Thereupon in 1712 her assembly copied
virtually verbatim the preamble and some of the ensuing clauses of the
Barbadian act of 1688, and added further provisions drawn from other
sources or devised for the occasion. This served as her basic law until
the shock of the Stono revolt in 1739 prompted the legislature to give the
statute a greater elaboration in the following year. The new clauses, aside
from one limiting the work which might be required by masters to fourteen
and fifteen hours per day in winter and summer respectively, and another
forbidding all but servants in livery to wear any but coarse clothing,
were concerned with the restraint of slaves, mainly with a view to the
prevention of revolt. No slaves were to be sold liquors without their
masters' approval; none were to be taught to write; no more than seven men
in a group were to travel on the high roads unless in company with white
persons; no houses or lands were to be rented to slaves, and no slaves were
to be kept on any plantation where no white person was resident.[3]
[Footnote 3: Cooper and McCord, _Statutes at Large of South Carolina_, VII,
408 ff.]
This act, supplemented by curfew and patrol laws and variously amended in
after years, as by the enhancement of penalties for negroes convicted of
striking white persons and by the requirement that masters provide adequate
food as well as clothing, was never repealed so long as slavery continued
to exist in South Carolina.
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