Fogel and Engerman Page 4

Fogel and Engerman Page 4

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Few books on slavery mention the fact that many overseers were black.  Instead, one is usually given the impression that slaveholders almost always employed whites as overseers.  However, in point of fact, most slaveholders used blacks as overseers.  Fogel and Engerman:

Among moderate-sized holdings (sixteen to fifty slaves) less than one out of every six plantations used a white overseer.  On large slaveholdings (over fifty slaves) only one out of every four owners used white overseers.  Even on estates with more than one hundred slaves, the proportion with white overseers was just 30 percent, and on many of these the planters were usually in residence. (Time on the Cross, pp. 200-201; see also p. 211)

What did outside observers say about slavery?  Europeans visited the South and left us their impressions of slavery. Civil War scholar John Tilley observed that their accounts suggest that most slaves were treated humanely:

Among these were Buckingham and Sir Charles Lyell, both Englishmen of distinction. Interestedly appraising the status of house-servants of his Southern hosts, Buckingham wrote that their situation was quite comparable to that of servants in the middle rank of life in his own country. He goes on record that, as a rule, they were "well-fed, well-dressed. . . ." Lyell's investigation led to a like conclusion: namely, that these house-slaves enjoyed advantages superior to those experienced by white servants in similar work in Europe. He found himself in agreement with the view expressed by William Thompson; after traveling in the South, Thompson, a Scotch weaver, had made public his finding that he had not seen in slave conditions one-fifth of the suffering which was the lot of employees in British factories. Observers of the high type of Chevalier, Fredrika Bremer, and Achille Murat, drew similar contrasts between the conditions prevailing among the "peasants" and "poor working people" of Europe and those obtaining in the slave sections of the United States. Bremer's verdict was that the slaves were "much better provided for."

Yet others came from abroad to be astonished by the variance between fiction and fact relative to slavery conditions. Lady Wortly found the Southern negroes generally happy and contented. Grund's observations convinced him that they were better cared for than the free negro element he had seen in the North. Charles Mackay singled out the farm labor of Europe, the shop tailors and seamstresses of the great English cities, as living in physical surroundings inferior to those of the slaves. In his work, Life and Liberty in America, MacKay called attention to the "paternal and patriarchal kindness" of many among the masters.

A digression may be indulged. True to his Northern preconceptions, historian [James] Rhodes manifests unmistakable annoyance because of the reports of the foreign visitors. He proceeds to use his scalpel and the result of his dissection of the phenomenon is the pronouncement that, with the exception of the Scotch weaver who likely mingled only with the less favored class, the opinions of the travelers were possibly colored by their enjoyment of "the generous hospitality of the Southern gentlemen." Such an evaluation of the effectiveness of social contact with slave-owners in beclouding the judgment of astute foreign investigators presents, perhaps, the climax of tributes to Southern courtesy and charm. (The Coming of the Glory, pp. 27-28)

Tilley continued by arguing that the findings of Northern student Frederick Law Olmsted and of a Northern governess agree with those of the European visitors:

A few years prior to the War between the States, a Northern student, Frederick Law Olmsted, made tours of various sections of the South in order personally to view the situation of negro bondman. In 1856, in a volume entitled Journey in the Seaboard States, he shared with the public the benefit of his findings. Some of these, it may be worthwhile briefly to summarize.

Generally, according to Olmsted, the slaves had food in plenty; in fact, it was his opinion that in this respect they were better provisioned for than "the proletarian class of any other part of the world." While in South Carolina, he noted that the house-servants were intelligent, competent, and comfortably dressed. Regarding the consideration given their "health and comfort," he believed it superior to that usually bestowed upon free domestics. His judgment was that the labor required of the negroes would not be considered excessively hard by free labor in the North. It interested him to find that, in their employment in the fields, the rule was to assign to each a specific task; this performed, his work for the day was done. He had personally observed a number of significant scenes, such as slaves leaving the field by one or two o'clock, the remainder of the day to be theirs to use as they willed. On one plantation he had seen, between three and four o'clock, "a dozen women and several men" returning to their quarters, their day's work completed. The slaves on "Mr. X's plantation" were treated with uniform kindness. . . .

Rhodes tells of a New England-born governess, employed on a Tennessee plantation, who expressed astonishment that there had failed to show up the "revolting horrors" of which she had heard. Her wonder had grown upon learning that physical punishment was there unknown; willingly, she testified to the sharp contrast between actual conditions and what her preconceived theories had prepared her to expect. (The Coming of the Glory, pp. 28-29)

Before we conclude this section, let’s take a moment to consider what the slaveholders themselves said in response to the charges of the abolitionists:

They vigorously denied promoting promiscuity and practicing barnyard techniques to increase fertility.  Although admitting that some masters abused their power, seducing or raping slave women, they argued that these were isolated cases and that such behavior was condemned by the generality of masters.  They pictured themselves as devoted family men who promoted stable family lives among their slaves.  Although they acknowledged their adherence to a pronatalist [pro-childbirth] policy, they insisted that this was in keeping with church doctrine, both Catholic and Protestant, and that their means of implementing this policy among the slaves—bounties of various sorts for married couples, released time and special rations for nursing and pregnant women, bounties for parents of large numbers of children—were along lines sanctified by religion and long practiced by civilized states.  They also acknowledged that the slave trade was an impediment to family life but contended that its deleterious [harmful] effects were exaggerated.  Masters forced to sell slaves for economic reasons, they insisted, sought either to sell slaves who were still single or to sell them in family groups.

As for food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, they argued that masters were at great pains to see that slaves were well taken care of in these respects because it was to their economic interests to do so.  Far from being poorly treated, they claimed that slaves were better fed, clothed, and sheltered than free laborers in the cities of the North.  To support their case they called attention to census and local registration data that showed that death rates were higher in northern cities than on slave plantations, turning the arguments that British abolitionists had used to condemn West Indian slavery into a critique of northern society.  They also denied that slaves were overworked, except in isolated cases, claiming that the daily hours on plantations were the normal ones for agriculture, that there was no work on the Sabbath, and that slaves also received part of a day, or all day, off on many Saturdays, on rainy days, and on various holidays. (Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, pp. 121-122)

As we have seen, there is a great deal of truth in what the slaveholders said in defense of the way they administered slavery.  Most of these men treated their slaves humanely.  One can make the case that Southern slaveholders treated their slaves better than many Northern factory owners treated their workers.  Most former slaves who discussed their treatment said their masters were good men who treated them well.

All this being said, slavery was still wrong. It had its positive aspects, and it was usually administered humanely, but it was still wrong.  It was wrong because it’s wrong to hold humans in bondage against their will if they have committed no crime.  My only point in noting some of the good aspects of slavery is to provide a little balance to the one-sided picture that is usually painted of it.  There were many forms of injustice in the world in the nineteenth century. Southern slavery was one of them, but it was by no means the worst of them.  The exploitation of free workers in many Northern factories was arguably just as bad as slavery, if not worse in a good number of cases.  The terrible abuse that slaves experienced on Northern slave ships was far worse than anything they experienced on most Southern plantations and farms.

Moreover, it’s important to keep in mind that most Southerners did not own slaves. According to the 1860 census, 69 percent of Southern families did not own slaves.  Scholars generally agree that only about 25 percent of Southern citizens were slaveholders. Notes Stampp,

Nearly three-fourths of all free Southerners had no connection with slavery through either family ties or direct ownership. The "typical" Southerner was not only a small farmer but also a nonslaveholder. (The Peculiar Institution, p. 30)

Of those Southerners who did own slaves, three-fourths owned less than ten. Half owned less than five, and often worked side by side with them in the fields. As for the "planter class," less than fifteen percent of slaveholders belonged to it. "The planter aristocracy," says Stampp, "was limited to some ten thousand families. . . ." (The Peculiar Institution, p. 30).