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"On the one hand, local law often required males between the ages of 18 and
45 to own guns so they could participate in the militia; on the other hand
regulations prohibited certain groups � such as Catholics, slaves, and
indentured servants � from owning guns at all."
I am not aware of ANY law that prohibited
indentured servants from owning guns (although finances would probably have made
it rare). As
part of requiring the arming of all freemen, several colonies imposed
requirements that masters give guns to indentured servants who had completed
their term of service. A 1699
Maryland statute (reiterated in 1715) directed what goods the master was to
provide a servant completing his term.
Along with clothes and a variety of tools, the master was also directed
to give a newly freed male servant, �One Gun of Twenty Shillings Price, not
above Four Foot by the barrel, nor less than Three and a Half; which said Gun
shall, by the Master or Mistress, in the Presence of the next Justice of the
Peace, be delivered to such Free-man, under the Penalty of Five Hundred Pounds
of Tobacco on such Master or Mistress omitting so to do�.� To encourage the newly freed servant to
keep his gun, �And the like Penalty on the said Free-man selling or disposing
thereof within the Space of Twelve Months�.� Starting in 1705, Virginia imposed a
similar requirement that freedom dues include a musket worth at least twenty
shillings.[1] A 1715 North Carolina statute gave
masters the choice of fulfilling freedom dues with either a suit or �a good
well-fixed Gun�.�[2]
[1] Archives of Maryland, 75:264; Abbot Emerson Smith, Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776 (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965), 239. [2] Laws of North Carolina�1715, ch. 46, in John D. Cushing, ed., The Earliest Printed Laws of North Carolina, 1669-1751 (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1977), 63; Farley Grubb, �The Statutory Regulation of Colonial Servitude: An Incomplete-Contract Approach,� Explorations in Economic History 37 [January, 2000]:69.
He is mostly right about
laws prohibiting slaves from owning guns. A few colonies had tight
licensing of slaves in possession of guns, without completely prohibiting
it. A Georgia statute of 1768 �for the Establishing and Regulating
Patrols� prohibited slaves possessing or carrying �Fire Arms or any Offensive
Weapon whatsoever, unless such Slave shall have a Ticket or License in Writing
from his Master Mistress or Overseer to Hunt and Kill Game Cattle or Mischievous
Birds or Birds of Prey�.� Other
provisions allowed a slave to possess a gun while in the company of a white
person 16 years or older, or while actually protecting crops from birds. Under no conditions was a slave allowed
to carry �any Gun Cutlass Pistol or other Offensive Weapon� from Saturday sunset
until sunrise Monday morning. The
�Patrols� alluded to it in the law�s title were for the purpose of �Searching
and examining any Negroe house for Offensive Weapons Fire Arms and
Ammunition.�[1]
[1] Candler, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, 19(part 1):76-78. Essentially identical language appears in the 1755 slave law, Ibid., 18-117-18. |
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