The 1708 Carolina count: 1,400 Indian slaves beside 4,100 African slaves (South Carolina, 1708)

SUMMARYThe 1708 Carolina count: 1,400 Indian slaves beside 4,100 African slaves (South Carolina, 1708) [Connections: Carolinas, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDThe 1708 colonial population count, as analyzed by historian Peter H. Wood, gave a total population of 9,580, with 4,100 African slaves and 1,400 Native American slaves. Among adult slaves, African men were 45% and Native American women were 15%. Native women outnumbered Native men among the enslaved, and African men outnumbered African women, which "encouraged unions between the two groups." Another estimate (Snyder) gives 1,850 Native slaves by 1715 (Wikipedia). Hostile witness: a governor's census counting people as property

PATTERNAbout one in four enslaved people in the colony was Indigenous, and they lived in the same quarters as Africans. Their children were born into the same slave status, and the record soon stopped calling them Indian

LENS (WW9)The families in the quarters were already African and Aboriginal together in 1708

OPENThe original 1708 return (Governor and Council report to the Board of Trade) needs to be pulled and quoted directly; the "many former slaves mentioned a Native relative" claim on the page needs its own source

SOURCEIndian slave trade in the American Southeast (Wikipedia). Primary scholarship: Peter H. Wood, Black Majority (1974) and his population studies.