Interesting and Confusing Legislative Bills ,NC, 1861

[Longbranch 1]

Sirs and Madames,

While I am neither an apologist nor advocate in the issue of slavery in WBTS era, these 2 documents gave me a perspective I had not here-to-fore contemplated.

I sincerely hope that someone more able will cut and paste the text of these links.
( Hey, I'm way over 40! )

North Carolina General Assembly Bill No. 8
A Bill to Permit Free Persons of Color to Select Their Own Masters and Become Slaves.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/bill8/bill8.html

NC Senate Bill No. 27, Ses. 1860-61
A Bill to Regulate The Free Negro Population Within This State.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/bill27/bill27.html

In a much broader stroke, disregarding race, I can see these ideas in action in today's society.

Any insights welcomed.

Thanks,
Kevin Ellis,
26th NC

[Hank Trent]

Re: Interesting and Confusing Legislative Bills ,NC, 1861

NC Senate Bill No. 27, Ses. 1860-61
A Bill to Regulate The Free Negro Population Within This State.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/bill27/bill27.html

Haven't looked at the first one yet, but this one sounds like the regular arrangement of letting out contracts on the poor, in areas where there wasn't a poor house.

After the negroes are divided into those who can support their families and those who can't, those who can't are treated as follows:

Second, to hire in families, to the lowest bidder, all such
free negroes as cannot be hired for wages, to be paid by
the hirer; to take bond, with sufficient security from
such lowest bidder to provide suitable lodging, food,
clothing, and medicine for such negroes, to pay their
taxes, both county and State, and to return them to him
suitably clad at the end of the current year: Provided,
That in such counties as shall have provided a poor house
for free negroes, it shall be the duty of such officer to
send such pauper free negroes to said poor house:

That was a standard arrangement in the time, for anyone poor, black or white. For example, from this page:

Auctioning off the Poor: People who could not support themselves (and their families) were put up for bid at public auction. In an unusual type of auction, the pauper was sold to the lowest bidder (the person who would agree to provide room and board for the lowest price) -- usually this was for a specific period of a year or so. The person who got the contract got the use of the labor of the pauper for free in return for feeding, clothing, housing and providing health care for the pauper and his/her family. This was actually a form of indentured servitude. It sounds a lot like slavery -- except that it was technically not for the pauper's entire lifetime. And it had many of the perils of slavery. The welfare of the paupers depended almost entirely upon the kindness and fairness of the bidder. If he was motivated only by a desire to make the maximum profit off the "use" of the pauper, then concern for "the bottom line" might result in the pauper being denied adequate food, or safe and comfortable shelter, or even necessary medical treatment. And there often was very little recourse for protection against abuse.

On that page there's a link to some original contracts from the 1830s in New Hampshire, so it wasn't just a black or southern thing.

I'd say the unique part of the bill is the way the state would proactively sort the free negroes into groups, forcing some to enter the system for the poor, rather than what would be more typical among white people, letting everyone alone unless they applied for help or caused trouble otherwise (begging, charged with vagrancy, etc.).

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net