Song sheet for "The Fugitive's Song"
The Southern Agriculturist, as we saw in the previous post in this series, offered its readers practical advice on the management of slaves. In the unsigned article "The Education and Treatment of Overseers" in its April 1836 number, the South Carolina journal described the situation of the overseer's work:
... the occupation of the overseer is solitary, painful, and often attended with great risk of health and life. He is compelled to estrange himself in a great measure from all the pleasures of social intercourse; and to encounter during the sickly season, all the perils and terrors of that pestilential scourge, which infests our low country, and which walking in darkness, is seen only in the fearful havoc it makes. Surely, then, some compensation not only in the way of pecuniary reward, but also of personal consideration and standing, is due to those who willingly venture and sacrifice so much. [my emphasis]Yes, one's heart has to be deeply touched by the plight of the self-sacrificing overseer. But a cynic might also think about what sort of person would be willing to undertake the management of a slave plantation under such circumstances. And with what degree of humanity they were likely to apply toward assuring the well-being of the human property that wasn't even their own. And how well that comports with the claims of the patriarchal care slaveowners bestowed on their chattel.
A couple of observations also suggest themselves here. One is that the overseers indeed had plenty of opportunity for "social intercourse" with the slaves. In a completely unequal power relationship.
And the summertime risk of disease that overseers faced in the Carolina lowlands was also shared quite obviously with the slaves themselves.
But our anonymous author was moved with sympathy for those poor souls, the overseers:
Now in what light are overseers usually regarded? How are they generally treated ? We are pained to answer, that in a great majority of cases, they are regarded by their employers merely as dependents; who are to be kept at a distance - as hirelings, who are hardly worthy the wages of their daily labour. The planter looks down upon his overseer, as one of an inferior and degraded caste; and the latter, generally speaking, is but too apt to lose, in consequence, all feeling of self-regard for principle, and all sense of a community of interest with his employer. What is the natural consequence? Why, that the overseers, as a class, sink low in the scale of respectability, and that very few, other than the indigent, the idle and the ignorant can be brought to accept employment in that capacity. It cannot be otherwise; for respectable men will not, under the goadings of absolute want, offer themselves for service in a line of life, that is supposed to subject them to humiliation and disgrace.Actually, on that last point, some of the readers of that article in 1836 might have wondered if such a situation was altogether pleasant for the slaves involved.
Nothing can be clearer, than that the planter, is in the end, the principal sufferer by this state of things.
But the description of the problem our anonymous author is calling to the planters' attention for their urgent consideration is striking in what it says about the slave system itself as actually practiced. The overseer was the primary manager of the slaves, the executive director over the slave drivers who directly dealt with the slaves at work. Yet the job of overseers itself was considered so disreputable that no "respectable men" would seek or accept such a position even if faced with complete financial destitution, because to do so would be such a "humiliation and disgrace." Here, we don't need to speculate about what caliber of person would accept such a position. Our helpful anonymous author tells us: "an inferior and degraded caste; and the latter, generally speaking, is but too apt to lose, in consequence, all feeling of self-regard for principle, and all sense of a community of interest with his employer." Which again reminds us that whatever abstract feelings of Christian charity and patriarchal responsibility the slaveowner himself might feel for his human property, the overseer who actually managed their conditions of life on the largest plantations generally could be expected to take a somewhat less earnestly concerned attitude.
Anonymous pleads for efforts to raise the social status of the overseer to improve the quality of slave management, so that "the comfort and morals of the slave better secured." A security then obviously lacking in the eyes of this writer, who was by no means attempting a polemic against slavery.
Perhaps to encourage such a social elevation of the reputation of the overseer's highly dubious profession, Southern Agriculturist in its following (May 1836) issue featured an article by "An Overseer", titled "On the Conduct and Management of Overseers, Driver, and Slave". Offering model lessons from his own experiences, he describes how he managed the slave drivers, who were themselves typically slaves, giving us a glimpse of model Christian and civilized management under slavery:
Speaking of the driver, brings me to notice my management of him more particularly. I always required of him, that he should dress himself better than the other negroes. This caused him to maintain a pride of character before them, which was highly beneficial. Indeed, I constantly endeavoured, to do nothing which would cause them to lose their respect for him. With this view, I made it a rule never to scold or lecture my driver before the other negroes for any inadvertence or fault. If he did any thing which was out of the way, I took him by himself and lectured him severely. If the fault was of a flagrant nature, as was once the case with him, I publicly flogged him before the other negroes, and disgraced him by appointing another in his place. I would never listen to every tale that the negroes might have against the driver; but whenever they could urge any thing which seemed plausible or correct, I would consent to have him tried. At these trials, I would preside as umpire - would listen to the evidence for and against, and my decision always awarded a punishment of some kind to the guilty party - to the driver, if guilty, or to the accusers if they did not make good their charges. Persons might suppose that the fear of not making out their case, would prevent the negroes from accusing when really they had been injured; but I never found a case of the kind.On that last point, it's not entirely clear to me how he would know of such a case if the victims were afraid to complain on penalty of flogging or some other form of physical abuse. But that gives a good picture of how "respectable" management might look on a respectable plantation.
Overseer gives another example of shrewd Christian, civilized management principles on the slave plantation:
Having laid down rules for the regulation of your plantation, the first consideration is the study of the character of your negroes. This will not take you long to do; in one month the full character of very slave you superintend might be learnt. For the breach of every rule, certainty of punishment is every thing. If a negro is permitted to go once unpunished for a fault, he will at any time afterwards do the same and risk being flogged. I have always discovered that where the overseer is positive, that the negroes are better disciplined, more mildly treated, and consequently more happy; once, however, a negro has been punished, the fault should be overlooked, and his spirits should not be broken down by continually reminding him of his past misconduct. Not observing this rule, has very often ruined some of the very best negroes.No doubt the readers of the Southern Agriculturist could compliment themselves on recognizing the virtue of such progressive and compassionate management principles.
And here is a final example from Overseer of enlightenment management principles on the slave plantation:
Order should be strictly maintained among negroes. By this, I mean order, in their occupations and duties. Once or twice in the month, I made it my business to visit each negro house; I examined every thing therein; saw that the negroes permitted no dirt or filth to be collected about them, and as in variably punished them where I found they had done so, as if they had omitted to do their day's work. This plan of supervising your negro houses, works wonderful effects upon your plantation. It keeps your negroes cleanly and healthy; and prevents the concealment of all kind of roguery. If every overseer would follow this plan, I am convinced that there would be little use for patrol laws.Imagine having your boss show up at your house on the weekend to inspect your house for maintenance of his own standard of cleanliness. And having the right to punish you if it didn't measure up. And this was a enlightened ideal being held out here.
The slave patrols were posses in which non-slaveowning whites were compelled to participate that search for blacks who were not on plantations. These patrols were often vehicles of arbitrary abuse. They were also a key social institution by which the slaveowners won the support of non-slaveholders for the Peculiar Institution. Free whites who might be inclined to violent anger against wealthy slaveowners were given in the slave patrols the opportunity to vent their anger on vulnerable blacks, slave and free.
These patrols were instruments of state terror against slaves and any whites who might attempt to assist escaping slaves. They were also a direct precursor of Reconstruction-era terrorist organizations of which the Ku Klux Klan was the most infamous.
Tags: confederate heritage month 2009, slavery
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