Most Americans are familiar with what human chattel slavery must have been like in its southern agricultural setting.  Many have read Uncle Tom's Cabin, seen television mini-series ("Roots" for example), watched "Gone with the Wind," visited antebellum historical sites or plantations, or in other ways been exposed to various aspects of plantation slavery.  However, few Americans know much about the institutionalization of slavery in the some of the major southern cities.

    In the urban south, slaves were a pool of skilled and semi-skilled labor.  Many slaves had learned marketable trades or had become adept at in-house roles such as personal  service.  A slave's value to his or her owner lay in the work the slave performed.  If a slave had a skill that could be marketed outside the owner's home, then the slave's labor could be sold and the wages received  would accrue directly to the owner.  Receipts for plantation slave hires are relatively common today.

    Several southern cities accommodated slave owners by developing a system to hire out their slaves.  In early colonial times hiring slaves was an ad hoc affair, a private arrangement between the owner and the recipient of the labor.  By the second decade of the 18th century, slavery for hire became regulated by local government.  While Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, Norfolk, and Charleston regulated the practice through the passage of  "badge laws," only Charleston and Charleston Neck, a small suburb of Charleston, actually issued slave hire badges.  The badge allowed short term employment without written contracts or other documentation.  Moreover, hired slaves, by wearing a badge, could be easily distinguished from runaways or free blacks.

    The cities instituted badge laws to provide a tax income and to regulate the slave hiring.  White artisans complained as early as 1742 about slaves undercutting their prices.  This was perceived as an ongoing problem, especially in the fishing industry and the selling of fresh produce.  While rural blacks retained much of their homeland culture, due to the remoteness and lack of interaction with others, slavery was much different in the larger port cities.  Slaves often lived apart from  their owners and had a great deal of autonomy.  Slaves also had contact with freed slaves, free blacks, non-white slave owners, and shop keepers who catered to black clientele.  Many ministers established churches for black people.  This interaction tended to undermine the control over slaves.  Consequently, slave control became the responsibility of local government

    Beginning in 1712 legislative acts were passed in Charleston to limit self-hire and to require written contracts.  Over the years several laws were passed with some degree of success.  In 1751 slave artisans were ordered to wear badges identifying their trade and in 1783 the city of Charleston extended the requirement to slave vendors of fruits and vegetables as well as fishermen.

    While early legislation specified slaves were to wear paper tickets or badges, none have survived dated prior to 1800.  After several versions, repealed acts, and new badge ordinances, badges were abolished by 1790.  No genuine pre-1800 dated tags are known to exist.

    Hire badges were re-established in 1800 by a rather stiff ordinance in Charleston, partly to appease white merchants but more importantly to curb the increasing autonomy of the urban slave.  An ordinance in 1789 barred slaves and free blacks from selling certain "goods, wares and merchandise" without a license.   In 1796 it became unlawful for slaves to carry on a trade for themselves or to teach a trade to other slaves.   Owners of slave craftsmen had to keep one white apprentice for every four slaves employed.  Slave vendors were perceived to be gaining control of Charleston's internal economy.  In 1848, for the first time, slaves could work for other slaves or free blacks.

    The 1800 ordinance issued a fee schedule by occupation, aiming to reduce the number of slaves involved in slave hire.  It prohibited owners who were not city residents from hiring out their slaves, and limited the number of slave hires to six per resident.  Slave hire ordinance also required the Charleston city marshals to construct and maintain stands for hiring porters and other day laborers, and to set allowable working hours and wage schedules.  The annual fee was $1 for servants and $2 for porters, increasing in 1843 to $2 for servants and up to $7 for other skills.  The slave population  in Charleston was 15,354 in 1830, falling away to 14,673 in 1840.

    Records of badge license fees collected in Charleston reveal the popularity of slave hire, as $14,000 in badge fees were collected in 1848,  $26,000 in 1859.  A good estimate is that 12-30% of Charleston's slaves wore badges in the 1820s through the 1840s.  40% to 50% of the Charleston slaves had badges after 1840.  Badges were issued in Charleston Neck during 1849 and 1850.

    A slave for hire was required by law to renew his license each year and receive a new badge with a new license number.  In some cases it appears that the previous year's badge may have been reissued, the old license number and the date effaced and the new information punched into what had been the blank reverse of the badge.  This expediency is known from badges dated 1862 and 1863 and probably reflects the strained circumstance in Charleston under the Union siege.  Slave ordinances governed the slave hire system and other aspects of the "peculiar institution" in Charleston until the Union siege began to break down the city's social structure.  The last known dated tag is 1864.

    Slave hire badges were made from thin copper sheet cut to size and shape.   Most were square, about 40mm on each side.  In general, early badges (issued before 1820) are larger.  The Ford Collection 1817 Fruiterer's badge measures 51.9mm by 50.2mm.  The 1816 tag offered below is about 50mm square.  A unique round servant's badge is dated 1802.  The upper corners of the rectangular Ford Collection 1811 servant's badge are scalloped and the suspension hole is in the center of the top edge, a very unusual design.

    Early badges were issued in lesser numbers and may have been 'custom made".  Later badges were issued annually in larger numbers and have a "mass produced" look to them.  Most square-shaped badges were trimmed to eliminate the sharp corner points.  Since the badge laws required the badge to be worn in open view, all tags bear a hole for the suspension cord in one corner.  When worn, the badge hung with one point down, in the shape of a diamond, and the badge's inscription was to be legible horizontally across its face.

    Early tags were usually countermarked with a punch by the issuing  silversmith, such as the Lafar 1816 tag offered below.  In 1800 Ralph Atmar Jr. marked tags "ATMAR."  From 1801 to about 1810, tags were marked "C PRINCE."  John J. Lafar marked them with his punch "LAFAR" from 1811 to 1828.  Lafar lived from 1781 to 1849, and was a well known Charleston silversmith and city marshall.  Tags are not known to have been hallmarked by the manufacturer after 1828.  In accordance with the badge ordinances of 1800 and 1806 almost all tags are also stamped with the city, the date, a  serial number and the occupation, such as servant or porter, the two most common.  The 1812 Servant's badge in the Bowers and Merena 1990 sale had a hand engraved license number.

    The earliest recorded hire badge known is dated 1800 for a "House Servant" and is numbered 88; it is privately owned.  A badge dated 1802 for a "Servant," numbered 73, appeared in a Rich Hartzog sale some years ago, and the J. Doyle DeWitt Collection at the University of Hartford includes a badge dated 1803.  The earliest dated specimen in the spectacular Ford Collection (fourteen pieces in the 1993 Stack sale) was an unnumbered 1811 "Servant" badge.  An 1812 numbered carpenter's badge is known, and an 1812 servant's badge was sold by Bowers and Merena in 1990.  The earliest  badge in the Charleston Museum is dated 1812.

    The "commonest" occupation found on Charleston slave hire badges is that of servant.  An estimated three out of every five surviving badges were issued to servants.  Porter  badges follow next in rarity, roughly one in five.  These were the semi-skilled trades.  About one in ten known were issued to mechanics.  The rarest occupations found on slave hire badges are those of fruiterer, carpenter, and fisherman.  Slave hire badges were also worn by chimney sweeps, bread carters, and dog handlers.  Badges for the latter three occupations are not known to have survived.

    A study in 1984 found only 52 slave tags in museum collections across the  country.   While a number of tags have been excavated in the intervening years, the tags are quite rare,  especially considering the original numbers made.  The Charleston Museum has the largest single holding, as might be expected, numbering about 45 examples.  There are seven in the American Numismatic Society Museum and a few others in Winterthur, the Smithsonian, and the South Carolina State Museum.  The high cost of copper and metalwork in Charleston during the issuing period must have resulted in the recycling of used badges.

    Slave badges remain the only slave item that can be positively guaranteed to have been made for and worn by a slave.  With the added guarantee of an exact date and occupation, it is no wonder the tags are extremely popular with medal, black history, and other collectors.

    A word on fakes and fantasy slave tags is in order.  There are NO known genuine slave tags from anywhere except Charleston and Charleston Neck.  All such tags seen to date are fantasy/fake pieces.  All fully hand engraved tags are fakes.  There are some fake tags that are highly deceptive, struck from dies in close imitation to these shown here.  I have seen some on eBay.  Be sure to get a written bill of sale and guarantee of authenticity when buying any slave tag.  All tags offered below come with a full lifetime guarantee and are unconditionally guaranteed to be genuine pieces, without exception.

    The American Numismatic Association issues photographic certificates for authentic items. The ANA is a federally chartered non-profit organization for coin, token and medal collectors. Please write or e-mail if you would like an application for membership or a form to submit your metallic items to the ANA for verification of authenticity.

    The information in this introduction is mostly from the booklet, The Slave Tag: An Artifact of Urban Slavery, by Theresa A. Singleton.  Also helpful were the auction catalogs of Harvey Stack and of Rich Hartzog, who have featured slave tags in their sales.