Charleston Badges
/What if an enslaved character in a book had a need to move through their city and earn money while avoiding challenges? What if the means to do so was a concrete object found in a doorway, stolen from a stranger, or counterfeited? In Charleston, SC, a unique system that could have allowed such plans was in place from at least the 1780s (when the Black population dominated the city) until the close of the Civil War in 1865.
Since a large chunk of my novel Tired is set in Charleston, SC, an understanding of how urban slavery worked there is vital. Wealthy and middle-class homes often included enslaved persons who performed domestic tasks—cooking, cleaning, stable services, etc, while plantations harbored a much larger workforce for farming and specialized skills. Movement between townhouses and plantations was frequent. If a new home required skilled masons and carpenters, what were they to do once the home was completed? In the city, many owners hired out those who were not constantly working—a common practice in many US slave-holding states. Sometimes owners pocketed the entire fee, sometimes it was shared with the worker, and occasionally wage earners kept the sum paid. Money secured this way could be saved to purchase freedom.
Hirimg-out badge for a servant, charleston, sc. Photo by Adam jones of a work in the American civil war museum, richmond, va. Creative Commons 2.o
While hiring out was not a rare urban practice, only in Charleston did a system arise whereby temporarily assigned laborers had their freedom of movement marked by a visible copper badge, rather than by papers. These small numbered badges were usually sewn to clothing, and bore an engraved word indicating the task to be undertaken. “Laborer” and “servant” were common designations, but “carpenter,” “mechanic,” “fisher,” “porter,” and “huckster” (later “fruiterer”) constituted more specific categories.
These were moneymakers for the city. New badge editions were issued annually, created by multiple contractors created them. They never bore the bearers’ or owners’ names, just a registered number, and the shape of the badge—rectangular, diamond orientation, circular, octagonal, straight or lunette-clipped corners—regularly shifted in order to ensure payment compliance. Charges not only created city revenue, they responded to white laborers’ complaints that they were being edged out of jobs. If owners had to pay for badges, perhaps the practice of hiring out would decline and more jobs would become available.
Badge from the Smithsonian’s National museum of african american history and culture. public domain. more examples from the charleston museum can be found here.
Fees for the badges varied over time and according to advertised skill. In 1800, a fisherman’s badge cost $1/yr., while a huckster of fruit, vegetables, bread or other goods wore badges with a $6 fee. In 1806, huckster badges cost $15, but by 1813 they were reduced to $5. White counterfeiting of badges for the purpose of evading fees resulted in a fine of $50, while an enslaved person who did so was put in the public stocks, whipped, and placed in the workhouse for up to 20 days. Those who borrowed another’s badge were whipped publically unless their owners paid a $2 exemption. By 1837, some badge prices rose again—fisherman’s badges doubled to $2. By 1848, two badges were required if the bearer worked both north and south of Boundary Street. By 1865, just before slavery and the badge system ended, prices had climbed considerably: mechanic badges cost $35, porter badges were $20, and fruiterers’ markers cost $25.
charleston required free persons of color to produce badges from 1783-89. The Charleston Museum.
For six years in the 18th century, those who were free also had to wear badges “suspended by a string or ribband, and exposed to view on his breast.” Not wearing the badge meant a fine, which—if not paid within 10 days—could mean up to a month’s hard labor at the workhouse. Far fewer of these “free” badges survive, and not all were pierced to allow suspension. While badges worn by the hired-out provided the wearer with a measure of urban freedom and income, for free persons of color they were forcible reminders of the boundary separating them from white citizens, with legal apparatus in place for punishment. Like Jewish badges, belts, or other legislated public markers worn under various caliphates, medieval Christian states, or the Nazis, these were badges of Otherness. Why did the practice of requiring them for free persons cease? That is unclear, but those concerned were still required to pay a capitation tax—a practice that began in 1756, was suspended during the Revolution, and was reinstituted in 1783. By 1789 or 1790, those free persons living in Charleston had an additional city capitation tax to pay, although their “jewelry” was now of their own choice.
For further information on the badges, see Slave Badges and the Slave-Hire System in Charleston, South Carolina, 1783-1865 2004) by Harlan Greene, Harry S. Hutchins, Jr. and Brian E. Hutchins.
