Introduction: Excerpted below is a report published by the Commons House of Assembly, one chamber of the South Carolina colonial legislature, on November 29, 1739, reviewing the recent events of the Stono Rebellion and issuing recommendations for plantation owners and slaveholders to follow going forward.

1. …[Y]our Committee find that a negro man named July belonging to Mr. Thomas

Elliott was very early & chiefly instrumental in saving his Master & his Family

from being destroyed by the Rebellious Negroes and that the Negro man July

had at several times bravely fought against the Rebels and killed one of them.

Your Committee therefore recommend that the Sd Negro July (as a reward for

his faithful Services and for an Encouragement to other Slaves to follow his

Example in case of the like Nature) shall have his Freedom and a Present of a

Suit of Cloaths, Shirt, Hat, a pair of stockings and a pair of Shoes….

6. That the Cloaths (herein before recommended by your Committee) to be given

to the Slaves (as a Reward for their Fidelity) be made with blue Strouds faced up

with Red & trimmed with brass Buttons.

7. That several of the Neighbouring Indians did assist in hunting for, taking and

destroying the sd Rebellious Negroes, For which your Committee propose that

the sd Indians be severally rewarded with a Coat, a Flap, a Hat, a pair of Indian

Stockings, a Gun, 2 Pounds of Powder & 8 Pounds of Bullets, Which Indians

Names are as follows (that is to say) Tobb, Old Jack, Peter, Tom and Philip and

five other Indians (whose names your Committee do not know) that came down

to Stono with Captain Coachman….

_________________________ Source: “Rewarding Indians, Catching Rebels,” in Mark M. Smith, ed., Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt, (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), p. 18. Original: A Commons House of Assembly Committee Report, in a Message to the Governor’s Council, Journal of the Upper House, no. 7 (November 29, 1739), pp. 266-67, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, S.C.