For more than a century, free people of African descent in the Palmetto State were required to pay a special "poll" or "head" tax every year to maintain their freedom. The amount of the tax and the range of exemptions changed over the years, and its application spread outward from Charleston as the state's population expanded in the nineteenth century.

Read more: https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/south-carolinas-capitation-tax-free-people-color-1756-1864