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.Pinckney concluded that ongoing events in SaintDomingue (and contact between Charleston and the Caribbean) as well as grow-ing anti-slavery sentiment in the North nurtured unrest among Lowcountry slaves,but he admitted that these problems lay beyond the city’s or state’s power to con-trol.In Pinckney’s view, attempts to isolate Charleston and its hinterland from suchsources of antislavery sentiment inevitably would prove futile.The former Revolu-tionary leader also blamed slave literacy for the increased the risk of rebellion, butA N A L Y Z I N G T H E S C A R E241he likewise despaired of slowing the growth of literacy among slaves.The “particularway of thinking and weakness of many proprietors,” Pinckney reasoned, coupledwith the fact that “the dangerous instrument” of learning “was already so widespreadamong slaves” and so “easily communicated” from slave to slave, rendered it unlikelythat the rise of literacy among slaves could be checked eff ectively.Pinckney stronglydisapproved of the “indulgences” shown favored slaves as the ideology of paternalismincreased its sway in the lower South, but he again recognized that it would be diffi-cult to curtail “privileges” enjoyed by urban slave artisans without incurring a painfulbacklash of some sort.In a sense, Pinckney’s analysis both indicted paternalism asa cause of the Vesey insurrection scare yet conceded that paternalism had advancedto such an extent that its continued practice, at least in some instances, appearedinevitable.17But if broader abolitionist trends lay beyond southern restraint, and if the “prob-lem” of slave literacy had already expanded beyond eff ective means of control,Pinckney joined a rising chorus of voices seeking a remedy for the threat posedby slave and free black artisans who enjoyed the run of the city.In October, aColumbia grand jury had seconded Charleston’s complaint about slave artisansand mechanics who hired out.The Columbia grand jury cited the “serious andalarming consequences arising from owners permitting their slaves to hire theirown time.” The practice of slaves hiring out, the Columbia jury claimed, not onlyproduced “demoralizing” eff ects on the slaves by giving them too much freedomand allowing them to earn excessive spending money, but also allowed them to“monopolize” occupations in “various mechanical trades” at the expense of the “freewhite population of the same employments.” The Columbia grand jury noted thatthe recent insurrection scare in Charleston “originated and was matured” by the“machinations” of slave and free black artisans.18 While doubtless motivated in partby the self-interest of white artisans and mechanics hoping to rid themselves ofpesky slave competition, these complaints about skilled slaves hiring out on theirown time seemed on point, given the prominence of slave artisans among the Veseyinsurrection’s alleged organizers.Agreeing with the Columbia grand jury, Pinckney recognized that the Charlestoncity economy depended heavily on the skills of slave and free black artisans, buthe argued that if blacks, slave and free, were banned from all mechanical pursuits,skilled white labor would fl ow in, probably from overseas, to fi ll the void.This tideof white immigration, in Pinckney’s view, would carry a double benefi t.First andforemost, the infl ux of whites would help reverse the city’s demographic trendtoward larger and larger black majorities.Pinckney estimated that replacing all slavemechanics, artisans, and shopkeepers with skilled white labor would reduce the city’sblack population by nearly half while adding “ [white] men to our muster rolls.”Moreover, Pinckney judged the “excess” of kind treatment he thought character-ized master-slave relations deleterious in the busy but intimate city environment,but he thought planters could treat their rural plantation slaves, distant from urban242P A T E R N A L I S M I N C R I S I Stemptations, with such kindness with less risk.Thus Pinckney recommended trans-ferring urban slaves to the countryside, where they could be profi tably employedaway from the many temptations, abundant information, and ready communicationof city life, and at only a small fi nancial sacrifi ce to their owners.19This “whitening” of Charleston would not only enhance the city’s security,Pinckney maintained, but eventually improve the quality of its labor force.Pinckneythought white mechanics superior to slaves in “natural ingenuity,” and argued thatthey would bring more skill and expertise to artisanal occupations.While “goodimitators may be found among the blacks,” Pinckney asserted, “it is rare to fi nd onewho can plan or invent.” Pinckney’s dream of “whitening” Charleston also involveda desire to replace slave domestics, who, the retired general believed, posed the mostdangerous threat to white society because of their daily proximity to white familiesand their intimate knowledge of family habits.But in yet another concession to real-ity, Pinckney admitted that ridding Charleston of black domestics presented a morecomplicated problem than replacing black artisans because whites disdained beingplaced “so nearly on a level with the slave
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