The history of the impost-tax on slaves imported into the Province of South Carolina is the history of organized greed, ambition, and extortion.  Many were the gold sovereigns that were turned into the official coffers at Charleston!  With a magnificent harbor, and a genial climate, no city in the South could rival it as a slave-market.  With an abundant supply from without, and a steady demand from within, the officials at Charleston felt assured that high impost-duties could not interfere with the slave-trade; while the city would be a great gainer by the traffic, both mediately and immediately.

Sudden and destructive insurrections were the safety-valves to the institution of slavery.  A race long and cruelly enslaved may endure the yoke patiently for a season:  but like the sudden gathering of the summer clouds, the pelting rain, the vivid, blinding lightning, the deep, hoarse thundering, it will assert itself some day; and then it is indeed a day of judgment to the task-masters!  The Negroes in South Carolina endured a most cruel treatment for a long time; and, when “the day of their wrath” came, they scarcely knew it themselves, much less the whites.  Florida was in the possession of the Spaniards.  Its governor had sent out spies into Georgia and South Carolina, who held out very flattering inducements to the Negroes to desert their masters and go to Florida.  Moreover, there was a Negro regiment in the Spanish service, whose officers were from their own race.  Many slaves had made good their escape, and joined this regiment.  It was allowed the same uniform and pay as the Spanish soldiers had.  The colony of South Carolina was fearing an enemy from without, while behold their worst enemy was at their doors!  In 1740 some Negroes assembled themselves together at a town called Stone, and made an attack upon two young men, who were guarding a warehouse, and killed them.  They seized the arms and ammunition, effected an organization by electing one of their number captain; and, with boisterous drums and flying banners, they marched off “like a disciplined company.”  They entered the house of one Mr. Godfrey, slew him, his wife, and child, and then fired his dwelling.  They next took up their march towards Jacksonburgh, and plundered and burnt the houses of Sacheveral, Nash, Spry, and others.  They killed all the white people they found, and recruited their ranks from the Negroes they met.  Gov.  Bull was “returning to Charleston from the southward, met them, and, observing them armed, quickly rode out of their way."[495] In a march of twelve miles, they had wrought a work of great destruction.  News reached Wiltown, and the militia were called out.  The Negro insurrectionists were intoxicated with their triumph, and drunk from rum they had taken from the houses they had plundered.  They halted in an open field to sing and dance; and, during their hilarity, Capt.  Bee, at the head of the troops of the district, fell upon them, and, having killed several, captured all who did not make their escape in the woods.