1791
Charleston artisans petition against discriminatory court rules
Charleston, South Carolina
Thomas Cole, Peter Bassnett Mathewes and Matthew Webb petitioned the South Carolina Senate on behalf of free men of color. They challenged provisions of the 1740 Negro Act that restricted their sworn testimony, hindered debt recovery and denied jury trials. They invoked their tax contributions and civic obligations. The archival catalog records the petition as rejected.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The petition sought relief from specified legal disabilities; it expressly stopped short of demanding equality with white citizens in general. The year is secure, but published dates conflict: Aptheker places it in January, the UNCG catalog starts filing January 1, and Norton’s transcription prints July 1. No exact day is assigned pending the manuscript.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 5, pp. 88–89; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History, vol. I, pp. 26–28, document 11; petition transcription, January dating and rejection ↗
- UNCG, Race and Slavery Petitions, #11379109; South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Records of the General Assembly, reel 1, frames 238–240 ↗
- W. W. Norton, These Truths sources, 6.5 Thomas Cole et al., Petition to South Carolina, 1791; transcript includes signatures and conflicting July date ↗