Laborer Thomas Dixon and His Hired Slave Will

"the commissioners paid Thomas Dixon wages for being a laborer and paid him the wages of his slave Will at the same rate..."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 27

Most payrolls kept by the overseers that I've seen include both free and slave laborers. In the earlier payrolls, the "Negroes" are at the bottom. In latter payrolls there is no division but the wages of the slave laborers are received by others.

The scan below shows that in at least one case, both the master and his slave worked as laborers and earned the same wage though, of course, the master Thomas Dixon collected the money for Will. Dixon's name appears on other payrolls, for example: http://archivepayrolls.blogspot.com/2015/02/payroll-for-laborers-august-1796.html. 

In that 1796 payroll Dixon was paid by the month and made just over 3 Pounds Maryland money for working 22 days or the equivalent of almost $8 a month. So it is possible that when Dixon hired on as a yearly labor in 1797, he risked making less money. (If the monthly hires worked fewer days, he would have made more.) Perhaps the commissioners made Dixon's working by the year a condition for their hiring his slave Will.

 

I'll discuss the $3 deduction for Will's smallpox inoculation in another post.