South Carolina’s 1740 Negro Act policed nearly every aspect of enslaved Black life

Evidence

South Carolina legislators, enraged and horrified by the Black insurrection, passed the Negro Act of 1740, which was designed to force enslaved people into “due subjection and obedience” and to save the “public peace and order.” The legislation aimed to go further than any previous form of racial control by authorizing the policing of nearly every aspect of Black people’s lives. The act prohibited enslaved people from moving beyond the boundaries of their plantations, assembling in groups on roads, growing their own food, or earning money, and it imposed harsh penalties on enslaved people who learned to read. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 360

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s case-study framing: laws as infrastructure codifying who counts as deviation (rebellious Black people) vs design (white authority). Also resonates with sumptuary- and dress-law politics from the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ article.