ABSTRACT
The surviving issues of the South Carolina Gazette form one of the longest complete runs of any colonial newspaper. From its inception in 1732 through to the eve of the Revolution in 1775 nearly every issue is extant, making it a unique and vitally important source for the study of the eighteenth-century South. The South Carolina Gazette regularly published the presentments of the provincial Grand Jury. In the absence of any South Carolina court records before 1758, the only presentments to survive from the 1730s, 1740s and early 1750s were those published by the Gazette. Grand Jurors were selected from among the adult, white, male, propertyholding population and, as well as being involved in the judicial process by issuing indictments, they had an opportunity to make presentments to the judge about any community concerns. Grand Jury presentments are evidence, therefore, that slaves seized a degree of agency for themselves in colonial South Carolina.
