than to have them continue to be free laborers with whites and possibly obtain access to land and move upward in society. In addition, planters developed a racial stereotype that Africans were more resilient to harsh conditions. The belief that Africans were accustomed to the tropical climate due to their blackness has since been contradicted by modern science.28 The reason for the increased immunity of West Africans in

South Carolina’s climate has to do with the fact that they were exposed to those diseases, built immunity, and passed that immunity on to their children. While some Africans survived malaria and other diseases in the rice fields due to their increased immunity, there was no inherent, race-

24 Frank J. Klingberg, An Appraisal of the Negro in Colonial South Carolina (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, 1941), 1. 25 Wood, Black Majority, 36-37. 26 Chaplin, “Tidal Rice Cultivation,” 31. 27 Rice, The Rise and Fall, 23. 28 Philip D. Curtin, “Epidemiology and the Slave Trade” in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 2 (New York: The Academy of Political Science, 1968), 194.

based reason for it.29 With the exception of some slaves who survived the arduous labor and the diseases they contracted in the rice fields, many slaves died.

As Laurens had more contact with West Africans of different ethnicities, he began to notice the characteristics indicative of one group relative to another. The climate and premier staple crop of a region determined which characteristics found in Africans would be more valuable for labor. In South Carolina, planters wanted to buy slaves that fit certain physical requirements from rice growing regions in Africa. “Our Planters…are desirous of large strong

People like the Gambias & will not touch small limb’d People when such can be had.”30 Rice cultivation required intense labor, especially on large plantations. Planters wanted African slaves that were efficient and strong enough to use hoes, shovels, and other tools without difficulty.

Gold Coast, or Coromantee Africans, and Windward Coast Africans were also a favorite of planters, known for their strength and efficiency. 31 Planters also preferred dark-skinned, young males—mostly males—and females for work, while the lighter, smaller, and weaker slaves were not wanted.32

Laurens often referred to these unwanted slaves with undesirable characteristics as

“refuse” slaves.33 These slaves were not favorable in his sight. He also advised his peers to avoid Slaves of specific ethnicities that he thought were not profitable or useful. “Few…planters will touch Calabar Slaves when Others can be had.”34 He said the same about slaves from the

Bight of Benin. Essentially, Laurens’s preferences for slaves had more to do with the price they

29 Ibid, 196. Curtin states that, “The most significant immunities are acquired, not inherited. The ordinary procedures for artificial immunization are based on the fact that people can create antibodies which will oppose specific forms of infection. The individual can be immunized either by giving him antibodies directly, or else by inducing a light infection so that his own organism will produce the required antibodies.” 30 HL to Gidney Clarke, June 26, 1756, Vol. 2, 230. 31 Footnote 1 from The Papers of Henry Laurens, Vol. 2, 201. 32 Daniel C. Littlefield, Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 10. 33 HL to Joseph Brown, July 21, 1764, Vol. 4, 354. 34 HL to Jonathan Blundell & Co., May 16, 1756, Vol. 2, 182.

sold for, which depended on his customers’ preferences. If he and George Austin noticed a particular ethnicity sold more than another for a higher price, they would work to meet that demand in order to reap the highest profit. Ethnicity did not always guarantee a good cargo though, as many factors including war, season, and natural disasters influenced whether owners would buy slaves at all.35

Laurens did not enjoy the unpredictability of the slave trade and preferred ownership of his own slaves and plantations for a more settled lifestyle. He owned over three-hundred slaves and about a dozen white free laborers that worked together on five different plantations.36 He was not heavily involved in the daily management of each plantation, but he attempted to ensure proper treatment of his slaves.

South Carolina was notorious for having the most unrepentant slave owners.37 Due to the arduous nature of rice cultivation—and the elite planters and overseers’ unwillingness to perform such labor—slaves were violently forced to keep working in the fields. Although slaves were legally considered property, there was virtually no protection for the slaves if their lives were threatened. In the aftermath of the 1739 Stono Rebellion, widely considered the largest slave uprising in colonial America, white South Carolinians developed a slave code, which stated

“That all Negroes and Indians…mulattoes or mustizoes…and all their issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be…and remain forever hereafter, absolute slaves.”38 Unless there was a special document or white person in authority that could legally overturn this code, these groups

35 Littlefield, Rice and Slaves, 27-28. 36 S. Max Edelson, Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 200. Along with Mepkin and Wambaw, Laurens owned plantations called Mt. Tacitus and Ninety-six in South Carolina, and Broughton Island, New Hope, Wright’s Savannah, and Turtle River in Georgia. The list of his plantations can be found in Leila Sellers’ book Charleston Business on the Eve of Revolution (1934) on page 61. 37 Chaplin, Tidal Cultivation, 29. 38 South Carolina Slave Codes of May 1740, “An Act for the better ordering and governing negroes and other slaves in this province,” Acts of the South Carolina General Assembly, 1740 # 670. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.

were tied to this legal slave status based on their racial and ethnic identities. As a result, they were legally maltreated and dehumanized.

Not only were slaves not allowed any freedom, but they were not afforded any equal rights or equities that were typically reserved for whites. The slave codes go on to restrict the actions and whereabouts of slaves which included that they could not bear arms, purchase liquor, run away, protest or lead an insurrection, sell or buy things—in Charleston specifically—, have the right to assembly, own property, or obtain literacy.39 Many of these rights prohibited to the slaves were those valued by the American revolutionaries, as they are later found in the Bill of

Rights.

Slaves in low country South Carolina worked on individual tasks instead of by the gang labor common in other regions with vast amounts of land. Each day, a slave would complete a task assigned to them that day, which included hoeing the thick, tangled weeds throughout the expansive rice fields. If this task was not completed by the end of that same day, the slave would be beaten mercilessly.40

David Duncan Wallace noted in Laurens’s biography that “the health of slaves was, of course, given careful attention, if on no higher grounds than the owner’s interests.”41 Attention to the health of slaves in South Carolina hardly rose above how valuable an investment the slaves were. Laurens strongly believed that he was an exception to this. As the owner of several plantations, he tried to hire drivers and overseers that would not treat the slaves too harshly when

39 Ibid. 40 Edelson, Plantation Enterprise, 83. Edelson also goes on to explain that slaves who finished early did get to grow crops on a small plot of land, tend to livestock, and make crafts for sale at the market. Giving slaves independent work helped the drivers and overseers to keep away from insect and disease-infested swamps. Edelson also mentioned that this was a dynamic unique to South Carolina in the Americas. However, it does sound quite similar to slave dynamics in the British West Indies with a black majority. 41 David Duncan Wallace, The Life of Henry Laurens: With a Sketch of John Laurens (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1915), 73.

he was absent. In reference to a driver that Joseph Brown referred to him, Laurens expressed that

“I would have him to live well to take care of my Interest in general and particularly my

Negroes.”42 Laurens also wanted blankets and clothes to be provided for his slaves, especially when it got cold. He often had someone look after them when they got sick.43

As a reflection of the society’s Christian values, the planters of South Carolina had to show some mercy towards slaves. In the South Carolina Slave Code document of 1740, “those who profess themselves Christian” and murdered a slave had to pay a fine of “seven hundred pounds” and were barred from “enjoying or receiving the profits of any office…within this

Province.”44 In contrast, a slave that struck his or her master or any white person, let alone murdered them, would “suffer death” unless they defended that white person against another white person.45 This particular code demonstrated the differences in how each ethnic group in

South Carolina was treated and how much they were valued. Since the slaves were considered property and not human beings, their death was reduced to the payment of a fixed fine. They did not have the right to be mourned by loved ones and have their lives honored..

This was the type of environment that permitted slave owners like Henry Laurens to benefit immensely from the trade. At this point, his papers only reflected and reinforced the slave trade and slavery as viable means of commerce. There was little expression of doubt that the sale of slaves was any different from the sale of sundry goods such as rice and indigo. He also did not see his slaves as any more than property he owned, much like the land he forced them to work on. However, as the revolutionary era approached, Laurens’s dissatisfaction with slavery began

42 HL to Joseph Brown, October 4, 1765, Vol. 5, 16. 43 Ibid. 44 South Carolina Slave Codes, XXXVII. 45 Ibid, XVII.

to develop when ideas of freedom and liberty emerged amidst mass importation of Africans, which increased conflict between Britain and its North American colonies.

CHAPTER 2 Henry Laurens’s Attitudes toward Slavery and the Slave Trade in South Carolina

Pre-Revolutionary Period, 1763-1769

At this time, the general attitude of most white people toward slavery in the South, and particularly South Carolina, was that it was a necessary institution. According to David Duncan

Wallace, “the very trying summer climate, supplemented by the unhealthy nature of the tasks, made African slavery inevitable.”46 White South Carolinians thought the work too arduous to complete on their own, so after they observed the success their British cousins had with slavery and the slave trade in the West Indies, they modeled their own plantation society after their success.47

Slavery was also seen as a Christianizing mission in many instances. Several proponents of slavery argued that it was an “organic society” mandated by God, and that this hierarchy of slave and master present in heaven must be mirrored on earth.48 Many slave-owners believed that they were superior because of their white skin color and the financial capital they acquired.

Furthermore, they believed that God burdened them with a moral obligation to manage those deemed as inferior, and they fulfilled this will through enslavement. However, many planters in the south feared that the personal salvation of slaves would undermine their authority, especially through the work of travelling missionaries.49 Above all, Laurens was in the business for the

46 Wallace, The Life of Henry Laurens, 27. 47 Ibid. 48 Jeffery Robert Young, Domesticating Slavery: The Master Class in Georgia and South Carolina, 1670-1837 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 23. 49 Ibid, 27-28.

money, and did not use moral obligation or the purported inevitability of slavery as reasons for his involvement.

As mentioned previously, Henry Laurens’s career in the slave trade was strictly for business and profit. His correspondences with merchants and business partners mainly consisted of facts, figures, accounts, and descriptions. He did not comment on the peculiarity of slavery or analyze the institution’s operation and its effects. Laurens’s papers indicate complete compliance and acceptance of slavery as an established part of South Carolinian society. By 1763, Laurens was the owner of the plantations Wambaw and Mepkin and desired “prime negroes” and workers to settle his holdings.50 He terminated his involvement in the slave trade at this time, but he still gave advice to other merchants about profitable slave cargoes. “I have in general declined

Affrican business, altho I have had…friendly offers from my friends…and do believe that I might have sold 1,000 or 1,500 last year and more than the year we are now in.”51 In this way,

Laurens remained a slave merchant.

In the 1760s onward, Laurens took on a more sympathetic view towards his slaves. He was eager to uphold order on his plantations, so he made sure to hire overseers that he presumed would be fair with his slaves. The arduous nature of rice cultivation on the large swampy, insect- infested, plantations combined with harsh maltreatment fostered a climate that drove slaves to run way or revolt. Laurens did not want his slaves to revolt, become ill, or die since money would be lost due to less workers reaping the field. He asked one overseer in particular to provide blankets for the “poor creatures” because the weather was getting quite cold in that

November of 1764. “My heart aches for them until that is done.”52 In reference to what Laurens referred to as a small cargo of about 40 to 60 slaves, he ordered a slaver to “let them be well fed

50 HL to Richard Oswald & Co., March 3, 1754, Vol. 4, 204. 51 HL to Smith & Baillies, February, Vol. 4, 167-168. 52 HL to James Brenard, November 16, 1764, Vol. 4, 503.

and humanely treated.” In that same letter, he revealed the true nature of his concern. “Such a little cargo, say 40 to 60, will sell extremely well at Georgetown in Winyaw.”53

Laurens warned Abraham Schad, one of his overseers, about the maltreatment of his slaves and ordered him to take particular care of one of the slaves named May, “until I come.”

He continued, “You say you don’t like him, but remember he is a human creature whether you like him or not.”54 It is quite evident that Laurens assumed a paternalistic role among his slaves and did not view them as autonomous beings, but rather as property or helpless “creatures” that needed his care, guidance, and discipline. As long as they were obedient like children, even if they were not children, Laurens thought he did his Christian duty when he provided shelter, clothes and food allowances for the people he legally owned.

A letter from a reverend named John Ettwein to Laurens showed an interesting juxtaposition of different attitudes toward slavery and blacks. These two influential figures in

South Carolina’s society did not share the same notion of Christian duty on the subject of the black slave:

I wish their Children (in reference to the presence of Germans in South Carolina) may turn out a good Race but am afraid the Negroes have too much Influence upon them and I have observ’d that often where a Man has slaves his Children become lazy and indolent &c. What I saw and heard of the Negroes made me very uneasy. If some care was taken to their souls their servitude might be a Blessing unto them…To propagate the Gospel amongst the Heathens is one of our Plans in this World & I consider myself as a centinel...55

This attitude was a useful justification for the subjugation of black slaves. The perception of whites that blacks, because of their skin color, were inherently cursed, sinful, and animalistic, gave reason to keep them in bondage. The white planters were convinced that Christian-based

53 HL to John Haslin, November 19, 1764, Vol. 4, 507. 54 HL to Abraham Schad, August 23, 1765, Vol. 4, 666. 55 John Ettwein to HL, March 2, 1763, Vol. 3, 356-357.

rule over the slaves would save their souls, even as they made a profit for them through arduous field work. Laurens did not deny the reverend this moralistic ambition, but he did not think it was a probable endeavor:

Your observation upon the influence & effect of the Negro Slavery upon the morals and practices of young people are but too justly founded & I have often reflected with much concern on the same subject & wished that our oeconomy & government differ’d from the present system but alas—since our constitution is as it is, what can individuals do?...If it was to happen that everybody or even a considerable majority of people were to change their sentiments with respect to slavery & that they should seriously think the saving of souls a more profitable event…those laws which now authorize the custom would be…abrogated and die of themselves…56

Essentially, both Ettwein and Laurens thought the least of slaves, but in contrast Laurens saw them as a profitable commodity that his colony’s livelihood depended on while Ettwein saw their salvation by his influence as a chance for recognition in heaven. The Clergy thought planters were lost without godly order and salvation, but many planters like Laurens feared these

Christianizing missions would undermine their authority.57 This would affect business as slaves would be going to church instead of working, and might even learn to read through access to the

Bible, which would give them further spiritual fuel to fight for freedom.

Laurens had a different attitude towards his more skilled or trusted slaves, though. Sam was a slave that Laurens mentioned often throughout his papers, and it is clear that he placed much responsibility on him not given to the other slaves. “Let the Negroes that require it be clothed immediately. Sam will be with you this week and Mr. Russel tomorrow by whom you will learn that we shall not have occassion of many more Negro houses this Year.”58 There is not much indication of what characteristics Sam had that made him Laurens’s favorite slave, but the

56 HL to John Ettwein, March 19, 1763, Vol. 4, 373-374. 57 Young, Domesticating Slavery, 34-35. 58 HL to Abraham Schad, March 31, 1766, Vol. 5, 93.

“8 bottles of sweet Rum for Sam”59 Laurens ordered served as some indication of how much trust he put in Sam. As mentioned earlier, slave codes in South Carolina strictly prohibited slaves to buy, sell, or possess liquor at any time, but Laurens’s attitude changed for his favorite slave.

Essentially, Laurens greatly benefitted from slavery and like many South Carolinian planters loyal to their mother country, Britain, he was not an advocate for slaves’ freedom and slavery’s collapse. In reference to Britain’s enforcement of increased financial pressure on the

American colonies after the Seven Year’s War, he stated that because of the “dispute between

Britain and America…some Negroes had mimick’d their betters in crying out “Liberty”…some of them might probably…propogate Reports to stimulate the white men to watchfulness.”60 In his advice to an acquaintance, he lamented the fact that it was “…difficult to purchase good

Seasoned Negroes at any tolerable cheap rate as our planters are pretty well out of debt & rather want to buy than to sell…if I was to purchase fugitives & Rogues they would only by a plague and expence to you.”61 Laurens’s correspondence with William Stork indicated increased financial issues and tension between the British and the colonial Americans. In turn, South

Carolinians felt infringed upon and fearful that their future as a slave-based economy was in jeopardy.

Following the infamous Stamp Act of 1765, and later, the Townshend Acts, South

Carolina put a non-importation agreement into effect on July 22, 1769.62 The colonists did this as an act of defiance; to deny Britain’s right to control the colonies from afar. The non-importation

59 HL to Abraham Schad, April 9, 1766, Vol. 5, 101. 60 HL to John Lewis Gervais, January 29, 1766, Vol. 5, 51-54. 61 HL to William Stork, November 21, 1767, Vol. 5, 466. 62 “On July 22, 1769, South Carolinians adopted a non-importation agreement designed to pressure the British government into repealing the Townshend Duties. HL was not a member of the 39 person committee, but strongly supported their efforts.” It was also a way to evade the taxes the British enforced in order to pay off the debts from the Seven Years’ War and lower the amount of revenue the British would use to bribe judges and governors by increasing their salaries so that they may remain loyalist. “Introduction” from The Papers of Henry Laurens, Vol. 7, xvi.

act also included a temporary pause to the importation of slaves as the taxes would have greatly affected the cost of imported slaves.

Many southerners also believed that non-importation served as an efficient way to control the black population, maintain the security of the colonies, and encourage white immigration and settlement.63 Since South Carolina had a coast open to a large body of water, newly imported slaves were usually brought through its port city of Charleston. The presence of a growing black majority already alarmed white inhabitants who thought it would increase the chance slaves had to disrupt the plantation system. A mass importation of African slaves would exponentially increase the black population and possibly lead to an even higher probability of slave resistance and rebellion since the whites would be greatly outnumbered. Many planters and other white inhabitants scorned a repeat of the Stono Rebellion and were wrought with a general fear of the black slave. One newspaper clipping gave a summary about a man of mixed race, referred to as

“Mulatto Dick,” who was accused of headlining a pact to poison the Sands, a white family.64

The fear of violence against whites was a motivating factor behind enacting harsh punishments on slaves and people of color who were accused of committing crime, whether innocent or guilty. Nevertheless, in spite of this fear, Henry Laurens presided over a meeting under the

Liberty Tree in Charleston to repeal the non-importation act a little over a year later in 1770 and welcomed importation of African slaves into South Carolina again.65

As noted earlier, Laurens was loyal to the British for most of his life, but by end of the

1760s his attitude shifted significantly. Initially, he was not against the Stamp Act when it hit the colonies. He only changed his stance when the mandate of the colony’s Vice Admiralty Court

63 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966), 137. 64 Newspaper Account, August 17, 1769, Vol. 7, 126. 65 Vol. 7, “Introduction,” xvi, December 13, 1770.

restricted the use and ordered the seizure of his two schooners, Wambaw and Broughton Island.66

After a nasty pamphlet battle with Egerton Leigh, judge of the Vice Admiralty Court, Laurens no longer expressed loyalist sentiments. He became a moderate Whig on the side of his fellow revolutionary-minded colonists. This period marked the beginning of his allegiance to the

American revolutionary cause. With this allegiance, one would have expected that Laurens became critical of slavery’s validity, but Laurens did not show much change from his original view of slaves as a commodity. In a letter to Henry Bright & Co., he gives an account of sale of 7 out of 9 black slaves he recorded for the company:

“…one of them died on board the ship, another you see I was glad to sell at Vendue to save something for you, a third poor pining creature hanged herself…the remainder gather’d strength & flesh in the Country & at a proper opportunity thus yield very good prices.”67

Laurens mustered little sympathy for a slave’s death or illness. Like other planters and slave traders, he only counted it as an expense, comparable to an object in an inventory that went missing or was destroyed in transit. Apparently to Laurens, chattel slavery was not in opposition to his radical quest to avoid what the revolutionaries viewed as their own enslavement by the hands of Britain.

Revolutionary Era, 1770-1776

Slavery continued to play an integral part in colonial American society during the

Revolutionary era. Following Britain’s acts of imposition toward the American colonies, the quest for American independence was considered by the colonists in South Carolina, even though the colony’s culture and economy was widely dependent on slavery and the slave trade.

The colonists felt that they operated best when independent of the British and no longer allowed

66 Ibid, xv, 1767-1768. 67 HL to Henry Bright & Co., October 31, 1769, Vol. 7, 192.

their colonies to be subjected Britain’s rules, laws, and mandates. As time advanced, advocates for American independence continually compared this infringement to enslavement.

John Dickinson, a politician and advocate of American independence at this time, shunned the “idea of slavery more complete, more miserable, more disgraceful, than that of a people, where justice is administered, government exercised, and a standing army maintained

AT THE EXPENSE OF THE PEOPLE and YET WITHOUT THE LEAST DEPENDENCE

UPON THEM.”68 This definition was meant to suggest a clear difference between the slavery that the colonists benefitted from, and the slavery they wanted to avoid at the hands of the

British. Generally, Dickinson described the white colonists people who engaged in slavery with the belief that there was no contradiction between it and the fight for their own liberty. However,

Dickinson’s redefinition of the most “miserable” type of slavery was an obvious effort to discredit any argument that their fight for liberty was contradicted by their unwillingness to grant liberty to the people they enslaved. Not all whites championed slavery and were unwilling to accept it as inevitable and necessary. After he paid a visit to Charleston in 1773, Josiah Quincy,

Jr. was in awe of the city’s disarray due to slavery rather than of the riches attained from it. He thought the institution caused people to succumb to “barbarism, ignorance, and the basest and most servile employ,” and that it “may truly be said to be the peculiar curse of this land: Strange

Infatuation! It is generally…called by the people its blessing.”69

When Britain’s acts caused immediate uproar, plantation owners and other colonists dependent on the institution of slavery felt as though their autonomy was at risk. If the British

68 As quoted in Duncan J. MacLeod, Slavery, Race and The American Revolution (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 16. 69 As quoted in J. William Harris, The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah: A Free Black Man’s Encounter with Liberty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 38.

intervened in this manner, their reforms to the trade and treatment of slaves, would go as far as to free the planters’ slaves which would jeopardize the wealth they garnered by the 1770s.70

Laurens also wanted to maintain his wealth. He expected continuous profit from this period after the dissolution of the non-importation agreement. In 1770, he stated that “When Negroes are allowed to be Imported here…depend upon it that this will be the best Market in America for a considerable time.”71 The next year, he gave the same advice: “Negroes will undoubtedly be the best commodity at this Market…if we are not involved in war. If we are, and our Trade is so well protected as to keep Premiums as low as they were in the last war the Market will be as it was then, far from a bad one.”72 Historians have cited humanitarian reasons for Laurens’s exit from the slave trade, but these reasons did not deter him from being involved in the potential sales that he notified other merchants of.

From October 9, 1771 to November 7, 1774, Laurens traveled throughout England,

France, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe to supervise his sons’ schooling and to visit associates and business partners. It was even more important that he maintained order at his plantations while he was away and his overseers were in charge. Without a visible presence, his favorite slave Sam began to “behave foolishly.” 73 Laurens feared that as one of the more trusted slaves, Sam’s example to the other slaves might “corrupt his fellow Servants” and cause them to act in the same manner which would “be exceedingly pernicious to my Interest.”74 Laurens’s interest was to secure his wealth and keep slaves from running away or inciting an insurrection, especially in his absence and in the midst of ongoing conflict between the British and the

American colonies. “American Affairs wear a bad aspect. A Cloud is gathering in New England

70 Young, Domesticating Slavery, 57-58. 71 HL to Ross & Mill, October 31, 1770, Vol. 7, 393. 72 HL to John Hopton, January 29, 1771, Vol. 7, 429. 73 HL to James Laurens, December 5, 1771, Vol. 8, 66-67. 74 Ibid.

which if not dispelled by foresight & Wisdom will distress this kingdom…Carolina will be distressed too…”75 He was still hesitant about a war for independence, as he feared it would disrupt South Carolina and his business affairs beyond repair.

The business of slavery was important to uphold because the money that Laurens made from his plantation was more than enough to maintain his family’s wealth and provisions for future generations. As the owner of seven plantations, Laurens often gave advice about what he deemed to be the appropriate way to rule over a plantation and smooth out pressing debts and business deals. To Scottish-born politician Lachlan McIntosh—a friend and mentee of Laurens— he wrote “Permit me…to recommend to you, in preference to Borrowing & Mortgaging to sell off…your Land as will discharge all Arrears & pay for the purchase of 40 Negroes as you want.”76 He wrote further: “So shall you become unembarrassed, Independent, & enabled to

Educate & Maintain your Children in good Character & have an abundance of Land remaining for each of them.”77 His primary concern was that McIntosh needed to make the appropriate business deals to ensure a good financial life for his children and himself, since plantation ownership was a difficult business to navigate at times. Again, there is no indication that either of these men saw slavery as a peculiar and unjust legal clause to build a society and economy on.

Conversely, Laurens did see the benefit of human treatment of his slaves and even professed that he would sacrifice financial gain to ensure such treatment. When he heard news that some of his slaves had run away, in a letter to his mentee, McIntosh—and later to two of his overseers, Peter Nephew and William Gambell—Laurens detailed his thoughts on the matter.

“…I must…repeat what I have often said to you upon such occasions, that I would rather be

75 HL to John Laurens, March 9, 1772, Vol. 8, 605. 76 HL to Lachlan McIntosh, March 13, 1773, Vol. 8, 618. 77 Ibid, 617.

without Crops of rice than gain the largest by single Instance of Cruelty or Inhumanity.”78 He said that he would not fire Gambell, but correct him on his behavior towards the slaves at the

Broughton Island Plantation. Laurens much preferred how Nephew’s dealt with the slaves at

New Hope:

I would rather him to be their head than…one who should make twice as much Rice & exercise any degree of Cruelty towards those poor creatures who look up to their Master as their Father, their Guardian, & Protector, & to whom there is a reciprocal obligation upon the Master, &…I neither encourage nor Indulge Villainy nor even Idleness in any of my Negroes.79

Laurens aspired to a “Medium”, or a balance in his authority over slaves and expected his overseers to do the same. He wanted to keep the slaves anxious enough to obey and complete their work, but not so fearful that they would run away. This particular correspondence further demonstrated the paternalistic obligation Laurens had for his slaves. He did not see them as human beings capable of autonomy and self-possessed will—the way he saw himself and other whites—which is why liberty for them was out of the question. Since Laurens saw enslaved blacks as naïve “creatures” in dire need of guidance from whites, it is apparent that he saw slavery as something necessary. He may have had his reservations about the slave trade, but the financial prospects outweighed the stirrings of his conscience.

Laurens thought he had considered himself to have a “reciprocal obligation” toward his slaves. In his perception, he “fathered” these “child-like” slaves, and after all his efforts to provide them with clothing, housing, and food, he expected their obedience. If they were to act in accordance with their own will and not to that of their master and overseer, they would be disciplined harshly. For all he knew, a number of his slaves had it quite good. When one was accused of stealing and behaving uncontrollably, Laurens was perplexed by what he viewed as

78 Ibid. 79 Ibid.

ingratitude since he “paid a valuable consideration for him…to save him from the West Indies, where he would probably have felt the weight of slavery in degree which he has been unacquainted with in my hands.”80 Laurens confessed a wish to see the “Kingdom” of England,

“cleaned from every one of his Colour.”81 Blacks became more and more numerous in his

Province and in England where he stated that “at least 20,000 Mulatties”82 would be present by

1780, a possible threat to the stability of slavery and the preservation of the white race.

The fear of a massive and uncontrollable black majority plagued and worried Laurens greatly. He believed that the “Vast Importation of Negroes into Charles Town especially in the present relaxed state of Government in So. Carolina will greatly expose the Capital to the dangers of Infectious Distempers, Small Pox or Fever.”83 He described slaves as though they were a type of plague. It is interesting to note the difference between Laurens’s attitude towards his own slaves and enslaved people in general. He took pity on his slaves, as long as they obeyed, but in general he was repulsed by people of color, especially if they were free.

When a free black man and pilot named Thomas “Jerry” Jeremiah was tried and executed for conspiracy to stage an insurrection in August 1775, for example, Laurens was deeply pleased, and also relieved that Jeremiah would not be around any longer to “encourage our Negroes to

Rebellion.”84 Whether this was a viable accusation is questionable. The prominent position

Jeremiah had as a colored man was a threat in a colony filled with wealthy whites who desired to maintain their position based on class and race-centered social stratification. Laurens had this concern, and communicated how much he disliked that Jerry was “puffed up by prosperity,

80 HL to George Appleby, February 28, 1774, Vol. 9, 316-317. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid. 83HL to John Knight, March 17, 1773, Vol. 8, 628. 84 HL to John Laurens, August 20, 1775, Vol. 10, 321.

ruined by Luxury…& grown to an amazing pitch of vanity & ambition” to his son John

Laurens.85

Thus far, Laurens papers discussed that slave ownership and slave trading was the ideal way to acquire and maintain wealth, but that some care should be given to slaves to preserve order on the plantation. The statement in which he confessed to his son John Laurens that he

“abhor[red] slavery” is rather confounding in relation to this. In this letter, Laurens expressed that he had little choice in slavery’s existence. “I was born in a Country where Slavery had been established by British Kings & Parliaments…Ages before my existence, I found the Christian

Religion & Slavery growing under the same authority & cultivation. I nevertheless disliked it.”86

When Laurens exclaimed “O England, how changed! how fallen!” the disillusionment he had about reconciliation between America and his motherland was apparent. It only served to strengthen his allegiance to the colonies.

Perhaps Laurens truly disliked slavery secretly and in his attempt to keep tradition, kept those thoughts and feelings tightly concealed. However, many of his papers told a different story.

It basically demonstrated that at the very least, Laurens had business and profit in mind when he thought of slavery and the chance to leave something behind for his children’s future. He thought it was best to use slaves to quicken the process with the least cost. In comparison, the slaves’ chance at establishing a future for themselves and their children was not considered. In fact, he did not think wealth would be managed well by black slaves, let alone a free black person, as it “ruined” Thomas Jeremiah.87

Like Jefferson and other revolutionaries, Laurens benefitted from slavery, yet denounced it when he found it politically expedient to do so. He did not hold himself accountable for the

85 Ibid, 322. 86 HL to John Laurens, August 14, 1776, Vol. 11, 224. 87 HL to John Laurens, August 20, 1775, Vol. 10, 321.

perpetuation of slavery, and also painted it as a bigger entity than himself that he could not end.

As a prominent figure in the American economic, political, and social arenas, he had a lot of influence and could stand to make a significant change if he wanted to. Nevertheless, Laurens was a prideful man. He accused Thomas Jeremiah of succumbing to the avarice of “puffed up prosperity,” yet he could not turn a critical word to his own haughtiness and hold himself accountable for his engagement with the “inglorious pilferage” of “these Negroes.”88

Laurens embodied many of the contradictions toward slavery expressed by white revolutionaries of his generation. On one hand, he wrote that he wanted to see people of color erased from his country because they were too numerous, brought disease, and posed a security threat to whites. On the other, he abhorred their position and felt sympathy for their plight. To be fair, when Laurens was presented with new information and experiences his views evolved in some way, particularly with the cause of American independence. Analyzing what Laurens said and the changes in his beliefs is one thing, but to pinpoint exactly when and how that change occurred is another. For a man so enthusiastic about this trade and the money he made from it, there must have been an event, person, or ideology that significantly influenced his attitude toward slavery.

88 HL to John Laurens, August 14, 1776, Vol. 11, 224.

CHAPTER 3 Henry Laurens’s Changing Views toward Slavery

With the exception of Mepkin, Laurens’s plantations were not successful during the mid-

1770s. He was faced with family tragedy, which included the death of his wife Eleanor and his son James, as well as the prospect of war.89 Any type of slave resistance would further put the security of his fortune in jeopardy. Around twenty-seven of Laurens’s slaves—8 percent of his labor force—attempted to run away between the years of 1773-1778.90 More so than in previous years, it was critical and in his best interest to secure what he already had instead of risk losing it all just to acquire even more by mistreating the slaves.

Several factors brought Laurens to write that he abhorred slavery, but only a few seem to recur as the most influential in eliciting this statement. First, the pity he felt for the “poor, wretched, human creature,” terms he used to refer to enslaved Africans. When he entered the slave trade, Laurens strictly saw enslaved Africans as a type of commodity. From 1748 to 1762, as demonstrated in his papers, Laurens’s partnership with George Austin and George Appleby oversaw the sales of 10,000 slaves in South Carolina.91 In his letters, slave characteristics were prominently featured. Not surprisingly, he offered no consideration of the thoughts and feelings of these enslaved people.

Laurens saw himself as a paternal figure and an exemplary plantation owner and developed sympathy for his slaves as a result. Besides his frequent personal interactions with them more than when he was a trader, Laurens’s sympathy stemmed from moral inclination tied to Christian principles. At first, it is unclear how devoted Laurens was to his religious beliefs and

89 Edelson, Plantation Enterprise, 244. 90 Ibid, 250. 91 Jack Rakove, Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2010), 198.

how greatly it influenced his attitude toward slavery since he did not write extensive letters about them. Laurens had to have at least followed general principles found in the South Carolina Slave

Codes of 1740 which stated that “cruelty is not only highly unbecoming of those who profess themselves Christians, but is odious in the eyes of all men who have any sense of virtue or humanity.”92 Despite this code, Christian benevolence was viewed as a subversive factor in the ability of a plantation owner to effectively control his plantation.

Nevertheless, Laurens was a man who held duty, obligation, and honor in high regard,93 and generally conformed to this code because it was essential to controlling slaves and therefore held slavery together. Laurens’s dedication to religious belief appeared to be tied to social acceptability rather than to zealotry, as demonstrated by his statement to James Habersham: “I go to church and come home again…avoiding all disputes about tenets, refined politics, and party.”94 He was not excessively religious, yet the fact that he witnessed the “Christian Religion and Slavery growing under the same authority & cultivation” perturbed him.95 He apparently saw an inconsistency in the co-existence of both entities, but he actually avoided mixing the two when it came to his plantation. He did not explicate which Christian principles he thought were incompatible with slavery, but chances are that he was particularly perturbed by most of the maltreatment slaves received by the hands of merciful Christians.

Laurens also explained how much he lamented the fact that the “poor wretches” were falsely promised freedom only to get kidnapped by the British from the Americans and sold in the West Indies.96 Laurens estimated that all of his slaves would sell at public auction for “not less than £20000”, if he willingly considered their humanity and followed the Golden Rule to the

92 South Carolina Slave Codes of May 1740, XXXVII. 93 Rakove, Revolutionaries, 209. 94 HL to James Habersham, September 5, 1767, Vol. 5, 297. 95 HL to John Laurens, August 14, 1776, Vol. 11, 224. 96 Ibid.

fullest.97 However, he cited “great powers,” “Laws & Customs of my Country,” and his own avarice and that of his fellow citizens as blockades to that end.98 Laurens easily assigned a sales price to these slaves, which showed that they remained a commodity to him. His suggestion to sell the slaves as an adherence to the Golden rule was in fact, not something he wanted done unto him. Once again, he communicated his power to grant manumission, but his anxieties about the economy’s survival without slavery stifled this power.

Laurens probably thought that freed blacks would behave like the slaves on his plantation who misbehaved when he was absent. “Poor Dogs, they are not half such Rogues as I see every day riding on four wheels.”99 Here he once again alluded to the sub-humanity of slaves, and attempted to mask his fears about the future of his plantation by saying the slaves have no real power over him, which was true in a legal sense. Laurens used this language to maintain the notion that he and other whites possessed adequate power to keep the black slaves under control during trying circumstances. However, the fear that slaves would commit acts of violence against their planters influenced his actions more than he revealed. As if to provide evidence that blacks and freedom were incompatible, he cited his “man Robert Scipio Laurens”—most likely a slave— when he said that “the Negroes that want to be free here are fools.”100 Ultimately,

Laurens reserved genuine sympathy for his white counterparts, who he never saw an “instance of

Cruelty in ten or twelve Years” more disheartening than when “those poor Irish” indentured servants arrived on the shores of South Carolina without provisions when slave masters would

97 Ibid. 98 Ibid, 225. 99 HL to James Laurens, December 5, 1771, Vol. 8, 67. 100 HL to John Lewis Gervais, May 29, 1772, Vol. 8, 353.

even “take some care of the wretched Slaves for a Market.”101 Furthermore, whatever sympathy he reported to have for slaves must not have been enough to say he abhorred slavery.

As mentioned before, Henry Laurens quickly became active in revolutionary activity upon his return to Charleston from Europe at the end of 1774. He served as a member of South

Carolina’s first provincial congress in January of 1775 and was made president of the second congress in June of that same year.102 He also served as the head of the Council of Safety branch in South Carolina, which was a committee set up in all of the thirteen counties and was “usually given wide and indefinite authority” to usurp the power of the British royal government.103 All of this political activity led to Laurens’s election as president of the Continental Congress on

November 1, 1777, preceded by John Hancock.104

Revolutionary ideology and Laurens’s involvement in American revolutionary activity may have contributed more to his “I abhor slavery” statement than his purported pity toward slaves. Initially, Laurens remained loyal to Britain. Even with the Stamp Act and deteriorated relations between colonial America and Britain, he still believed relations would be mended.

Laurens became disillusioned with this when his own business suffered due to Britain’s impositions on the colonists.

A few years into the 1770s, he immersed himself into the cause of American

Independence and began to critique the institution of slavery. He reassured John of his enlightened view and stated that:

I am not one for those who arrogate the peculiar care of Providence in each fortunate event, nor one of those who dare trust in Providence for defence of security of their own

101 HL to William Fisher, November 9, 1768, Vol. 6, 150. 102 Rakove, Revolutionaries, 213. 103 Agnes Hunt, The Provincial Committees of Safety of the American Revolution (Cleveland: Winn & Judson, 1904), 151. 104 Rakove, Revolutionaries, 218.

Liberty while they enslave and wish to continue in slavery, thousands who are as well intitled to freedom as themselves.105

At the start of the revolutionary period, the colonists’ did not believe the movement for independence opposed the institution of slavery. During the American Revolution, the colonists traded resistance for warfare when the British turned their slaves against them and made them their “domestic enemies.”106 The constant fear of black rebellion, coupled with Britain’s imperial power promising freedom to enslaved blacks who aligned with loyalists, pushed planters like

Laurens to abandon allegiance to the British and rally for complete independence. In a letter to

Oliver Hart, a Baptist pastor from Charleston, Laurens’s words showed great concern about

“THE Persecution against the Liberties of American Subjects”107:

One obvious Measure in the Plan of our envious and cruel Persecutors was to drive the…Inhabitants of the colonies into a state of Confusion by depriving them of the benefit of legislation, and the ordinary Mode of Representation by Assemblies…South Carolina had in an eminent Degree suffered by this species of Revenge, which has been aggravated of late by daily Menaces of Attacks by British Soldiers and Ships of War, by instigated Insurrections of Negroes and Inroads by Savage Indians…108

To conclude that paragraph, Laurens stated that the colonies would exercise “every hostile and injurious Act” in opposition to the British, “until an Accommodation of our Disputes with Great

Britain, and a Redress of Grievances can be obtained.”109

The fear within Laurens was great because his plantation was in danger of financial ruin due to slaves’ defiance, and an authority admittedly greater than himself reinforced and supported it. The planters of South Carolina decided they would risk their financial prospects to officially sever ties with Britain and salvage the authority they still had over their plantations.

105 HL to John Laurens, August 14, 1776, Vol. 11, 225. 106 Robert Olwell, “Domestick Enemies”: Slavery and Political Independence in South Carolina, May 1775 – March 1776” in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 21-48 (Athens, GA: Souther Historical Association, 1989), 22. 107 HL to Oliver Hart, March 30, 1776, Vol. 11, 198. 108 Ibid, 199. 109 Ibid, 200.

The revolution fundamentally meant independence from Britain and its infringements upon the colonists, and freedom for slaves was not seen as a desirable end. Planters in South Carolina had the most to gain financially from the continuation of slavery, and would be bankrupt if it ended.

Furthermore, Laurens possibly abhorred slavery because it caused conflict amongst the whites and the blacks who outnumbered them which contributed to economic unpredictability.

When enslaved blacks were presented with the prospect of freedom and resisted against the familiar, yet oppressive nature of slavery to obtain it, Laurens did what he could to keep his slaves from this. Yet, the conflict between British colonial America and Britain only made slaves more resistant which caused more instability. If Laurens gave up his family’s wealth for humanitarian reasons, it only would have made all of his years in the business worthless and for naught. To his son John, he recalled the simpler times when “…in the former days there was no combatting the prejudices of men supported by Interest…”110

Laurens possibly felt obligated to acknowledge the contradiction present in his evasion of bondage by the hands of the British when he enslaved others. He could not imagine how South

Carolina’s economy and the future wealth of his children would survive without slavery, yet it became more and more of a burden to keep slaves as obedient workers. Above all, Laurens’s success in the plantation business declined during the Revolutionary period. His plantations hardly recovered to their full capacity by the end of his life, and his wartime losses accumulated to £250,000 by 1785.111 Revolutionary ideology did not clearly elicit Laurens’s “I abhor slavery” statement. Instead, it appeared to come from a place of frustration and from the disillusionment he felt when he realized that the business he depended on was deteriorating.

110 HL to John Laurens, August 14, 1776, Vol. 11, 224. 111 Edelson, Plantation Enterprise, 251.

Henry Laurens could safely discuss these “dangerous doctrines”112 with his son, John, who already despised slavery. Whether these were his genuine thoughts or him being agreeable with his son is worth consideration. The relationship between Henry and his eldest son John, or

Jack, as he called him, was one typical of a father and son from a wealthy background. Laurens wanted Jack, as the eldest, to continue in his footsteps and be competent enough to look after and maintain the family fortune when he was gone.

Henry was a moralistic disciplinarian who aimed to guide his sons along the right path, and encouraged his sons to “dare to be singular or among the unfashionable few, who are still the cement of society & the Witness of Truth, & Virtue.”113 Laurens raised Jack with the ideology of

John Locke in mind to raise Jack to choose for himself.114 This kind of upbringing would only serve to create a person fairly confident in their beliefs and critical thinking skills. Even though

Jack had different aspirations than his father, he definitely wanted to please him—even if begrudgingly—by studying law in England. To a young and idealistic Jack, however, serving his country in the fight for independence and the freedom of slaves seemed more urgent and important. Henry, who had just experienced the passing of his young son, James, or Jemmy,

Laurens due to an accident, was adamant about keeping his eldest son out of harm’s way. He complained about the quality of the company his son kept and worried about his ability to stay focused on his studies. To remind Jack to carefully consider his choices and actions, Laurens urged him to “Be not ambitious of being half a Solider half a Lawyer & good for nothing, Aim at character, which you could not expect in any high style if you were to commence Soldier tomorrow.”115

112 HL to John Laurens, August 14, 1776, Vol. 11, 225. 113 Henry Laurens as quoted in Rakove, Revolutionaries, 212. 114 Ibid, 209-210. 115 HL to John Laurens, January 8, 1776, Vol. 11, 13.

Frustrated with and overwhelmed by his inability to control any of his current predicaments at the time, whether political or personal, Henry finally surrendered to Jack’s desire to involve himself in the war for independence and his beliefs on the subject of anti- slavery. He expressed this in the “I abhor slavery” letter, which Jack received “with rapture that you desire of restoring the Rights of Men, to those wretched Mortals who have so long been unjustly deprived of them, coincides exactly with my feelings upon that subject.”116 He continued on and expressed gratitude to his father: “above all…thank you for the permission which you have given me to return to my Native Country.”117 It is hard to determine which bit of news Jack was more in rapture with, the fact that his father purportedly abhorred slavery, or that he could leave his law studies in England and become a soldier in America. It seems that the latter was at the forefront of his enraptured state, as Jack’s determination to raise a regiment of black slaves versus a “Regiment of White Men”118 suggested that he wanted to do something radically different rather than just brave. Jack wanted to prove that he could unabashedly sacrifice himself for an unpopular position; something his father raised him to value.

Henry idealized Jack’s youthful devotion. Much like Henry and other South Carolinian planters, Jack also saw blacks as a separate species of human-like creatures. The only difference was that he believed they did not deserve to continue in “a Servitude from which they can hope for no Relief but Death,” and that they “have so much human left in them, as to be capable of aspiring to the rights of men.”119 Jack Rakove points out that Jack’s thoughts were reminiscent of moral philosophy in the eighteenth century, 120 where outright disgust for slaves was replaced with sympathy for their lowly status. Jack often expressed this sentiment to his father, and Henry

116 John Laurens to HL, October 26, 1776, Vol. 11, 275. 117 Ibid. 118 Henry Laurens as quoted in Rakove, Revolutionaries, 224. 119 John Laurens to HL, February 2, 1778, Vol. 12, 391. 120 Rakove, Revolutionaries, 223.

was very influenced by his son’s thoughts and opinions. He often questioned Jack’s idealistic ambition to lead a regiment in the war made up of enslaved blacks, but he felt overtaken by his son’s beliefs nonetheless. “No Man has so much influence over me as worthy my friend my

Virtuous Son John Laurens,” he candidly told Jack. “If after half an hours conversation he will confirm his present advice. I will be governed by it.”121 Even with this dynamic, this was one thing Henry felt he should thoroughly challenge his son on.

To avoid controversy—and to prevent the loss of loyal business partners and customers—

Henry primarily based his thoughts and beliefs on what he deemed to be practical or worked over time based on tradition. Slavery was considered one of those things. A couple of years after his declaration that he abhorred slavery, Laurens bought another plantation in 1777 called Mount

Tacitus for £25,000.122 It was an Indigo plantation that he hoped his slaves from the Broughton

Island, New Hope, and Wright’s Savannah plantations could relocate to since those plantations had been damaged and subsequently abandoned by the overseers.123 He not only decided to stay in an institution he claimed to detest, but he expanded his involvement, even as business contracted. Henry held his own business above any moral inclinations when those inclinations would cost him his family’s fortune. Even Jack could do nothing to invoke lasting change in his father about slavery.

It is also apparent that Henry wanted to appease his son. Jack’s radical nature and his influence on his father elicited those words from him in that letter in the month following the

Declaration of Independence. In Henry’s external world he maintained and continued slavery, something he inwardly and privately proclaimed to despise. His statement against slavery did not particularly make him a humanitarian. Nevertheless, the cognitive dissonance he harbored as a

121 HL to John Laurens, March 29, 1778, Vol. 13, 52. 122 Edelson, Plantation Enterprise, 247. 123 Ibid.

slave owner and purported abhorrer of slavery did make him a deeply conflicted man too fearful and prideful to let go of what he knew.

CONCLUSION

Henry Laurens’s portrait on the wall of the SCHC’s reading room reveals little about his true nature. His portrait shows him dressed in a distinguished manner with his papers in view to show his intelligence and even his rationality, which is further signified by his stern, emotionless glance. Nonetheless, his papers paint a deeper and more complex picture of him and his attitudes toward slavery, the slave trade, and South Carolina’s black population. Henry Laurens was credited by some early twentieth century historians like Leila Sellers and a New York

Abolitionist group—the Zenger Club—in the nineteenth century with being opposed to slavery because his conscience prompted him to write “I abhor slavery” in a letter to his son. Still,

Laurens held on to slavery for his whole life, even up until his death. He did not say explicitly that he wanted it to end. Instead his words communicated that slavery made him feel frustrated and intensely uncomfortable.

Even though Laurens played a prominent role in the cause for American independence, the level of notoriety that the likes of Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock received escaped

Laurens. Some historians have examined his life, his plantation empire, and even his time spent imprisoned in the Tower of London, but his ability to reconcile revolutionary ideology with his slave ownership has not been given specific focus. From his papers, it appears that Laurens reconciled his desire for freedom from the British with his desire to enslave others by justifying slavery as the only way for the American colonies’ economy to thrive. He also blamed the

British for establishing slavery, and implied that they left the colonists with no choice but to be dependent on it.

To get a better understanding of Laurens’s mindset and why he chose to remain heavily involved in the enslavement of others while fighting for his own independence, it was essential

to understand how invested he was in slavery. Laurens lived in agriculturally wealthy, southern society and got into the slave-trading business to garner quick and large financial returns in order to build wealth for his family to inherit. As a slave-trader, his perception of slaves failed to go beyond quantitative recordings in his account book. His attitudes toward slavery and enslaved blacks during his frequent interaction with them as a plantation owner fluctuated from humane to hateful as he accumulated wealth but feared the continuous black population growth. Soon,

Laurens reached a point where a few of these factors climaxed into the “I abhor slavery” statement. As this statement was out of character for a wealthy slave owner, the most prevalent factors needed examination in order to determine how he got to this point. Pity for the “poor, wretched, human creature,” revolutionary ideology, and the huge influence on him or his eldest son, John Laurens, all demonstrated that despite the changes Laurens allegedly underwent internally, externally slavery remained a necessity for him. Yet, holding on to it so dearly literally cost him in the end as he could not recover from “vanished income, destroyed houses, and missing slaves,”124 which plagued his plantation empire during the last years of this life.

Laurens’s papers demonstrate how ideas, thoughts, and beliefs develop and change over time. He was afflicted by notions of liberty and inalienable rights while withholding them from others, much like Thomas Jefferson. To compare and contrast these two figures’ attitudes toward slavery as well as what factors influenced their vacillation between freedom and slavery would provide greater insight into how pervasive this internal conflict was. It would also demonstrate how much their attachment to slavery had to do with the limitations their environments placed on them or the limitations they placed on themselves. These attitudes are important to examine because it shows how one socially acceptable doctrine or way of thinking can eventually change

124 Edeldon, Plantation Enterprise, 252.

when it is no longer compatible with the advancement of all people in that society. While advocates of slavery like Laurens could be public with and create laws based on their prejudices, we now live in a society where that is no longer acceptable, although some may still privately believe this way today.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

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