The slave-hire system of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1700s and the 1800s produced a curious object--the slave badge. The badges were intended to legislate the practice of hiring a slave from one master to another, and slaves were required by law to wear them. Slave badges have become quite collectible and have excited both scholarly and popular interest in recent years. This work documents how the slave-hire system in Charleston came about, how it worked, who was in charge of it, and who enforced the laws regarding slave badges. Numerous badge makers are identified, and photographs of badges, with commentary on what the data stamped on them mean, are included. The authors located income and expense statements for Charleston from 1783 to 1865, and deduced how many slaves were hired out in the city every year from 1800 on. The work also discusses forgeries of slave badges, now quite common. There is a section of 20 color plates.

The story of Nicholas Kelly, an enslaved man who gave his life for liberty leading the Charleston workhouse slave rebellion.

"Henry offered important insights into the workings of South Carolina's slave patrol system." - An Old Creed for the New South (2008) "An excellent analysis of slave control...one of the few early historians of slavery to examine...why the various slave laws were passed." - Slavery, Race and American History (2015) "An analysis of the slave patrol and the elaborate police systems organized to police the behavior of African-Americans during slavery." - Black Police in America (1996) "As H.M. Henry described it, 'the plantation was a sort of governmental unit as to the police control of the slave, and to its head, the slaveowner, was given a large measure of sovereign management.'" - Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America (2015) What kept thousands slaves from escaping to freedom every time an overseer turned his back, fell asleep, or was out-numbered? In 1914, Howell Meadors Henry (1879-1956), later to become Emory Dean and Professor of History, published a study of the slave patrol system entitled, "The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina." In introducing his work, Henry writes: "Professor Frederick W. Moore suggested to me as a topic for investigation, the police control of the negro in the period of 1861-1865 and following years. It was his suggestion that by using several states as illustrations I should show to what extent the Southern people sought to perpetuate not slavery, but the same method of controlling the emancipated negro which was in force under the slavery regime...."

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