Transportation in the ante-bellum South Author:Ulrich Bonnell Phillips Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A small stock of horses was imported into South Carolina at an early date, and they were used with both saddle and harness by the planters when quick locomotion ... more »was needed, and especially by the Indian traders in pack-trains to the homes of the distant tribes. The South Carolina assembly seems to have made its first provision for road building in 1682. Thereafter it gave considerable attention to providing for the building and repair of roads and bridges as well as to the care of navigable waterways. In view of the danger of attack from Indians or Spaniards and the possibility of slave insurrection, the making and maintenance of roads for swift rallying by the militia was dealt with by the government as a military necessity of importance. In times of peace, however, a prevailing sentiment of security made the people very easy-going on this score, and the roads, in consequence, were often in wretched order. The general provisions of the law were that all male inhabitants above the age of sixteen years were liable for road duty to a specified amount each year in their respective road districts. Local commissioners were authorized to call the road-workers into service and superintend their labors on the public highways. Private roads were in many cases built by planters, singly or in cooperation, to supplement the highroads for their own convenience. In general there was large prevalence of individualism and little dependence upon public authority. The planters were disposed to decide upon their personal and local needs and to do the needed work informally with their own plantation gangs at times when the crops gave a respite from tillage. The chief concern with the law usually was to secure its permission for citizens to do with theirprivate resources what their interests requ...« less