South Carolina's 1740 slave code names "Indians" and "mustizoes" as slaves by default (Province of South Carolina, May 10, 1740)

SUMMARYSouth Carolina's 1740 slave code names "Indians" and "mustizoes" as slaves by default (Province of South Carolina, May 10, 1740) [Connections: Carolinas, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDSection I of "An Act for the Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes and Other Slaves in this Province" declares "That all Negroes and Indians, (free Indians in amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes, and mustizoes, who are now free, excepted,) mulattoes or mustizoes who now are, or shall hereafter be, in this Province, and all their issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be, and remain forever hereafter, absolute slaves" (transcript as shown by the Bill of Rights Institute; its transcription prints "degrees" where the original reads negroes). Passed under Governor William Bull's administration in response to the 1739 Stono Rebellion (Wikipedia). Hostile witness: the colonial assembly writing to protect slaveholders

PATTERNThe law put Indians in the same default slave category as Africans, and gave freedom only to Indians "in amity" with the colony. Any Indian person outside that political protection, and all of their children, were legally slaves

LENS (WW9)The law itself wrote "Indian" into the slave line. Renamed Black. Born Aboriginal

OPENThe full act's burden-of-proof clause (who had to prove freedom) was not on the page fetched; check the full transcript in O'Neall, The Negro Law of South Carolina (1848)

SOURCEBill of Rights Institute, 1740 Act transcript; Negro Act of 1740 (Wikipedia). Primary: Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Act of May 10, 1740.