750 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of North Carolina. The father of the founder of the greatest
military academy of the State attended his school and
boarded in his home....
Slave labour was used for all kinds of work and the
more intelligent of the Negro slaves were trained as
artisans to be used and leased. Slave artisans would bring
twice as much as an ordinary field hand in the market.
Master craftsmen owned their staff. Some masters, as the
system became more involved, hired slaves to their slave
artisans. Many slave artisans purchased their freedom
by the savings allowed them above the normal labour
expected.”
“The advertisements for runaways and sales are an index to this skill. They received the same or better wages than the poor white labourer and with the influence of the master got the best jobs. The Contractors for masons’ and carpenters’ work in Athens, Georgia in 1838 were petitioned to stop showing preference to Negro labourers. “The white man is the only real, legal, moral, and civil proprietor of this country and state. The right of his proprietorship reached from the date of the studies of those whitemen. Copernicus and Galileo, who indicated the sphericity of the earth; which sphericity hinted to another white man, Columbus, the possibility by a westerly course of sailing, of finding land. Hence by whitemen alone was this continent discovered, the whitemen alone, aye, those to whom you decline to give money for bread or clothes for their famishing families, in the logical manner of withholding work from them defending Negroes too in the bargain.” In Atlanta in 1858, a petition signed by 2 white mechanics and labourers sought protection against the black slave artisans of masters who resided in other sections. The very next year sundry white citizens were aggrieved that the City Council tolerated a Negro dentist to remain and operate in their midst. ‘Injustice to ourselves and the community it ought to be abated. We, the residents of Atlanta, appeal to you for justice’. A Census of free Negroes in Richmond County, Georgia, in 1819 showed carpenters, barbers, boatcorkers, saddlers, spinners, millwrights, holsters, weavers, harness makers, sawmill attendants and steamboat