Stono, caused such widespread alarm that a prohibitory duty of £100 was
immediately laid.[16] Importation was again checked; but in 1751 the
colony sought to devise a plan whereby the slightly restricted
immigration of Negroes should provide a fund to encourage the
importation of white servants, "to prevent the mischiefs that may be
attended by the great importation of negroes into this Province."[17]
Many white servants were thus encouraged to settle in the colony; but so
much larger was the influx of black slaves that the colony, in 1760,
totally prohibited the slave-trade. This act was promptly disallowed by
the Privy Council and the governor reprimanded;[18] but the colony
declared that "an importation of negroes, equal in number to what have
been imported of late years, may prove of the most dangerous consequence
in many respects to this Province, and the best way to obviate such
danger will be by imposing such an additional duty upon them as may
totally prevent the evils."[19] A prohibitive duty of £100 was
accordingly imposed in 1764.[20] This duty probably continued until the
Revolution.

The war made a great change in the situation. It has been computed by
good judges that, between the years 1775 and 1783, the State of South
Carolina lost twenty-five thousand Negroes, by actual hostilities,
plunder of the British, runaways, etc. After the war the trade quickly
revived, and considerable revenue was raised from duty acts until 1787,
when by act and ordinance the slave-trade was totally prohibited.[21]
This prohibition, by renewals from time to time, lasted until 1803.


6. ~Restrictions in North Carolina.~ In early times there were few
slaves in North Carolina;[22] this fact, together with the troubled and
turbulent state of affairs during the early colonial period, did not