Charleston's metal "Mechanic" badges and the city's Black craft line (Charleston, SC, 1783–1865 and after)

SUMMARYCharleston's metal "Mechanic" badges and the city's Black craft line (Charleston, SC, 1783–1865 and after) [Connections: Tech & skilled labor, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDSmithsonian Magazine says that from 1783, Charleston enslavers who hired out enslaved workers had to register them with the city, pay a fee, and renew every year. Badges came in classes including servant, porter, carpenter and mechanic, and had to be worn. NMAAHC holds 146 badges dated 1800–1865. The only two known badges that name a person belong to "a mechanic named Robert Cheevers." Free Black residents also had to wear badges. A College of Charleston exhibit cites a badge stamped "Charleston No. 136 Mechanic 1833." The 1848 city census listed enslaved Charlestonians in "at least forty-five different occupations," and by 1850 about 82% of free Black men in Charleston practiced skilled crafts. One blacksmith line is documented: Guy Simmons, an enslaved blacksmith, taught his son Peter, who took over the shop after emancipation and trained the ironworker Philip Simmons (no relation).
STATUS: Robert Cheevers is hired-out enslaved (per the city badge; his wages went to the person who registered him). Guy Simmons is enslaved (per the exhibit). Peter Simmons and Philip Simmons are free (own shop). Richard Holloway Jr. is free before the war (carpentry business)

PATTERNThe city taxed the skills, the owners took the wages, and the skill passed father to son in spite of both

LENS (WW9)The badge said "Mechanic," a city license for our hands, paid to someone else

OPENBadge fee schedules by class; the 1848 census tables

SOURCESmithsonian Magazine, "Slaves Built Charleston. These Badges Are Proof"; College of Charleston LDHI, "Keeper of the Gate: Philip Simmons Ironwork," Black craft tradition.