The Last of America’s "Slave Tags"

UPCOMING EVENTS

Understatement of the year: I’m excited about this reunion! I’ll be in conversation with Dr. Carla Hayden, the 14th Librarian of Congress, and Congressman Steve Israel at the Gold Coast Book Fest in Oyster Bay on 6/30 at 2:30pm.

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ICYMI

“Green Room”

1. I went on a few shows to talk about disgraced former president Donald J. Trump and Hunter Biden. I always think my CNNi appearances are the strongest, which is perhaps a delusion because I can never ever find them after the fact.

2. My latest for the New York Times ran in print on Father’s Day.

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   The Last of America’s "Slave Tags"

“There’s just one more thing,” J. Grahame Long said as we were about to hang up the phone. “But I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

This was back in 2013. I had called Long, the curator of history at the Charleston Museum in South Carolina, to ask about a curious item for sale at the Early American store: An 1850 tag worn by enslaved people.

The listing didn’t sit right with me. There can be a kind of vexing fetishism that accompanies antebellum ephemera — as with Nazi memorabilia — and our discussion largely consisted of its research and exhibition function.

The Charleston Museum, which is America’s first museum, has 54 copper tags. That’s the largest collection of tags in the country. “We could have far more,” Long said, knowing that what he was about to divulge would be impossible to ignore: Every year, more than a hundred tags come across his desk, and 99 of them turn out to fake. In the early 20th century, novelty tags — fakes — were sold as souvenirs in Charleston.

The practice might have begun at the well-attended but financially disastrous South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition. The regional trade show opened in 1901, and attracted 670,000 visitors—including President Theodore Roosevelt—eager to pick up mementos that spoke to the city’s unique history.

The port city of Charleston had been the epicenter of the nation’s slave trade. Other cities, including New Orleans and Savannah, had a badge system in place (no examples remain) but Charleston implemented the most formal system, and proof in the form of exonumia was in demand.

Now fakes flood the market. It’s easy to imagine that, at least in the beginning, some of the silversmiths found leftover supplies—an original mold, the last of the dyes and stamps once issued by the city.

From the anachronistic safety of 2013, I tried to understand why a tourist, or as it seems, many tourists, would be moved to purchase such a thing. I imagined them wandering storefronts, tired of looking and sightseeing. They passed by textiles, prints and photographs of notable sights and victories of the Confederacy unmoved, but a display of slave tags turned their heads. Did they pick one up to decipher what it was? Did they recognize it immediately?

“This is a time that is gone and will never come again, and perhaps it appealed to people in a gothic sense,” Long said, after considering more vile impetuses behind the purchase. ”It’s the horror of human history.”

Each (real) medallion is under 2 inches square, and lists the city, the year, the ensalved person’s specialty, and an issue number. At the end of each year, they expired. According to the Statement of Receipts and Expenditures by the City Council of Charleston from the 1st July 1849, to 1st July 1850, a pamphlet issued by the treasurer’s office, there were a finite amount of badges issued for each trade. Servants received 2,400 badges, half of the total of 4,480 issued that year, with porters coming in second at 1,400, mechanics at 400, fruiterers at 180, and finally, there were 100 fishers. The city had a fixed fee set by trade and skill.

Some historians have described the tags as medallions worn around the neck or wrist, but Long says they were sewn onto clothes, worn as an identifying badges.

“At the time, folks were concerned about slaves roaming around town, especially after Denmark Vesey,” Long said. In 1822, Vesey planned a Bastille Day insurrection in which slaves would execute enslavers. Unfortunately, his plot was discovered and he, along with dozens of others, was hanged.

One-quarter to one-third of white families in the south were slaveholders, but in general enslaved people rarely left the plantations. The tags tell the far lesser-known story of urban slavery, when enslaved people were sometimes rented out to those who needed, but could not afford regular, supplemental labor. The “for hire” slaves were often encouraged to develop a special skill, and sometimes offered a modicum of independence, spending nights, or even the majority of their time, in “live-out” sections of towns.

This was profitable for the enslaver—and for the city. Enslavers had to pay fees.

Little is known about non-plantation slavery. Long chooses to see a small shred of hope in it. “Maybe he could save enough money to purchase his freedom or his families’,” he said, “or something he really needed.”

The tag, number “805,” was for sale at the Early American store for $2,995.00, and they attest to its authenticity. For occupation, the tag reads “servant.”

See you soonish! In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram and my books, as well as others mentioned on SMK, on Bookshop, Amazon, and your local bookstore or library. If you’d like me to sign or personalize my books, purchase copies from Oblong.