THE LIBRARY 
 
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 A Documentary History of 
 
 American Industrial 
 
 Society 
 
 Volume I
 
 A Documentary History of 
 
 American Industrial 
 
 Society 
 
 Edited by John R. Commons 
 
 Ulrich B. Phillips, Eugene A. Gilmore 
 
 Helen L. Sumner, and John B. Andrews 
 
 Prepared under the auspices of the American Bureau of 
 
 Industrial Research, with the co-operation of the 
 
 Carnegie Institution of Washington 
 
 With preface by Richard T. Ely 
 and introdudlion by John B. Clark 
 
 Volume I 
 Plantation and Frontier 
 
 Cleveland, Ohio 
 
 The Arthur H. Clark Company 
 I 9 I o
 
 Copyright, 1909, by 
 
 THE ARTHUR H. CLARK CO. 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 He, 
 
 U>5 
 
 y> 
 
 AMERICAN BUREAU OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH 
 
 DIRECTORS AND EDITORS 
 
 Richard T. Ely, PH.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy, 
 University of Wisconsin 
 
 John R. Commons, a. M., Professor of Political Economy, 
 University of Wisconsin 
 
 John B. Clark, PH.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy, 
 Columbia University 
 
 V. EVERIT Macy, Chairman, New York City 
 
 Albert Shaw, PH.D., LL.D., Editor, American Review 
 of Reviews 
 
 UlRICH B. Phillips, PH.D., Professor of History and Political 
 Science, Tulane University 
 
 Eugene A. GiLMORE, LL.B., Professor of Law, 
 University of Wisconsin 
 
 Helen L. Sumner, PH.D., United States Bureau of Labor 
 
 John B. Andrews, PH.D., Executive Secretary, 
 American Association for Labor Legislation
 
 THE DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF AMERICAN 
 INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY COMPRISES— 
 
 Vol. I Plantation and Frontier, Volume 1, 
 
 by Ulrich B. Phillips 
 
 Vol. II Plantation and Frontier, Volume 2, 
 
 by Ulrich B. Phillips 
 
 Vol. Ill Labor Conspiracy Cases, 1806-1842, Volume 1, 
 
 by John R. Commons and Eugene A. Gilmore 
 
 Vol. IV Labor Conspiracy Cases, 1806-1842, Volume 2, 
 
 by John R. Commons and Eugene A. Gilmore 
 
 Vol. V Labor Movement, 1820-1840, Volume 1, 
 
 by John R. Commons and Helen L. Sumner 
 
 Vol. VI Labor Movement, 1820-1840, Volume 2, 
 
 by John R. Commons and Helen L. Sumner 
 
 Vol VII Labor Movement, 1840-1860, Volume 1, 
 by John R. Commons 
 
 Vol. VIII Labor Movement, 1840-1860, Volume 2, 
 by John R. Commons 
 
 Vol. IX Labor Movement, 1860-1880, Volume 1, 
 
 by John R. Commons and John B. Andrews 
 
 Vol. X Labor Movement, 1860-1880, Volume 2, 
 
 by John R. Commons and John B. Andrews
 
 ^-■ 
 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I 
 
 General Preface by Richard T. Ely. . . .19 
 
 General Introduction by John Bates Clark . . 33 
 
 Introduction to Volumes I and II by Ulrich B. Phillips . 69 
 Bibliography, Volumes I and II . . . . 105 
 
 Plantation and Frontier Documents: 
 
 I Plantation Management 
 
 I Standards of managerial duty .... 109 
 
 (a) Instructions by Richard Corbin to his agent ; Virginia, 
 
 1759 
 > (b) Instructions by J. W. Fowler to his overseers; Mis- 
 
 — sissippi, 1857 
 
 (c) Rules on P. C. Weston's rice estate; South Carolina, 
 1856 
 fj (d) Contract between Charles Manigault and his over- 
 
 3| seer; Georgia, 1853 
 
 '^ (e) Instructions by Alexander Telfair to his overseer; 
 
 "^ Georgia, 1832 
 
 (f) Advice by a professional planter; Jamaica, circa 1800 
 , 2 The inconvenience of a rigid labor supply . . . 130 
 
 p Letter of Nevi^^ear Branson to Robert Carter; Virginia, 
 
 A 1785 
 
 ^ 3 Soil wastage, typical . . . . -131 
 
 i-- Extract from J. L. Williams's The Territory of Florida 
 
 (1837) 
 
 4 Soil preservation, exceptional . . . .132 
 
 Editorial from the Federal Union (Milledgeville, Ga.), 
 April 23, 1850 
 
 5 Breakdown of the plantation system in the cereal producing 
 
 area ....... 133 
 
 Advertisement from the Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), 
 Oct. 22, 1767
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Records of a rice plantation .... 134 
 
 Extracts from the plantation records of Louis Manigault; 
 Chatham County, Georgia, 1 833-1 860 
 
 (a) General statement for 1833- 1839 
 
 (b) Lists of negroes in 1857 
 
 (c) Lists of negroes in i860 
 
 (d) Operations; 1855-1860 
 
 (e) Plantation jottings; 1845 
 
 Accounts of expensesj cropf, and sales on a sea-island cotton 
 
 and rice plantation . . . . .150 
 
 Extracts from the plantation record book of A. Porter, ex- 
 ecutor of the Alexander estate; Liberty County, Ga. 
 
 (a) Expense account, debit and credit, 1 829-1 830, 1830 
 1831 and 1831-1832 
 
 (b) Account of crops, proceeds, and division of profits; 
 1829-1830, 1830-1831 and 1831-1832 
 
 (c) Expense account; 1747- 1848 and 1848- 1849 
 
 (d) Account of crops, proceeds, and division of profit; 
 1 847- 1 848 and 1 848- 1 849 
 
 (e) Expense account; 1852-1853 
 
 (f) Account of crops, proceeds, and division of profit; 
 1852-1853 
 
 Management of scattered plantations; Georgia, 1844- i84g 167 
 Letters of John B. Lamar 
 
 (a) To Howell Cobb; Jan. 8. 1844 
 
 (b) To Howell Cobb; March 17, 1844 
 
 (c) To Howell Cobb; May 15, 1844 
 
 (d) To Howell Cobb; Feb. 17, 1845 
 
 (e) To Howell Cobb; Feb. 19, 1845 
 
 (f) To Mrs. Howell Cobb; Dec. 2, 1845 
 
 (g) To Howell Cobb; Apr. 12, 1846 
 
 (h) To Mrs. Howell Cobb; Apr. 22, 1846 
 (i) To Howell Cobb; Dec. 29, 1846 
 (j) To Howell Cobb; Jan. 10, 1847 
 (k) To Howell Cobb; May 16, 1847 
 (1) To Howell Cobb; Feb. 7, 1848 
 (m) To Mrs. Howell Cobb; Nov. 18, 1849 
 /// success in nonresident planting; Alabama, 1S35. Experi- 
 ment abandoned ..... 183
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I 
 
 (a) Letter of Daniel McMIchael to Thomas W. Glover; 
 Lowndes County, Ala., Sept. lo, 1837 
 
 (b) Letter of Thomas W. Glover to Daniel McMichael; 
 Orangeburg, S.C., Sept. 21, 1837 
 
 (c) Letter of Daniel McMichael to Thomas W. Glover; 
 Lowndes County, Ala., Oct. 11, 1837 
 
 10 Plantation by-industries . . . . .186 
 
 (a) Letter of Alexander Spotswood to the British Council 
 of Trade; Virginia, 17 10 
 
 (b) Extract from A Perfect Description of Virginia 
 (1649) 
 
 (c) Extract from the "Diary of John Harrower, Vir- 
 ginia, 1774-1775" 
 
 (d) Letter of George Washington to Thomas Newton 
 Jr.; Virginia, Jan. 23, 1773 
 
 (e) Letter of George Washington to Thomas Newton 
 Jr.; Virginia, Dec. 14, 1773 
 
 (f) Extract from a letter of Elisha Cain to Alexander 
 Telfair; Georgia, Sept. 11, 1829 
 
 (g) Extract from a letter of same to same; Nov. 5, 1829 
 (h) Extract from a letter of Elisha Cain to Miss Mary 
 
 Telfair; Oct. 25, 1833 
 (i) Extract from a letter of James Gunnelly to Miss 
 Mary Telfair; Georgia, Jan. 11, 1835 
 
 II Plantation Routine 
 
 1 "Diary of work on a sea-island cotton plantation" . . 195 
 
 Extract from the plantation diary of Thomas P. Ravenel; 
 1847-1850 
 
 2 "Routine of incidentals on a sea-island plantation" . . 203 
 
 Memoranda by C. C. Pinckney; 181 8-18 19 
 
 3 Work on a large tobacco and wheat plantation; Virginia 208 
 
 Extracts for typical weeks in 1854; manager's journal of 
 Belmead Plantation 
 
 4 Routine of work on a great sugar plantation . .214 
 
 Extracts from the Plantation Diary of Valcour Aime; 1827, 
 1833, 1837, 1844, 1845, 1852, and 1853 
 
 5 Cotton Routine . . . . . .231 
 
 Extracts from the plantation diary of Leven Covington; 
 1829-1830
 
 lo AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 III Types of Plantation 
 
 1 Virginia tide water ..... 245 
 
 (a) Advertisement from the Virginia Gazette, Feb. 5, 
 1767 
 
 (b) Advertisement, ibid.; Oct. 6, 1774 
 
 2 Plantation equipment; Virginia Northern Neck, IJJI . . 247 
 
 Report of Thomas Oliver, overseer, to James Mercer ; May, 
 1 77 1 (reproduced in facsimile) 
 
 3 A rice estate on the North Carolina coast . . .251 
 
 Advertisement from the Charleston City Gazette, Jan. I, 
 1825 
 
 4 A sea-island cotton estate ..... 252 
 
 Advertisement from the Charleston City Gazette, Jan. 17, 
 1825 
 
 5 The Georgia uplands ..... 252 
 
 Advertisement from the Augusta (Ga,) Chronicle, July 12, 
 1800 
 
 6 A Red River establishment .... 253 
 
 Advertisement from the Red River Republican (Alexan- 
 dria, La.), Jan. 6, 1849 
 
 7 The Shenandoah regime ..... 254 
 
 (a) Extract from the Diary of Lucian Minor; 1823 
 
 (b) Advertisement from the Winchester (Va.) Gazette ^ 
 Jan. 9, 1799 
 
 8 Poor husbandry in East Tennessee . . . 256 
 
 Extract from the Diary of Lucian Minor; 1823 
 
 9 A vast sugar estate ..... 256 
 
 Extract from W. H. Russell's My Diary North and South 
 (1863) 
 
 IV Staples 
 
 1 Rice . . . . . . .259 
 
 Extract from R. F. W. Allston, Essay on Sea Coast Crops 
 
 (1854) 
 
 2 Indigo, account of its introduction as a staple in South Caro- 
 
 lina ....... 265 
 
 Letter of Eliza Lucas Pinckney to her son ; South Carolina, 
 
 1785 
 
 3 The introduction of sea-island cotton . . . 266 
 
 Letter of Thomas Spalding; Georgia, 1828
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I ii 
 
 4 Sea-island cotton, methods . . . .271 
 
 (a) Extract from R. F. W. Allston's Essay on Sea Coast 
 Crops (1854) 
 
 (b) Extract from Whitemarsh B. Seabrook's Memoir on 
 Cotton (1844) 
 
 5 Upland cotton methods ..... 276 
 
 Extract from J. A. Turner's The Cotton Planters' Manual 
 
 (1857) 
 
 6 Sugar methods in Jamaica .... 281 
 
 Extract from M. G. Lewis's Journal of a West India Pro- 
 prietor; 1815 
 
 7 Uncertainty of returns in tobacco .... 282 
 
 Letter of Benedict Calvert to Lord Baltimore; Maryland, 
 1729 
 
 8 The tyranny of King Cotton .... 283 
 
 (a) Article from the Georgia Courier (Augusta), Oct. 
 II, 1827 
 
 (b) Editorial from the Georgia Courier (Augusta), June 
 21, 1827 
 
 (c) Report of the Wateree Agricultural Society; South 
 Carolina, 1843 
 
 (d) Editorial from the Federal Union (Milledgeville, 
 Ga.), June 13, 1843 
 
 V Plantation Supplies and Factorage 
 
 1 A Georgia planter buys negro clothes in London . . 293 
 
 Letter of James Habersham to William Knox; Georgia, 
 1764 
 
 2 An invoice of plantation, household, and personal supplies 296 
 
 Order of George Washington; Virginia, 1767 
 
 3 Flour, Codfish, and Vegetables from the North . . 299 
 
 News item from the Baton Rouge (La.) Gazette, Oct. 21, 
 1826 
 
 4 Cause of the high rates of planters' supplies . . 299 
 
 Extract from the Diary of Edward Hooker (South Caro- 
 lina, 1805) 
 
 5 Dearth of shops inconvenient .... 300 
 
 "Extracts from the Diary of Col. London Carter" (Vir- 
 ginia, 1770-1774) 
 
 6 Complaint against factors, foreign and local . . 301
 
 12 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 (a) Letter of George Washington to Robert Cary & Co.; 
 Virginia, 1770 
 
 (b) Extract from letters of George Mason to his son; 
 Virginia, May 22, 1792 
 
 7 An efficient factor and broker in Charleston . . 307 
 
 Advertisement from the South Carolina State Gazette, 
 Sept. 6, 1784 
 
 VI Plantation Vicissitudes 
 
 1 Losses by disease and accidents among the slaves . . 309 
 
 (a) Extract from a letter to Eliza Lucas [Pinckney] ; 
 South Carolina, 1760 
 
 (b) Letter of Jonas Smith to J. B. Lamar; Georgia,Aug. 
 25, 1852 
 
 (c) Same to same; Oct. 5, 1852 
 
 (d) Same to same Oct. 18, 1852 
 
 (e) Letter of Stancil Barwick to J. B. Lamar; Georgia, 
 July 15, 1855 
 
 (f) Letter of Stephen Newman to Miss Mary Telfair; 
 Georgia, Feb. 28, 1837 
 
 (g) Extract from a letter of Elisha Cain to Alexander 
 Telfair; Georgia, Jan. 16, 1830 
 
 (h) Letter of J. N. Bethea to W. B. Hodgson ; Georgia, 
 
 May I, 1859 
 (i) News item from the Federal Union (Milledgeville, 
 
 Ga.), Sept. 17, 1834 
 (j) News item from the Federal Union, Sept. 17, 1834, 
 
 clipped from the Charleston Courier 
 (k) News item from the Red River Republican (Alex- 
 andria, La.), Aug. 3, 1850 
 (1) News item from the Red River Republican, March 
 
 16, 1850 
 (m) Letter of James Habersham to William Knox; 
 
 Georgia, 1772 
 (n) News item from the Louisiana Courier (New 
 
 Orleans), March 3, 1828 
 
 2 Bad seasons and slave runaways . . . •319 
 
 (a) Letter of Joseph Valentine to George Washington; 
 Virginia, 1771
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I 13 
 
 (b) Letter of William Capers to Charles Manigault; 
 Georgia, 1861 
 Embarrassments from debt . . . .321 
 
 Letter of Mason to George Washington; Virginia, 1773 
 
 VII Overseers 
 An overseer s testimonial ..... 323 
 
 Letter of S. P. Myrick to J. B. Lamar; Georgia, 1854 
 Overseers wanted ...... 323 
 
 Notice from the South Carolina Gazette, Jan. 6, 1787 
 A planter's apprentice . . . . .324 
 
 Extract from the Diary of Col. Landon Carter (Virginia, 
 1770) 
 A question of authority ..... 324 
 
 Letter of S. L. Straughan to Robert Carter; Virginia, 1787 
 The Shortcomings of overseers .... 325 
 
 (a) Extract from a letter of James Habersham to William 
 Knox; Georgia, 1776 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of G. M. Salley to Thomas W. 
 Glover ; Alabama, 1836 
 
 (c) "Extracts from the Diary of Col. Landon Carter" 
 (Virginia, 1772-1774) 
 
 (d) Extracts from the "Diary of John Harrower" (Vir- 
 ginia, 1775) 
 
 (e) News item from the New Orleans Bee, May 17, 1845 
 
 The routine problems and policies of an efficient overseer 330 
 Letters of Elisha Cain to his employers; Georgia, 1 831-1840 
 
 (a) To Alexander Telfair; Feb. 18, 1831 
 
 (b) To Miss Mary Telfair; Nov. 20, 1836 
 
 (c) To Miss Mary Telfair; Dec. 14, 1840 
 
 Assistant overseers ..... 336 
 
 Extract of a letter from Charles Manigault to J. T. Cooper ; 
 
 Paris, July 12, 1848 
 The purchase of a plantation foreman . . . 337 
 
 Extracts of letters from William Capers to Charles Mani- 
 gault; Georgia i860 
 
 (a) Letter of Aug. 5, i860 
 
 (b) Letter of Aug. II, i860 
 
 (c) Letter of Oct. 15, i860
 
 14 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 VIII Plantation Labor: Indented Whites 
 
 1 Classes and conditions of white servants . . . 339 
 
 Extract from Hugh Jones's Present State of Virginia 
 
 (1724) 
 
 2 Favorable views of the indented system . . . 340 
 
 (a) Extract from John Hammond's Leah and Rachel 
 (1656) 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of George Alsop to his father; 
 Maryland, circa 1659 
 
 3 An adverse criticism ..... 343 
 
 Extract from William Eddis's Letters from America 
 
 4 Indented labor useless on a disturbed frontier . . 344 
 
 Letter of Valentine Crawford to George Washington ; Vir- 
 ginia, 1774 
 
 5 Runaway redemptioners and convicts . . . 346 
 
 (a) Advertisements from the Virginia Gazette, 1736- 
 
 1737 
 
 (b) Advertisements from the Virginia Gazette, Feb. 26, 
 
 1767 
 
 (c) Advertisement from the South Carolina Gazette, 
 June 16-23, 1799 
 
 6 A stampede of Spanish and Italian bondmen in British 
 
 Florida ....... 348 
 
 (a) News item from the Boston Chronicle, Sept. 26, 1768 
 
 (b) Extract from Bernard Romans's A Concise Natural 
 History of East and West Florida 
 
 7 Indented artisans ...... 352 
 
 (a) Advertisement from the Virginia Gazette, April 16, 
 1767 
 
 (b) Advertisement from the Virginia Gazette, March 26, 
 1767 
 
 (c) Advertisement from the Virginia Gazette, Nov. 26, 
 1767 
 
 8 Wage-earning servants and artisans imported under contract 354 
 
 (a) Letter of Richard Cumberland to Roger Pinckney at 
 Charleston; London, 1767 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of Wm. Fitzhugh to Eraser 
 Partis; Virginia, 1680 
 
 (c) Extract from a letter of George Mason to his son; 
 Virginia, 1792
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I 15 
 
 9 The autobiography of a criminally disposed redemptioner 357 
 Extract from the Vain Prodigal Life and Tragical Penitent 
 Death of Thomas Hellier (1678) 
 
 10 Career and observations of a high grade redemptioner 366 
 Extracts from the "Diary of John Harrower, 1773-1776" 
 
 11 Convict transportation, vicissitudes . . . 372 
 News item from the Boston Chronicle^ March 14-21, 1768 
 
 12 Items on the trade in servants .... 374 
 
 (a) Extract from a letter of Wm. Byrd to Mr. Andrews 
 of Rotterdam; Virginia, 1739 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of John Brown to William 
 Preston ; Virginia, 1774 
 
 (c) Advertisement from the Knoxville (Tenn.) Reg- 
 ister, Dec. 8, 1818.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I 
 
 Photographic Facsimile of the indorsement by Thomas 
 Oliver, overseer, of his Report on Equipment of a Plantation, 
 Virginia, 1771 . . . . . • 247 
 
 Photographic Facsimile of the above Report . . 249
 
 PREFACE 
 
 To the thoughtful man the genesis of a great under- 
 taking has an interest of its own apart from the final 
 result. It is but natural, therefore, to suppose that 
 those interested in the Documentary History of Amer- 
 ican Industrial Society should wish to know something 
 of the causes that led to the organization of the Amer- 
 ican Bureau of Industrial Research and of the purposes 
 in view in the work prepared under its auspices. 
 
 In 1886, I published a book The Labor Movement 
 in America^ as the first step to a more exhaustive study 
 of industrial society. In the preface to that book I said, 
 "I do not claim to have written a history of the labor 
 movement in America. I offer this book merely as a 
 sketch which will, I trust, some day be followed by a 
 book worthy of the title History of Labor in the New 
 Worlds I thought then, that within a few years at 
 most, I should be able to accomplish my purpose, but 
 the undertaking was greater than I anticipated, and as 
 often as I attempted to begin the work, I was deterred 
 by the difficulties to be overcome. 
 
 In the first place there was not sufficient collection of 
 material for such a work as I proposed to myself, and 
 the material that might exist was scattered throughout 
 the country in public and private libraries, much of it 
 inaccessible. In no country has the value of economic 
 records been sufficiently appreciated; but in America 
 least of all has their bearing on national history been 
 understood.
 
 20 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Something had already been done in France in col- 
 lecting and editing the records of the guilds of the 
 Middle Ages. In 1837 under the patronage of the 
 king, and the direction of the minister of public instruc- 
 tion, M. Depping was enabled to reprint Les Registres 
 des Metiers et Marchandises de la Ville de Paris, begun 
 in the thirteenth century by Etienne Boileau in the 
 reign of Louis IX. Boileau's learned editor in 1837, 
 in including this single volume in the magnificent 
 Collection de Documents inedits sur I'histoire de 
 France, apologetically observes that though it is but 
 the records of primitive associations of artisans, yet it 
 deserves a place in a series designed to illuminate the 
 civil and political history of France. 
 
 The movement towards the preservation and publica- 
 tion of economic records had also a small beginning in 
 other countries, although documents of economic his- 
 tory have not been the main object of any single large 
 undertaking, but have worked their way to the atten- 
 tion of societies and governmental authorities interested 
 originally in the genealogical, political, literary, eccle- 
 siastical, and legal muniments of their nation's history. 
 Such, for example, have been the Camden and Selden 
 Societies of Great Britain, and the numerous local and 
 county societies such as the Surtees Society for the 
 Northern Counties, the Chatham Society for Lancaster 
 and Chester, the Oxford Historical Society, and others. 
 
 But in America when I began preparations for my 
 book, there was nothing of the kind to fall back upon, 
 and I had to make my own collection, which in time 
 included many books, newspapers, scrap-books, and 
 pamphlets indispensable for the interpretation of our 
 labor history. The value of fugitive pamphlets, re- 
 ports, manifestos, advertisements, and newspaper arti-
 
 PREFACE 21 
 
 cles as material for the understanding and interpreta- 
 tion of social conditions and movements was then so 
 little appreciated that I met with scant encouragement. 
 I well remember that once a friend and colleague, look- 
 ing at the stacks of newspapers in my office at the Johns 
 Hopkins University, said to me: "Ely, what you need 
 is a good fire to rid you of all this rubbish." Extensive 
 as was my collection, it was altogether inadequate for 
 the larger work I had in mind, and the mere labor and 
 expense of collecting, to say nothing of the task of or- 
 ganizing and writing, were beyond my own resources. 
 I decided, finally, that a work of the scope I had 
 planned was beyond the power of one man to accom- 
 plish, and I set myself, therefore, to secure by the co- 
 operation of many what could not be accomplished by 
 one. By letters and personal interviews with prominent 
 men throughout the country, I strove to secure the 
 organization of a society for industrial research, with 
 a fund sufficient to cover the expense of investigation. 
 After various fruitless efforts, Mr. Robert Hunter of 
 New York, who was interested in my plan, introduced 
 me to Mr. V. Everit Macy, also of New York. Mr. 
 Macy made the initial contribution to our contemplated 
 society, and generous contributions were made also by 
 Mr. Robert Fulton Cutting and Mr. Justice Henry 
 Dugro of New York, Mr. Stanley McCormick of Chi- 
 cago, Captain Ellison Smyth of Greenville, S.C., and 
 others. By these contributions our success was assured, 
 and in March, 1904, the American Bureau of Industrial 
 Research was organized for the purpose of preparing 
 a full and complete history of American industrial 
 society. Mr. V. Everit Macy was elected treasurer, 
 an advisory committee was appointed, consisting of 
 Professor John B. Clark of Columbia University and
 
 *a AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Dr. Albert Shaw, editor of the American Review of 
 Reviews^ and the direction of the work was entrusted 
 to Professor John R. Commons and myself. Professor 
 Commons had been a student of mine at Johns Hopkins 
 University, attracted there by my Labor Movement in 
 America. He had become a specialist in labor sub- 
 jects, and at the time of our organization was connected 
 with the National Civic Federation. He was inter- 
 ested in the new enterprise and promised his coopera- 
 tion and was therefore associated with me in the direc- 
 tion of the work. We secured also, as collaborators, the 
 services of Dr. Ulrich B. Phillips, Dr. Helen L. Sum- 
 ner, and Dr. John B. Andrews, and we had the assist- 
 ance of Professor Eugene A. Gilmore of the University 
 of Wisconsin, the special work of each being indicated 
 in the title of these volumes. 
 
 On consideration it was decided to continue the work 
 of collection already begun on the larger and more 
 extended scale which the possession of our fund made 
 possible, and the first year of our activity as an organi- 
 zation was devoted to preliminary preparation, our 
 efforts being confined chiefly to locating material. 
 Visits were paid to many of the large libraries of the 
 country, to the headquarters of national labor union 
 organizations, and to many employers' associations. 
 Correspondence was also begun with libraries every- 
 where, asking for the names of all labor papers or 
 papers sympathetic to labor in their possession. A list 
 of nearly two hundred newspapers of this description 
 known to have existed were sent to over five hundred 
 libraries with the request that those might be checked 
 which were in their files. In this way it was possible 
 to locate all the important newspaper sources of labor 
 history now accessible.
 
 PREFACE 23 
 
 While Professor Commons and his force were thus en- 
 gaged in a preliminary survey of the field, I visited the 
 most important centers, Chicago, Boston, Richmond, 
 Washington, and New York, conferring with men who 
 were interested in our work, securing contributions, and 
 examining source material. I also visited the Mesaba 
 iron range, and investigated labor conditions in that 
 important industry. As a result of the interest thus 
 aroused we afterwards received a number of valuable 
 collections of papers and documents bearing on labor 
 and labor movements. 
 
 The next step was to secure as much as possible of 
 the material thus located. Personal visits were made 
 to the libraries of Indianapolis, Cincinnati, New York, 
 Providence, Boston, Lynn, Lowell, Worcester, Detroit, 
 St. Louis, Kansas City, Topeka, Pittsburg, and other 
 places. Wherever possible, the desired material was 
 secured, and where it could not be obtained, transcripts 
 were made of the more important documents and news- 
 paper articles. This work for the East and West was 
 under the direction of Professor Commons, ably assisted 
 by Dr. Helen L. Sumner and Dr. John B. Andrews. 
 Dr. Ulrich B. Phillips undertook the investigation of 
 the scarcely touched southern field, visiting personally 
 the libraries of Richmond, Charleston, Columbia, 
 Atlanta, Savannah, Louisville, Nashville, New Orleans, 
 and other minor points. This field survey revealed an 
 unexpected and surprising wealth of sources in the form 
 of newspapers published in the interest of early labor 
 movements in America, manuscripts, and pamphlet 
 material, but the difficulties to be overcome were dis- 
 heartening. Some of the newspapers had never, so far 
 as the librarians in charge were aware, been consulted 
 before, and in one case an important file of a daily
 
 2 4 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 paper published by the trade unions of New York dur- 
 ing sixteen months in 1834- 183 5 could not at the time 
 be examined because it lay under the accumulations of 
 fifty years. In some libraries labor journals were dis- 
 covered whose existence had been forgotten, although 
 they gave information which was absolutely indis- 
 pensable to any understanding of the labor history of 
 that important period from 1830 to 1850. In different 
 libraries a large number of priceless pamphlets were 
 discovered which were not classified under any subject, 
 but are to be found by looking up such catch words as 
 Report, Remark, Circular, Address, etc. Words like 
 these were magic incantations that brought to light 
 treasures not to be otherwise discovered. Numbers of 
 pamphlets were published between 1827 and 1837 of 
 which only a single copy is known to be preserved, and 
 of others that were circulated by thousands not a single 
 copy remains. Of the sixty or more papers that were 
 distinctly on the labor side during this same period, 
 files of not more than fifteen can be located, and it is 
 probable that not a single file of the true labor papers 
 is complete. Nearly every city and almost every trade 
 organization of national scope had its labor paper, con- 
 vention proceedings were published in pamphlet form, 
 constitutions and by-laws ran through several editions, 
 and yet, except for a few scattering copies they seem to 
 have disappeared from the earth. Days and nights of 
 fruitless search have led to nothing but disappointment, 
 though now and again the heart has been gladdened 
 by real ''finds". Every possible place was ransacked 
 and some apparently impossible ones, old book shops 
 and dusty attics. Auction lists were scanned, plantation 
 records, family correspondence, diaries, commission re- 
 ports, census tables, tax digests, deed books, probate re-
 
 PREFACE 25 
 
 turns, everything has yielded its treasures to these re- 
 search workers. 
 
 Among the rarer and more important labor papers 
 secured by the Bureau are : a volume of the Man^ New 
 York, 1834, the Workingman's Advocate^ Chicago, 
 1864-1876, Fincher's Trades Review^ Philadelphia, 
 1 863- 1 866, and Le Socialiste, New York, 1 871- 1873. A 
 most valuable file of the earliest German labor paper. 
 Die Republik der Arbeiter, edited by William Weit- 
 ling, 1 850- 1 855, was presented by the Deutsche Freie 
 Gemeinde of Philadelphia, also a file of The Practical 
 Christian, edited by Adin Ballou, 1840- 1860, presented 
 by his daughter Mrs. Abbie Ballou Heywood. The 
 Bureau has also secured files of the Yiddish newspapers 
 beginning with 1886 and convention proceedings of 
 Yiddish labor Unions and socialistic groups which re- 
 veal most clearly the history of the Yiddish movement 
 in America. 
 
 Of perhaps even greater importance is the pamphlet 
 collection. The first step in collecting this material was 
 to make a list of all the pamphlets referred to in news- 
 papers of the times. This list grew from three hundred 
 names to nearly two thousand. Most of these pamphlets 
 were of a fugitive character, dating back to the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century, or, as in the case of the 
 Rules of Work of the Masons of the Town of Boston to 
 the latter part of the eighteenth century. This collec- 
 tion includes constitutions of local trades unions, reports 
 of local and state conventions, platforms of labor unions 
 and workingmen's political parties, reports of the pro- 
 ceedings of national trades union conventions, constitu- 
 tions and by-laws of national trades unions, judicial 
 decisions in county and state courts, travellers' notes re- 
 garding important strikes, pronunciamentos of associa-
 
 a6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 tions of employers and workingmen at the time of im- 
 portant strikes. Under this head may also be noted a 
 collection of editorials, advertisements bearing on the 
 labor situation, such as calls for meetings and conven- 
 tions, announcements of scales of wages, runaway ap- 
 prentices, and communistic and socialistic movements. 
 
 Another department of the collection is that of tran- 
 scripts. Many of the papers and documents unearthed, 
 the Bureau could neither borrow nor purchase. In all 
 such cases a competent corps of copyists made tran- 
 scripts of whatever was deemed valuable and these 
 transcriptions are the very cream of the literature upon 
 industrial society in all the libraries of the country out- 
 side of the Madison libraries. They have been classified 
 just as the papers, documents, and pamphlets have been, 
 and afford a third rich source of information. 
 
 A fourth important department is represented by the 
 collection of accounts of labor conspiracy trials prior 
 to the Massachusetts case of Commonwealth vs Hunt 
 in 1842. Starting out with the list of eleven cases named 
 in the Sixteenth Annual Report of the United States 
 Bureau of Labor, six new cases were later discovered, 
 and of these more or less complete records were ob- 
 tained, most of them in the form of stenographic ac- 
 counts. 
 
 It is perhaps true that the wealth of economic and 
 social documents derived from the life of a European 
 nation far exceeds anything that can be discovered in 
 America. M. Gustave Fagniez has brought together, 
 in two small volumes, documents relating to the com- 
 merce and industry of France, beginning with extracts 
 from the writings of Caesar, Strabo, and Diodorus.^ 
 
 1 Fagniez, Gustave. Documents relatifs a I'histoire de I' Industrie et du 
 commerce en France (Paris, 1898 and 1900).
 
 PREFACE 27 
 
 And to this long stretch of time is added the multitude 
 of institutions whose daily dealings have left their 
 records. It requires four thousand, five hundred and 
 twenty-two titles for M. Stein to recite the published 
 and unpublished French cartularies, those important 
 files of bills, receipts, privileges, immunities, exemp- 
 tions, and other business records of the church in 
 France.^ And when to this is added the immense field 
 of the merchant and craft guilds of the Middle Ages, 
 with their wealth of documents published by indi- 
 viduals, societies, and governments throughout western 
 Europe, the one isolated charter of the shoemakers' 
 company conferred by the colony of Massachusetts 
 Bay in 1648 stands out a precious and curious instru- 
 ment.^ 
 
 At the same time, while America is lacking in the 
 peculiar resources that flow from long antiquity and 
 manifold forms of organization, yet we have our own 
 peculiar institutions that will eventually yield a rich 
 store of records for their interpretation. 
 
 In addition to the collection of American material, 
 the Bureau has acquired, largely through the liberality 
 of Mr. William English Walling, a very valuable 
 library of German socialistic literature. It contains 
 some works said not to be found even in the party 
 archives of the German social democracy in Berlin, 
 among other things the now rare first works editions of 
 early works of Marx and Engels. It contains not only 
 most of the pamphlets printed in the sixties and seven- 
 ties previous to the exclusion law against social de- 
 mocracy (1878), but many of the leaflets and pamphlets 
 
 2 Stein, Henri. Bibliographie generale des Cartulaires Francois ou relatifs 
 a I'histoire de Trance (Paris, 1907). 
 
 * Records of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, vol. iii, 132.
 
 28 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 that were secretly circulated after that law made litera- 
 ture of the sort illegal. There are almost complete pro- 
 ceedings of all the socialist congresses of the German, 
 Austrian, and Swiss socialistic parties so far as these 
 have been published in separate form. The principal 
 organs of the German central democracy, and those of 
 the socialist party which are printed in foreign countries 
 and secretely circulated in Germany, likewise form a 
 part of the collection and there are various files of 
 the socialistic labor papers published later in Berlin. 
 Of great significance for scientific research is the com- 
 plete series of political reviews and monthlies published 
 by socialists in the German language. There is also 
 much material for the history of the German labor 
 movement in America, with nearly all the newspapers 
 which the German- American laborers published from 
 1846 to 1875 in support of their struggles and interests 
 and for the dissemination of their ideas. 
 
 Along with the collecting was carried on the equally 
 arduous and important work of classifying and cata- 
 loguing. For this a large staff of stenographers, clerks, 
 and copyists was necessary. A card catalogue has been 
 made of all books, manuscripts, and pamphlets dealing 
 with labor conditions and labor movements from 18 15 
 to 1875, and a second card catalogue for those from 
 1875 to the present. Another card catalogue has been 
 made of all labor papers and papers sympathetic or 
 actively hostile to labor in the country, so far as known. 
 This information has been classified in two ways, first 
 under the name of the paper and second under the name 
 of the library where the paper is to be found. Another 
 card catalogue lists all the material to be found in 
 Madison, and finally a card catalogue has been made of
 
 PREFACE 29 
 
 all articles transcribed from documents or newspapers 
 in other libraries with a notation where they are to be 
 found. Longer articles are arranged under subject 
 headings and in some cases where there is a large 
 amount of material, there is a further division by years. 
 As the scope and value of the material thus gathered 
 together became more and more evident, the suggestion 
 was made by Professor Commons that the most im- 
 portant documents be printed for the benefit of scholars 
 to whom the collection itself was not accessible. The 
 wisdom of the suggestion was apparent and prepara- 
 tions were begun to select such material as might be 
 most significant for the study of industrial society. Such 
 a publication would be part of the general movement 
 throughout western civilization which is diverting the 
 interest of students and historians from wars, politics, 
 and various forms of government to the economic life 
 of the people. Contemporary with the organization of 
 the Bureau was the action of the French Parliament, 
 November, 1903, which created a commission for the 
 publication of documents of the economic history of 
 the French Revolution. This commission of forty-six 
 senators, deputies, government officials, professors, and 
 archivists, under the presidency of M. Jaures, is now 
 publishing a series of some sixty volumes, covering such 
 matters as the proceedings of committees on agriculture 
 and commerce, the abolition of feudal rights, the de- 
 preciation of paper money, and so on throughout the 
 entire field of labor and industry during that tragic 
 period.^ This is the largest venture of its kind, and may 
 well draw upon the resources of a great nation for its 
 fulfilment. Yet its value can not be overestimated when 
 
 ^ Revue politique ei parlementaire (May lo, 1909), 331.
 
 30 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 judged by the standards that guide modem historians as 
 they turn to the movements of the masses of the people 
 for explanations of the events of history. 
 
 It v^ill not be necessary to mention the work now 
 being pursued in Germany, Austria, Belgium, and other 
 countries of Europe in order to enforce recognition of 
 the modern trend of historical interest. The change 
 has come about so gradually that its magnitude is not 
 wholly apparent. The contrast stands out, however, 
 when we go back one hundred fifty years and compare 
 the view of the greatest of historians of the eighteenth 
 century, if not the greatest of all centuries, Edward 
 Gibbon, with the views of historians who today seek the 
 underlying conditions of the Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire. To Gibbon the principal subjects of 
 history were "wars and the administration of public 
 affairs." Attention was "solely confined to a court, a 
 capital, a regular army, and the districts which happen 
 to be the occasional scene of military operations." Con- 
 sequently, "millions of obedient subjects pursue their 
 useful occupations in peace and obscurity." ^ 
 
 To the historian of today it is the very peace and ob- 
 scurity of these industrious millions that furnish the 
 object of diligent search. The vulgar but precious docu- 
 ments they unearth and edit are the tax receipts, the 
 bills of exchange, the leases, wills, and other every-day 
 records of the life and living of the people, written 
 perhaps on papyri and preserved by their fortunate use 
 as covers for their mummies. Eventually, out of this 
 patient search, with a new wealth of economic material, 
 a new Gibbon may picture to us the work and industry 
 that sustained the masses while they suffered beneath 
 
 ''Gibbon, Edward. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Bury), vol. 
 i, 236.
 
 PREFACE 3 1 
 
 the wars and politics so graphically portrayed by the 
 elder Gibbon.^ 
 
 American historians have also begun to turn their 
 attention to these fundamental subjects, as is evidenced 
 by a report of the committee on the Documentary Pub- 
 lications of the United States Government. That com- 
 mittee of leading historians, after observing that the 
 United States has been primarily a peaceful nation and 
 that its contributions to history lie in the field of in- 
 dustrial and social development quite as much as in that 
 of political institutions, and much more than in the 
 field of war or foreign relations, "proceeds to recom- 
 mend as its ideal" an extensive publication by govern- 
 ment of documents dealing with agriculture, labor, in- 
 dustry, and commerce. It is fortunate that, failing the 
 slow and doubtful recognition by government of this ap- 
 peal from historians the generous contributors to the 
 American Bureau of Industrial Research have made it 
 possible to place the present collection of documents at 
 the disposal both of them and the general public. It is 
 hoped that these volumes will do for the social and in- 
 dustrial life of the American people what the publica- 
 tion of colonial records, town, state, and federal records 
 has done for the political, constitutional, and military 
 life of the people. 
 
 The search and selection of these records, their as- 
 sembling and publication, is more than a mere anti- 
 quarian pursuit, it is a prerequisite for interpreting the 
 truly urgent and menacing problems of today. To these 
 documents of the past two considerations have served 
 to rend er a deepening interest. The labor problem in 
 
 *The best example of the recent attitude of historians in a field where 
 economic and labor investments are most difficult to get at is Julius Belich's 
 Griechische Geschichte (Strassburg, 1893-1904), 3 vols.
 
 32 PREFACE 
 
 all its ramifications, whether as a race problem in the 
 South, a trade union problem in the North, or a political 
 problem in both, is demanding increasing attention; 
 and at the same time, the doctrine of evolution, or the 
 natural growth of society, is directing this attention to 
 the historical causes of the problem as the true method 
 of arriving at its full understanding. It is these two 
 considerations that have determined the selection and 
 guided the arrangement of the documents herewith re- 
 produced. "Plantation and Frontier" reveal the 
 economic adjustments of white and black races, whether 
 as slaves and slave-owners, or as freemen, seeking to 
 escape the competition of slavery by westward migra- 
 tion or by protective legislation and trade union bar- 
 riers. "Labor Conspiracy Cases" furnish us not only 
 with documents showing the evolution of legal doctrine, 
 but also with the most detailed and intimate descrip- 
 tions given by witnesses and counsel, of the industrial 
 conditions of the time and the awakening consciousness 
 of a wage-earning class. The volumes bearing the title 
 "Labor Movement", reveal the efforts of free labor to 
 meet industrial and political conditions in all their 
 kaleidoscopic changes and ramifications of wages and 
 prices, machinery and free land, factory and farm, pros- 
 perity and depression, war and peace, charity and un- 
 employment, protection and immigration, cooperation 
 and socialism, trade unions and political parties. 
 
 Richard T. Ely. 
 University of Wisconsin, August, 1909.
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 Few persons realize how crowded with the richest 
 historical material has been the brief record of the 
 United States since it achieved its independence. The 
 life of our country has made up in intensity what it has 
 lacked in duration. So far are we from being destitute 
 of materials for history that, in fact, for the time covered 
 by our existence as an independent nation, we possess 
 them in an abundance that is quite unique. Much of 
 this material is as yet unutilized and a use of it is 
 necessary not merely for the completion of the record 
 of our own national life, but for an understanding of 
 that of the world as a whole. It has fallen to America 
 to go quickly through an industrial evolution which has 
 translated it from a simple and primitive state into a 
 very advanced one, and we have reached a point towards 
 which a large part of the world is still moving. 
 
 A history of America from an industrial and social 
 point of view will supply something which general 
 history itself has greatly needed. A glance at a few 
 facts will serve to show how rich is the field which the 
 present work is entering and how intense will be the 
 interest attaching to the narrative portion of it. It will 
 also show how invaluable is the mass of documentary 
 material which the authors have rescued from destruc- 
 tion and preserved for future use. 
 
 I. This country has had its full share of political 
 struggles, and to these histories have not failed to do 
 justice. The contests of Federalists with Anti-fed-
 
 34 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 eralists, those of Whigs with Democrats, and those of 
 Republicans with later Democrats have been fully de- 
 scribed. The constitution-making which has gone on 
 in the midst of these contentions has also been described ; 
 but economic life lies back of the politics and the growth 
 of the constitution and has given direction to it all ; and 
 this has been meagrely treated. 
 
 2. This underlying cause of political contest and 
 constitutional change has been active throughout the 
 world, but its action has been rapid and conspicuous in 
 America. 
 
 3. The period covered by the history of the Amer- 
 ican Republic has involved a greater transformation in 
 the practical life of civilized nations than has the entire 
 period of recorded history previous thereto. This is a 
 startling assertion, but the facts will bear it out. In 
 modes of getting and using the means of living, the 
 civilization of Mesopotamia two thousand years before 
 Christ was more like that of Europe in 1776 than was 
 this to present society. 
 
 4. Democracy has always developed hand in hand 
 with industry and has been related to it as effect to 
 cause. This relation has been obvious in the United 
 States. As it is easy to see why the colonies had more 
 of the democratic spirit than the mother countries, so it 
 is easy to see why the present states have a more militant 
 type of it than had the colonies. In industry a very un- 
 democratic thing, namely, monopoly, has lately made 
 its appearance; but this has provoked the most intensely 
 democratic movement of modern times, that, namely, 
 which demands a popular control of everything. It 
 is the movement which, in its extreme form, becomes 
 socialism. 
 
 5. What is called the philosophy of history has been
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 3S 
 
 vague and speculative ; but the record of developing in- 
 dustry gives it substance. Very concrete are the eco- 
 nomic facts which the present work records and easily 
 traceable are their connections with positive laws of 
 social and political growth. 
 
 These five general facts show that a key to the under- 
 standing of American history and of all history is fur- 
 nished by a knowledge of economic events. This 
 knowledge may be gained in abundant measure by a 
 study of records that exist in the United States. In pro- 
 portion to the value of such an intelligent understanding 
 of history is the value of the records which the present 
 work embodies and of the narrative that will be based 
 on them. 
 
 It is worth while to recur seriatim to these general 
 statements. Concerning the claim that the forces which 
 center in industry are very dominant in the life of 
 America not much argument is necessary. They have, 
 indeed, been dominant everywhere. It is a common 
 criticism that such histories of most countries as have 
 until recently been current have been too largely mili- 
 tary and too little institutional. They have given great 
 space to the records of wars and territorial changes and 
 in so far as they have dealt with the internal conditions 
 of the different nations, they have given prominence to 
 the struggles of ruling families for supremacy. Such 
 records are full of dramatic interest and, if the truth 
 be known, are free from a certain dryness from which 
 purely constitutional histories at times sufifer. They 
 appeal to an elemental trait in their readers - an interest 
 in struggles of any kind - as minute descriptions of a 
 political constitution and the administrative processes 
 that have developed under it seldom do. Moreover 
 such a record of struggles, national and international,
 
 26 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 really shows how countries have assumed their geo- 
 graphical shapes and dimensions and how they have 
 come into closer and closer connection with each other. 
 These connections already suggest the coming federa- 
 tion of the world. The once dim outlines of a world 
 state are now appearing more clearly in the midst of 
 international rivalries and occasional struggles. Wars 
 have had a legitimate place in history; but if the world- 
 wide federation shall come to be a substantial reality, 
 it will introduce an age in which the wars shall be no 
 more and all histories will deal with the institutional 
 life of mankind. 
 
 Economic interests and purposes have, in part, oc- 
 casioned the wars. There has been a need of expanding 
 territory for an enlarging population, or there has been 
 a need of colonies and "spheres of influence", for com- 
 mercial purposes. Of late, however, economic motives 
 have been most powerfully revealed in the effort to put 
 an end to warfare, in order that the organic union of 
 the world may become closer and stronger and that in- 
 dustry everywhere may be more remunerative. To in- 
 fluences like this is the movement toward a world state - 
 the greatest fact of modern history - largely due. Such 
 influences are central in all history. 
 
 Little argument is needed to show how much America 
 has to offer in the way of showing the connection be- 
 tween economic motives and historical events. This 
 country has engaged in one small war, that with Mexico, 
 which may be classed with the early land grabbing con- 
 tests of other countries. In its colonial history some- 
 thing akin to this has taken place; but since achieving 
 its independence the country has engaged in only one 
 great military struggle, the Civil War, and that grew 
 out of an internal development in which economic in-
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 37 
 
 terests played a leading part. Slavery established itself 
 firmly in the South when the use of the cotton gin made • 
 it productive. In the contests over the extension of it 
 to new territory and in the w^ar which led to the aboli- 
 tion of it, moral influences had their full effect; but such 
 influences are consistent with the concurrent play of the 
 economic ones. The military part of the brief record 
 of the United States is colored by the action of both sets 
 of influences; and other parts of it are equally so. 
 Parties were once aligned according to their attitude 
 toward slavery, and they are now taking an alignment in 
 which the relations of employers and employed and 
 those of monopolies toward the general public are active 
 factors. The entire period since 1789 has been full of 
 industrial struggles ; but the present period is more com- 
 pletely dominated by them than earlier ones have been, 
 and in all of them interests and rights are intertwined. 
 That American history in this respect reflects the 
 larger history of the world is evident. A fact which 
 everywhere underlies the struggles of employers and 
 employed, and the monopoly and the socialism to which 
 they have led, is the supplanting of hand labor by 
 machinery. To this transformation the United States 
 has been a leading contributor. Its citizens have done 
 a great amount of the inventing and the country has 
 afforded an unequaled inducement to utilize inventions. 
 Everywhere, indeed, have machines won a place for 
 themselves in industry, and everywhere they have trans- 
 lated practical life from one level to another. In 
 America a special necessity has existed for the applica- 
 tion of mechanical devices. Only thus has the farmer 
 been able, with the limited amount of labor at his com- 
 mand, to till the amount of land which the government 
 has bestowed on him; and only thus has the manufac-
 
 38 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 turer been able to hold his position in the competitive 
 race with European rivals. Our country has lain in the 
 center of the arena in v^hich the contest between hand 
 labor and machine labor has been fought to a finish 
 and machinery has triumphed more completely here 
 than elsewhere. 
 
 How much is involved in this transformation? How 
 far into the intimate recesses of social life and individual 
 life have gone the influences that emanated from the in- 
 ' vention of James Watt and from those of Arkwright, 
 Hargreaves, Crompton, and the endless succession of 
 men who followed after them? They have done much 
 more than merely to multiply the physical results of 
 labor. We have become different mentally and morally 
 from what we should have been if the mechanical im- 
 provements had never taken place. As a matter of 
 fact the steam-engine led to the multiplying of textile 
 machinery, that to the factory system and that to a course 
 of centralization which has gathered vast populations 
 in producing centers. As the use of machinery in 
 America has extended to almost every productive opera- 
 tion, it has carried this centralizing process to very great 
 lengths and in the briefest time. It has led to a fierce 
 competition in every department of business, and this 
 struggle has sought to end itself by the building up of 
 what we call "trusts." During the period of competi- 
 tion and well into the period of growing consolidation 
 another type of contest has been waging - that between 
 employers and employed in each of the different occu- 
 pations. While the automatic machine, the modern 
 genius of the lamp, has been turning out forms of utility 
 in profusion, masters and workmen have been contend- 
 ing over the sharing of them ; and here again organiza- 
 tion has played its part and the effects have been far
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 39 
 
 reaching. We have our national unions of employees 
 on the one hand, and of employers on the other. 
 
 We look to England for the beginnings of the use of 
 machinery, but we find in our own country the largest 
 application of it and the greatest results it has as yet 
 produced; and it has resulted from this that American 
 class struggles offer especially furtile fields of study. If 
 there be any probability in the legend that the steam- 
 engine is traceable to the suggestion which James Watt 
 got from watching his aunt's kettle and seeing the pres- 
 sure of steam raising the lid of it and the escape of the 
 steam letting it fall, then that mythical scene might well 
 be the special symbol of American development. It is 
 without doubt true that what James Watt accomplished, 
 as a young man working in a room in the University 
 of Glasgow under the patronage of Adam Smith, had 
 everything to do with this development. The year 1776, 
 which made the United States an independent nation, 
 and which also saw the publication of Adam Smith's 
 Wealth of Nations, saw the steam-engine, which was 
 destined to play so important a part in shaping the life 
 of the country, assuming an efficient form. In a way 
 the industrial life of America, as contrasted with the 
 agricultural life of colonial days, if it was not brewing 
 in the mythical tea kettle, was taking shape in the Glas- 
 gow workshop. Steam and its consequences have been 
 all important. 
 
 It would be too much to claim that the effect of 
 machinery has reached other nations by way of the 
 United States, although in the case of many specific 
 appliances this has been true. In some departments 
 we have been leaders and teachers. What is clear is 
 that the effects which machinery has produced in the 
 United States have resembled in kind and exceeded in
 
 40 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 number and degree those which it has produced else- 
 where. The mechanical genius of the lamp has in this 
 country gone into every part of the field of production. 
 
 With this transformation there has come in America, 
 in a conspicuous way, the centralizing of industries, the 
 fierce competition, the combination of rival producers, 
 and the struggle against monopoly, which are the 
 features of present-day life. We have more trusts and 
 stronger ones than have most countries, and we have 
 strong trade unions and growing socialistic parties. We 
 can see how all this is connected with that complete 
 transformation of practical life which machinery has 
 produced. 
 
 It is a paradox that only a great country can be a 
 microcosm. The life of such a country can be largely 
 self-contained. Its farms may feed its own people and 
 its mills may yield that which clothes them. Its forests 
 may furnish what houses them and its myriad of fac- 
 tories may provide the implements and the furnishings 
 that are essential to its comfort. Behind the wall created 
 by an abnormally high protective tariff this central 
 part of the North American continent is able to live a 
 comparatively isolated economic life. Its interchange 
 of products with the rest of the world is slight in volume 
 as compared with its internal commerce. This condi- 
 tion, as might easily be shown, greatly accelerates the 
 growth of producers' combinations. That America is 
 the favorite home of so-called trusts is due to its com- 
 mercial isolation. With free trade a producers' com- 
 bination which is confined to a single country usually 
 has no really monopolistic power, since any attempt to 
 restrict production and raise prices attracts the products 
 of foreigners, and causes prices to resume their former 
 level. With the foreigners excluded, the monopoly may
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 41 
 
 becpme real and oppressive. It may curtail its output 
 of gf)ods, reduce its working force and raise its scale of 
 prices, to the injury of laborers and consumers. 
 
 Whenever this occurs there is an impetus given to 
 radidal agitation. Trusts are at least the foster-fathers 
 of socialism in the United States. They have compelled 
 even the conservative classes to demand a vigorous regu- 
 lation of corporations, and they have caused the more 
 democratic ones to demand the making over of all pro- 
 duction, or of much of it, to the State itself. In the 
 colonial period self-government grew^ out of the local 
 isolation of the settlers ; in the present period a new and 
 startling type of democracy is growing out of the com- 
 mercial isolation of the country taken in connection 
 with the modern processes of production. Machines, 
 great mills, trusts, class struggles, and socialism - such is 
 the sequence in American history. It is instructive for 
 us and for the world because America, in its shut-in 
 position, is preceding the world in a development which 
 must, in the end, become general. 
 
 As to the possibility of making a contribution to a 
 philosophy of general history by rescuing and utilizing 
 the scattered records of practical life in the United 
 States, it is to be said at the outset that a systematic state- 
 ment of the laws of history is far from being included 
 in the plan of the present work. It is, however, coming 
 to be recognized that in no field is the action of masses 
 of men so nearly reducable to a science as in the pro- 
 duction, distribution, and consumption of wealth. These 
 operations are amenable to known laws ; and these laws 
 are the most tangible present element in any philosophy 
 of history which is not made up of speculative guesses. 
 The mere recording of economic facts which historians 
 have in part neglected does much to afford a basis for
 
 42 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the speculation; but what is further true is that it helps 
 to complete the pure science of economics, and so to 
 afford, in the end, a concrete and trustworthy basis for 
 some of the historical philosophy. It is in doing this, 
 that it accomplishes one of its less conspicuous but very 
 far reaching effects. 
 
 It is inevitable that historians should try to philoso- 
 phize. They cannot resist the temptation to fill their 
 narratives with statements as to the causes and effects of 
 the events which they record. Where the entire story 
 has to deal with occurrences of a remote past such spec- 
 ulation is easy, and the reader is not strongly impelled 
 to question it. He cannot know and does not always 
 greatly care whether the writer is correct or incorrect 
 in his assertions. Modern history, however, touches 
 practical life so closely that a loose philosophizing is 
 sure to be called in question. The reader demands a 
 reason for believing that a certain event was the cause 
 of a certain series of other events. In industrial history 
 the statement can usually be put to a test and its accuracy 
 or inaccuracy can be fairly well determined. This can 
 be done the more surely the more fully economic laws 
 become established. What is especially needed is a con- 
 firmation of principles of economics by a wide induction 
 from the facts of history - such facts as the present work 
 furnishes. Philosophizing with such a basis may throw 
 light on vital problems. It may illuminate the whole 
 social situation. The possibility of doing this depends 
 on the confidence with which we can appeal to current 
 economic theory. We must have a science that in prac- 
 tical action, can be trusted because it has stood a search- 
 ing comparison with practical fact. 
 
 American history is capable of supplying much of 
 what is still lacking in the science of economics. Theory
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 43 
 
 tells what must of necessity result from certain in- 
 fluences; but it will make its assertions in a way that 
 will carry full conviction when it can show that in this 
 country the given cause has many times been followed 
 by the effect attributed to it. An economic theory in 
 its earliest stage is a guess as to the cause of some phe- 
 nomenon; but observation of facts translates even this 
 into established truth. An increased supply of wheat 
 must bring down its price and a diminished supply must 
 raise it. Various a priori proofs confirm this view; but 
 it is only by an appeal to facts of common observation 
 that the inferences are translated into incontrovertible 
 truths. When we carry the study into more difficult 
 regions - when, for instance, we make assertions as to 
 the power of monopolies to tax consumers and to oppress 
 workmen -we need a wider induction than in the 
 former case, and here a study of the past is a very great 
 help in verifying economic laws. In a hundred other 
 studies the appeal has to be made directly to history 
 and to statistics, and the more material we can gather 
 from the record of the past, the more confidently we 
 can state the economic laws which prevail in the 
 present. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that in the formulation of a law as 
 general as that of price the statistics of a relatively short 
 period are more directly available than a historical 
 narrative covering a long one. The full relation of 
 economic theory, statistics, and history stands about thus : 
 a principle is formulated by a priori reasoning con- 
 cerning facts of common experience; it is then tested 
 by statistics and promoted to the rank of a known and 
 acknowledged truth ; illustrations of its action are then 
 found in narrative history and, on the other hand, the 
 economic law becomes the interpreter of records that
 
 44 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 would otherwise be confusing and comparatively value- 
 less; the law itself derives its final confirmation from 
 the illustrations of its working which the records afford ; 
 but what is at least of equal importance is the parallel 
 fact that the law affords the decisive test of the correct- 
 ness of those assertions concerning the causes and the 
 effects of past events which it is second nature to make 
 and which historians almost invariably do make in con- 
 nection with their narrations. We have, therefore, not 
 gone too far in saying that economics furnishes a very 
 large part of the philosophical element in history and 
 by far the largest part of that element which is found 
 in the history of practical social life. We are within 
 bounds in saying that America has afforded the richest 
 field for the application of known economic law to the 
 interpretation of history and that, conversely, the history 
 of America offers the most available means of testing 
 and establishing the correctness of economic theories 
 themselves. One has only to cite such changes as the 
 abolition of slavery and the quick occupation of a vast 
 area of formerly vacant land to see how much of eco- 
 nomic development has here been crowded into a brief 
 and recent period, and how full this period is of lessons 
 for the economist. 
 
 Such are the more general reasons for attaching the 
 greatest importance to collecting and preserving the 
 materials for an industrial and social history of the 
 United States. The same reasons justify the expectation 
 that the narrative which will be based on these materials 
 will have a quite exceptional interest. The absorbing 
 questions of the present day will be in the reader's mind 
 and he will discover new light on them as the reading 
 proceeds. He will find, moreover, that in solving 
 problems for Americans he is solving them for hu-
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 45 
 
 manity. By no means will every perplexing question 
 be answered by what the present work will furnish; 
 but a distinct, considerable, and welcome amount of 
 progress will, without doubt, be made in this direction. 
 
 American history falls naturally into certain periods; 
 and it requires only a glance at the manner in which 
 the division has usually been made to show how com- 
 pletely, though often somewhat unconsciously, narrators 
 have been influenced by economic facts and principles. 
 We have noticed the introduction of a myriad of 
 machines, driven by steam- and water-power and used 
 mainly in manufacturing and transportation, as a fact 
 that has had in America transforming effects typical of 
 what has gone on more slowly in the world at large. 
 Two changes more nearly peculiar to America and very 
 dominant in all its life have been the growth and aboli- 
 tion of slavery and the steady expansion of the occupied 
 area of land. The western frontier of the country has 
 steadily moved from a line closely following the At- 
 lantic coast across the continent to the Pacific, and the 
 present frontier must be sought in Canada or Alaska. 
 
 The periods most frequently recognized in our 
 political history have mainly been determined by slavery 
 and its effects. There was a time when it was not highly 
 profitable and was under a certain moral condemnation. 
 Then, following the invention of the cotton gin, came 
 a period in which it was highly productive and found, 
 first, moral apologists and then zealous defenders. In 
 this period it developed the great plantation system 
 which was so transforming in social life, and which 
 eagerly reached for new areas of territory, an effort 
 which was politically so fateful. To say that the third 
 period in the history of slavery came after its abolition 
 states an essential fact; for the sequels of slavery -col-
 
 46 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ored politics, society, and agricultural life - endured 
 long after the negroes had been set free. The costs of 
 abolition were far from being fully measured by the 
 awful sacrifice of life and treasure directly involved 
 in the Civil War itself. A very large cost came in the 
 shape of political chaos, social disruption, and the 
 economic paralysis during the period following the 
 struggle and before new forces making for prosperity 
 could assert themselves. 
 
 The history of the westward expansion of our oc- 
 cupied territory falls into periods which rudely corre- 
 spond with the different ages of slavery. The settled 
 area was at first in an irregular fringe bordering the 
 sea and its inlets. The inhabitants lived by primitive 
 methods and the period was literally an age of home- 
 spun. Even its agriculture went haltingly, if one com- 
 pares the return in produce with the outlay in labor. 
 Hardly a tithe of what one man now gets out of prairie 
 lands, by the aid of modern appliances, could a man 
 then wring from the niggardly soil he occupied, by 
 means of his old-fashioned tools. This time of meager 
 territorial expansion, and of more meager returns from 
 such land as was occupied, covered in a general way 
 the period before the impetus was given to the planta- 
 tion system in the South by Eli Whitney's invention. 
 In that period the AUeghanies were crossed by poineers 
 who pushed their difficult way into western forests and 
 began the occupation of the Northwest Territory. 
 
 The full development of the great plantation system 
 in the South and that of the rich and powerful states 
 carved out of the Northwest Territory occurred during 
 the same epoch. The Civil War tested the ultimate 
 strength of the civilizations above and below the Ohio 
 River. The period following the war, which was one 
 of fearful disorganization in the South, was one of ab-
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 47 
 
 normal territorial expansion in the North. It was a 
 period of vast land grants bestowed upon railroads 
 which were built across formerly trackless prairies, 
 in the expectation that settlements would follow rapidly 
 enough to enable them ere long to maintain themselves 
 by traffic. In the interim it was the proceeds of sales 
 of land which maintained them; and in a most interest- 
 ing way growing land values came, during this period, 
 to be the chief available income for the frontier society 
 which was undergoing such rapid development. 
 
 The homestead settler, as a rule, carried little money 
 with him and took up an occupation which, for a year 
 or two, brought him very little. He raised either no 
 crop or a very meager "sod crop" during the first year 
 in which he occupied his holding. In his second year 
 he got a crop from the limited tract of land which he 
 had been able to break up; but only in the third or 
 fourth year did his farm yield him, in crops alone, 
 an adequate return. What was his real return during 
 all this time? It was the growing value of his farm 
 itself. He was becoming a man of property. He was 
 getting out of the ranks of the empty-handed laborers 
 and was in the way to become a substantial citizen. He 
 and his children became admirable material for the 
 building of a democratic nation and of a high order of 
 society. Sooner or later culture had its effects upon 
 them, and the change so well begun ended by making 
 the prairies, which were but yesterday, as it were, 
 tenanted by roving Indians and the animals they hunted, 
 into the abode of a population which can be confidently 
 expected to maintain the best standards of civilization. 
 It required more than the waving of the flag of our 
 republic to americanize the immigrants from Europe. 
 American land did most of it. 
 
 The influence of an expanding area of land is a fas-
 
 48 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 cinating subject of economic study and is sure to be 
 equally attractive for the reader of history. For a time 
 it reversed that condition with which economists are 
 sadly familiar, that, namely, in which the growth of 
 capital and population presses more and more severely 
 upon the capacity of the land. At this time it was the 
 expanding amount of available land which made more 
 and more exacting demands on the capacity of labor 
 and capital. The laborer, chiefly the farmer himself, 
 would have been nonplussed and thwarted by the amount 
 he had to do, even on the submissive open prairie, if 
 new instruments had not been put at his disposal. 
 Necessity, the mother of invention, conjured agricul- 
 tural machinery out of nonexistence, and the mower, 
 the reaper, the seeding machine, the gang-plow and a 
 score or more of other appliances made the man master 
 of his farm and able to develop its full resources. All 
 this meant large returns for labor and, in some times 
 and places, almost fabulous returns for the little amount 
 of capital which was to be had. 
 
 A particularly interesting fact connected with the en- 
 tire period of rapid westward movement of the frontier 
 is the manner in which growing land values entered into 
 the general rewards of labor. Even the worker who 
 took up no homestead came to share the benefit of this 
 growth. It has been correctly said that, during the 
 period when land seemed limitless in amount and labor 
 and capital very scarce, the wages of any kind of labor 
 were the amount that would induce men to work for 
 others in lieu of becoming homestead farmers them- 
 selves. How many dollars a week sufficed to make it 
 worth while not to take a homestead? was the question 
 that many a man asked himself when ordinary employ- 
 ment was offered to him. Now the returns of a home-
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 49 
 
 Stead settler consisted, as we have seen, mainly in the 
 increased value of his farm. It was the lure which 
 the prospect of this value held out to him which he 
 was asked to barter of¥ for the steady flow of dollars 
 which wage-earning might bring him. It thus came to 
 pass that in the village and the city the artisan of every 
 class received pay which, for a time, contained an 
 element of land value. It was larger than it would 
 otherwise have been by reason of the fact that so many 
 workers were steadily drawn to the frontier farms by 
 the prospect of independence which increased land value 
 afforded. Those who remained behind demanded and 
 received some offset for relinquishing those prospects. 
 While the plantation system was growing in the 
 South, the rich states north of the Ohio river were in 
 process of occupation; and after the abolition of slavery 
 an empire grew up in the remoter West. In many more 
 ways than can here be mentioned the period of expan- 
 sion of the occupied territory is full of lessons political 
 and social as well as purely economic. It was a time 
 when a vast number of men, who in other conditions 
 would have been empty-handed laborers, were trans- 
 lated to the level of owners of modest estates. It was a 
 time when the industries in the older states were ad- 
 justed to the conditions of a moving frontier, the most 
 "dynamic" of possible influences. It meant that build- 
 ing material, general supplies and implements and 
 machinery in limitless amounts had to be sent out to 
 the frontier, from which, in the first period of its occu- 
 pation, returns were meager. A long and steady west- 
 ward movement and the absence of any speculative 
 mania might have made the entire period from the end 
 of the Civil War to the present time one of uninter- 
 rupted prosperity. A highly changeful element which
 
 50 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the period contains accounts for the violence of business 
 crises. The forced movement of the frontier caused by 
 the overstimulated railroad building had its irregu- 
 larities. The more dynamic a society is the greater are 
 the irregularities of its development and the more cer- 
 tain are its members to forecast the future in a specu- 
 lative way and to count on returns which now and then 
 refuse to come. The theory of business crises is illu- 
 minated by the record of the settlement of the great 
 West. 
 
 Perhaps it should be said that a history of America 
 prepared by economists should throw more light than 
 has ever been thrown before on the subject of protec- 
 tive tariffs; and while unanimity of view is not to be 
 expected in this department of thought, there are a few 
 leading facts concerning which much difference of view 
 would be discreditable. One of these is that original 
 high wages were what called into existence the pro- 
 tective system. Duties on imports could not have 
 originally created the high wages that existed before 
 they were imposed. The second fact is that the argu- 
 ment for protection, which has existed in the mind of 
 the American people from the beginning, has been a 
 dynamic argument. The measure has had, as its object, 
 the development of resources which were sure to be 
 valuable in the end, though at the outset and for a long 
 time the process was costly. 
 
 Immigration has been a leading fact in American 
 history, and the sources of it and the character of the 
 immigrants have had a prominent place in thought and 
 discussion. It has not been by chance that a change in 
 the nationality and the condition of the immigrants took 
 place at about the time of the close of the Civil War. 
 As the periods of the history of the Republic which
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 51 
 
 are based on the growth and abolition of slavery coin- 
 cide, in a general way, with those which are based on 
 the settlement of different parts of the northern terri- 
 tory, they also rudely coincide with the changes which 
 have taken place in the amount and character of the im- 
 migration to this country. While the plantation system 
 was perfecting itself in the South and states were build- 
 ing within the so-called Northwest Territory, the immi- 
 grants came largely from Great Britian and Ireland. 
 The great influx from Ireland coincided with a rapid 
 development of the states lying north of the Ohio. The 
 change by which Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and the 
 Slavic countries came to figure prominently as the 
 source of the stream of immigration took place when the 
 remoter areas of the West came rapidly to be occupied. 
 This is more than a mere coincidence. The exploita- 
 tion of the remote West was pushed with the greatest 
 rapidity because railroads were everywhere penetrating 
 that territory and making its lands accessible. At the 
 same time railroads and steamship lines were reducing 
 the time and the cost required for a journey from re- 
 mote countries to America. This it was which made 
 immigration everywhere possible for poorer classes than 
 those that had formerly furnished settlers for American 
 lands. An economic cause changed the character of 
 the incoming human stream. 
 
 The question which is most frequently asked is 
 whether the new immigrants are not too foreign to be 
 americanized. It would seem that some of them might 
 be less easily assimilated than those who came from 
 Great Britian and Ireland. Experience is the test 
 which must here be applied; and such experience as the 
 country has had during the last of the periods referred 
 to will, as may be confidently asserted, prove that the
 
 52 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 americanizing goes on effectively when the economic 
 conditions of this country itself are such as to ensure it. 
 Conditions take precedence of racial qualities because 
 the change in prevailing conditions is far greater than 
 the changes of race. There is far more likeness between 
 different branches of the European family than there 
 is between the economic conditions into which immi- 
 grants came in the third quarter of the last century, and 
 those into which they come today. Then they could 
 have farms for the asking, while now most of them 
 must go into mills, mines, shops, and railroad plants or 
 become employees or tenants on farms owned by others. 
 In such places the americanizing goes on under diffi- 
 culties and the marshalling of many of the immigrants 
 in the army of trade unionism, on the one hand, or that 
 of socialism on the other, becomes natural and in- 
 evitable. The problem of democracy thus becomes com- 
 plicated; and while the solution of it would become 
 far easier if our citizenship were more homogeneous, it 
 is an error to attribute the origin of the difficulty to the 
 races represented by the immigrants or the conditions 
 that prevail in the countries from which they come. 
 An economic study of American history will show how 
 the problems that alarm many of our people and per- 
 plex all of them have actually arisen. 
 
 It is clear that the work undertaken by Professors Ely 
 and Commons and their associates enters what is pos- 
 sibly the richest of all comparatively unworked fields of 
 history and also promises to yield especially large re- 
 sults in economics. Ten volumes are none too much for 
 what the writers aim to accomplish. Collecting, in the 
 first place, a great store of first-hand materials for the 
 industrial history of America, printing and rescuing 
 from destruction the most valuable part of it, and then
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 53-65 
 
 writing the history itself, is a sufficient work for several 
 men for a considerable number of years. It goes with- 
 out saying that the writers and their corps of fellow 
 workers are preeminently qualified for the work they 
 have in hand. Very abundant is the material which 
 their industry has already gathered together and corre- 
 spondingly valuable will be the narrative which they 
 will base on it. Both history and economic theory will 
 be largely affected by this work and even practical in- 
 dustry should go on somewhat better because the men 
 who control it will have more assured principles for 
 their guidance. In particular should the making of laws 
 to govern the delicate relations of employers and em- 
 ployed and those of producers and consumers become a 
 less crude and experimental process than it now is, when 
 it shall have the guidance which history and theory can 
 give. Democracy itself will attain a more assured suc- 
 cess when a knowledge of economic law rather than 
 caprice or excited feeling is at the basis of its action. 
 
 John Bates Clark. 
 Columbia University, August, 1909.
 
 PLANTATION AND FRONTIER 
 
 1649-1863 
 
 Selected, Collated, and Edited 
 with Introduction by 
 
 ULRICH B. PHILLIPS, Ph.D. 
 
 Professor of History and Political Science, 
 Tulane University of Louisiana 
 
 Volume I
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the study of industrial society we are concerned 
 with the people earning their living, and in the present 
 volume it is mainly with the people of the Old South. 
 The South in politics, the South at war, the South at 
 play have been the subjects of much good historical de- 
 scription; but there is a dearth of first-hand information 
 in regard to the South at work. 
 
 The history of industrial society is to be distinguished 
 at the outset from the history of industrial processes. 
 The latter is concerned mainly with machines and tech- 
 nique, the former in the main with men and manners. 
 It is a phase of social history. If made inclusive 
 enough, the study of industrial society may touch all 
 phases of human life; but its concern is, primarily, with 
 the grouping and activity of the people as organized 
 in society for the puff>ose of producing material goods, 
 and secondarily, with the reflex influence of the work 
 and work-grouping upon life, upon philosophy, and 
 upon the internal and external relations of the society. 
 
 This history, like all social history, is in one great as- 
 pect the record of the adjustment of men to their en- 
 vironment. The problem in America was that of Euro- 
 peans, and mostly Englishmen, entering a remote wil- 
 derness and making a double adjustment of themselves 
 to their habitat and their habitat to themselves. The 
 Indians had made one use of the country; negroes, Ma- 
 lays or Tartars, if placed in it and left to their own de- 
 vices, would have developed characteristic systems of
 
 70 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 their own; and the Englishmen transplanted hither 
 wrought upon the land, grouped themselves, established 
 relations with the inferior races, experienced reactions 
 from their environment, and developed systems in ways 
 which could hardly have been spontaneous with people 
 of any other origin. From Anglo-American begin- 
 nings, distinctively American types of industrial society 
 have evolved, which are conspicuous in the world's his- 
 tory for their efficiency in the functions for which they 
 were intended. Relatively free from the bondage of 
 old-world traditions, the people were able to experi- 
 ment with methods of work and systems of social organi- 
 zation, to discard the less and retain the more successful 
 ones and remould these to a still greater effi- 
 ciency. The immediate purpose was the exploitation 
 of a continent - the utilization and enjoyment of its re- 
 sources. Systems were shaped accordingly. These 
 characteristic systems differed in the several regions of 
 the continent; and they replaced one another in various 
 districts, as the conditions of life and prosperity under- 
 went changes. In some districts and industries, the gen- 
 eral problems were similar to those prevailing in Eng- 
 land and Europe; and in such cases the systems of life 
 tended to be not unlike those of the old world. These 
 have grown more prominent and more like those of 
 Europe as the country has grown older. Other systems 
 have been, first and last, peculiarly American. 
 ^- By evolution in the one case and revolution in the 
 other, two systems in American industrial society of the 
 greatest historical importance have now almost wholly 
 vanished. These, the frontier and the plantation sys- 
 tem, form a large part of the American past, from which 
 the present with its resources, its industrial and social 
 constitution, and its problems has resulted. The fron-
 
 INTRODUCTION 71 
 
 tier performed its mission in one area after another, 
 giving place in each to a more complex society which 
 grew out of the frontier regime and supplanted it. By 
 this process the whole vast region of the United States, 
 within the limits where the rainfall is sufficient for till- 
 age, has been reduced to occupation in a phenomenally 
 rapid process. The extension of settlement being now 
 ended, the system has died from want of room. 
 
 The plantation system was evolved to answer the spe- 
 cific need of meeting the world's demand for certain 
 staple crops in the absence of a supply of free labor. 
 That system, providing efficient control and direction 
 for labor imported in bondage, met the obvious needs of 
 the case, waxed strong, and shaped not alone the indus- 
 trial regime to fit its requirements, but also the social 
 and commercial system and the political policy of a vast 
 section; and it incidentally trained a savage race to a 
 certain degree of fitness for life in the Anglo-Saxon 
 community. Through the civil war and political re- 
 construction of the South, accompanied by social up- 
 heaval, the plantation system was cut short in the midst 
 of its career. It only survives in a few fragments and 
 in forms greatly changed from the characteristic type. 
 Both the frontier and plantation systems can now be 
 studied in the main only in documents. 
 
 The most perfect types both of plantation and fron- 
 tier occurred in the Southern Colonies, including the 
 West Indies, and the subsequent Southern States. A 
 few plantations existed north of Mason and Dixon's 
 Line; but the climate and crops were not suited to the 
 full routine which typical plantations required. The 
 wilderness of the Northwest was reduced by a great 
 body of frontiersmen; but some of the features of the 
 full type of frontier were usually lacking there, in that
 
 72 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the United States army policed the Indians and the 
 popular government was administered directly under 
 the Federal authority. In the Southwest the settlers in 
 general did their own fighting, their own land-office 
 work, their own legislating, when any was done, and 
 their own administering of the laws. 
 
 The South, then, gives type illustration of both plan- 
 tation and frontier; and furthermore, it gives example 
 of great regions in which one or the other of these sys- 
 tems controlled the lives and destinies of the people. In 
 ^fact, these two systems dominated the whole South. 
 Small farms of the normal type existed in great num- 
 bers; towns, factories and mines were not wholly ab- 
 sent; but in the several areas, as a rule, either the planta- 
 tion system or the frontier shaped the general order of 
 life without serious rival. Hence the ante bellum South 
 is peculiarly the region of plantation and frontier and 
 a study of those systems may largely coincide with a 
 study of Southern industrial organization and society. 
 
 To make the theme clearer it will be well to distin- 
 guish the types. A plantation was a unit in agricultural 
 industry in which the laboring force was of consider- 
 able size, the work was divided among groups of la- 
 borers who worked in routine under supervision, and 
 the primary purpose was in each case the production of 
 a special staple commodity for sale. The laborers were 
 generally in a status of bondage. Wage-earners might 
 be employed; but for the sake of certainty in maintain- 
 ing a constant and even supply of labor from season to 
 season, indented servants and negro slaves were the com- 
 moner resort. 
 
 A farm, then as now, was an agricultural unit in 
 which the laboring force was relatively small. There 
 was no sharp distinction between workman and super-
 
 INTRODUCTION 73 
 
 visor. A less regular routine was followed and the 
 primary purpose was divided between producing com- 
 modities for market and commodities for consumption 
 within the family. Farmers might hire help and might 
 buy slaves. With unfree labor as such, however, they 
 had little or no vital concern. Their need for assistance 
 was in most cases not constant but intermittent; and 
 wage-earning help, which might be hired for a period 
 and then discharged, was better suited to their needs 
 than long term bonded laborers. Frontier industrial 
 units were on an average still smaller, comprising in 
 many cases only a single person; agriculture was pur- 
 sued only to supply necessaries, attention was often given 
 mainly to hunting or Indian trading, and the individual 
 or group was in many emergencies concerned with the 
 protection of life more than with the accumulation of 
 property. On a plantation the workmen were distinctly 
 of a laboring class. On a farm they were of the nature 
 of help in the farmer^s own work. In frontier industry 
 there were usually no employers of labor at all and no 
 employees of any sort. 
 
 These three types shaded from one to another with 
 no distinct line of differentiation, though the types at 
 the two ends of the series, plantation and frontier, were 
 of course in strong contrast. At any given time, each of 
 these types throve predominantly in certain areas in 
 the South, while in others they existed only in subordi- 
 nation, if at all. Where two or all three coexisted in 
 a single area, the systems usually competed for the su- 
 premacy; and in the outcome the most efficient for the 
 main purpose at hand would conquer. The representa- 
 tives of the other types would mostly have to move on. 
 The location of these types, therefore, was somewhat 
 transitory. The great abundance of land available and
 
 74 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the short-lived fertility of the soil, together with the pre- 
 vailing wasteful methods of tillage, caused a great 
 hunger for land and, to satisfy that hunger, a rapid ex- 
 tension of settlement. Thus arose the westward move- 
 ment. In it each of the southern types of industrial 
 society took part; and throughout the whole belt of 
 country suitable for exploitation by these systems a 
 running contest ensued between them. 
 
 Space is not available to show the origin and early 
 phases of these systems and their contest by the print- 
 ing of first-hand materials ; and furthermore the record 
 from the fugitive documents would perhaps be too 
 fragmentary for the purpose. The text of many docu- 
 ments in our present collection, however, will suggest 
 the fact that there was a never-ending evolution through 
 the competition of industrial units and systems. A rapid 
 survey of the general development by areas will give a 
 setting to our several categories of documents and will 
 show incidentally how much the economic history of the 
 Old South in its plantation regions was made up of ex- 
 tensions and repetitions of the same general phenomena. 
 The plantation system had independent origins in the 
 Spanish West Indies and in English Virginia. In the 
 latter case, which will concern us first, the system and 
 its name evolved simultaneously. 
 
 When Virginia was founded, the word plantation 
 had the meaning of the modern word colony. The 
 Jamestown settlement was the plantation of the London 
 Company in the sense that the Company had founded it 
 and exercised jurisdiction over it. But there was inci- 
 dentally a closer relation between the settlement and 
 the Company, which the word colony does not connote. 
 The Company owned the land ; it owned the equipment ; 
 and it had property rights in the labor of the settlers
 
 INTRODUCTION 75 
 
 whom it sent over. The Company provided taskmasters ; 
 it fed and clothed the laborers from its magazine; and 
 it owned the produce resulting from their work. That 
 is to say, early Virginia was the plantation of the Lon- 
 don Company in the modern sense of the term - it was 
 an industrial establishment rather than a political com- 
 munity. The next step in the development of Virginia 
 came when a decade's experience had shown the many 
 short-comings of the system of operating the whole 
 province as one estate and caused the Company's plan- 
 tation to be replaced by smaller industrial units. This 
 occurred through the distribution of land in severalty. 
 Many of the men who acquired land became farmers 
 on a small scale, tilling their own fields. Others, whether 
 individually or in small stock companies, secured large 
 tracts of land, imported labor (comprising chiefly in- 
 dentured Europeans) , and continued with suitable mod- 
 ifications the system with which the London Company 
 had begun, and which came to be known as the planta- 
 tion system. By virtue of this transition, Virginia, from 
 being a mere plantation owned by the London Com- 
 pany, became a colony or commonwealth, comprising 
 independent farms and private plantations. The dis- 
 covery of the great resource for profit in raising to- 
 bacco gave the spur to Virginia's large-scale industry 
 and her territorial expansion. Not only this, but it 
 brought about the methods of life which controlled 
 the history of Virginia through the following centuries 
 and of the many colonies and states which borrowed 
 her plantation system. 
 
 Settlement quickly spread along the banks of the 
 James river from Chesapeake Bay to the head of navi- 
 gation, where the city of Richmond now stands. Plan- 
 tations and farms dotted the river shores in a narrow
 
 76 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 tongue of settlement thrust into the wilderness. For a 
 period practically all the settlers were tobacco pro- 
 ducers, all were in close touch with navigable water 
 and the route to Europe, and all, so to speak, rubbed 
 shoulders with the Indians. Seeking fertile lands, 
 planters began to make clearings on the York River 
 about 1630 and then upon the Rappahannock and 
 Potomac. As decades passed, settlement was spread 
 throughout the tide water stretches of these parallel 
 streams; and the commonwealth of Virginia, by this 
 broadening of its area, acquired dimensions conducing 
 to its more easy defence and to the geographical differ- 
 entiation of conditions and pursuits. The tide water 
 peninsulas tended to be monopolized by the planters; 
 the mainland, west and south, chiefly attracted the men 
 of little property. A great fall in tobacco prices at an 
 early period forced the less efficient producers out of 
 that industry, and nothing was left them but self-suf- 
 ficing economy. The fitness of routine methods for 
 tobacco raising and the advantages of producing and 
 marketing on a large scale gave the control of that in- 
 dustry to the planters. The farmers soon found it of no 
 advantage to live within hail of ocean-going ships ; and 
 most of those who owned tide water farms sold them 
 to neighboring planters and moved inland where lands 
 were cheaper and fresher, and society might be moulded 
 to the wishes of their class. Emancipated redemptioners, 
 as they emerged from servitude, were attracted by the 
 industrial opportunity and the spirit of democracy pre- 
 vailing on the outskirts of settlement and tended 
 strongly to join the westward drift. In general, the 
 longer settled and the more accessible areas grew to 
 assume the full plantation type, while the newer areas, 
 with a simpler organization, served as a buffer, shelter-
 
 INTRODUCTION 77 
 
 ing the former from the dangers and inconveniences 
 of the wilderness. 
 
 As years passed the numbers of planters increased, 
 partly through the division of estates among heirs, 
 partly through the rise of exceptional yeomen into 
 planting estate, partly by the immigration of gentlemen 
 of means from England. The growth of the farming 
 population was much more rapid; for the planters had 
 to serve constantly as immigration agents in order to 
 maintain their supply of indented labor; and redemp- 
 tioners were as constantly completing their terms and 
 becoming yeomen, marrying and multiplying. The 
 Virginia plantation districts, therefore, as a by-product 
 provided a pioneering population, detached from the 
 plantation system. These occupied the "back country" 
 of Virginia, and also spread into eastern and then into 
 central North Carolina. An entirely similar process 
 was going on in Maryland and, one not widely dif- 
 ferent, in Pennsylvania. This group of colonies thus 
 produced the first great supply of people for the 
 process of secondary colonization, which we know as 
 the westward movement. They continued to recruit the 
 pioneering population in large volume, as long as the 
 system of indented servitude remained a chief basis 
 of their industry. 
 
 By the end of the seventeenth century, Virginia and 
 Maryland changed to the basis of negro slavery as their 
 chief supply of labor. This had important effects upon 
 the output of pioneers. The negroes being preferred 
 for the gang labor, the redemptioners of the eighteenth 
 century in Virginia tended to be mostly artisans and 
 responsible persons. When achieving freedom they 
 were accordingly of a more capable and substantial 
 type. After the great resort to slave labor, therefore.
 
 78 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the output of pioneers from the plantation districts 
 diminished in volume and improved in quality. 
 
 As this emigration of freedmen from the plantations 
 slackened, and as the farming districts grew broader 
 and extended more remotely, the planting and farming 
 districts respectively tended to lose touch, and further, 
 the farming districts began to show a differentiation 
 within themselves. The older and nearer portions 
 tended to acquire a steady-going, peace-loving popu- 
 lation, while to the furthest and thinnest edges of 
 settlement there were attracted the more restless and 
 venturesome. By these developments, the frontier in 
 Maryland and Virginia had been extended by 1740 to 
 within perhaps fifty miles of the Blue Ridge, while the 
 plantation districts were still confined to the close neigh- 
 borhood of tide water. 
 
 About this time began the entrance into Virginia, 
 through the then remote and little known Shenandoah 
 Valley, of the great wave of migration from Pennsyl- 
 vania, made up mostly of Scotch-Irish and Germans. 
 This in the following decades brought multitudinous 
 recruits to the farming and frontier population and 
 caused a very rapid extension of the occupied area 
 throughout the Shenandoah and Piedmont Virginia, 
 across Piedmont Carolina to middle Georgia, and into 
 the valley of East Tennessee, and even across the Cum- 
 berland Mountains to Kentucky and the Nashville 
 district. 
 
 Meanwhile a new plantation district was growing 
 into great prominence in the lower South. This was in 
 the coast region lying around the budding city of 
 Charleston. The European settlers and their system of 
 industry arrived in South Carolina by way of the West 
 Indies; and it is well for us to follow the same detour, 
 tracing origins and developments as we go.
 
 INTRODUCTION 79 
 
 In the first place, the Spaniards had begun at once 
 after the discovery by Columbus to exploit such wealth 
 as the West Indies could yield. They enslaved the ab- 
 origines in immense numbers, and fed them so little 
 and drove them so hard in their gold mines and their 
 sugar fields that the Indians died off as if by pestilence. 
 To replace the Indians, negroes began about 1520 to be 
 imported in large numbers to serve in the Spanish islands 
 as slaves. The development, however, was not rapid. 
 As soon as the wealth of precious metals in Mexico and 
 Peru had been discovered the most ardent fortune 
 seekers hurried to these new acquisitions ; and the islands 
 were left to unaggressive settlers who in the main lived 
 passively upon the labor of their negro slaves in sugar 
 culture. The Spaniards maintained a sort of plantation 
 system; but by reason of the listlessness of its captains, 
 their industry stagnated. The resources of none of the 
 islands were at all fully utilized, and many of the Indies 
 were left by them entirely vacant. 
 
 Beginning in 1641, the outlying little island of Bar- 
 badoes was occupied by a sudden in-pouring of English- 
 men, mostly royalist refugees from the victorious army, 
 of the Roundheads. Barbadoes, measuring only twenty 
 by ten miles in length and breadth, was quickly crowded 
 with people, and its whole area reduced to tillage in 
 small estates. The sugar industry, however, led to the 
 rapid importation of negro slaves and to the enlarge- 
 ment of estates. This caused much cramping. When 
 war began with Spain, the Barbadians eagerly joined 
 in an English expedition and captured the island of 
 Jamaica in 1655. Here there was abundance of land 
 for a large working population. The settlers in Bar- 
 badoes had already borrowed the Spanish method of 
 using slave labor in sugar production : and, from the 
 needs of their case and from their own large capability
 
 8o AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 as industrial managers, they rendered the plantation 
 system much more efficient in the raising of cane and 
 the making of sugar. In Jamaica this improved system 
 quickly expanded and caused the growth of very large 
 and very productive plantations. The average unit of 
 industry in the Jamaican sugar fields came to be a plan- 
 tation w^ith a total of nearly two hundred negroes, of 
 whom more than half were workers in the field gangs. 
 The laborers were strictly classified and worked in 
 squads under close and energetic supervision to near the 
 maximum of their muscular ability. The routine was 
 thoroughly systematic, and the system as efficient on the 
 whole as could well be, where the directors were so few 
 and the negroes so many and so little removed from the 
 state of African savagery. The Jamaican units on the 
 average were the largest in all the history of plantation 
 industry. The disproportion of the races was greater 
 than in any other Anglo-American colony or common- 
 wealth, and the association of master and slave was the 
 slightest. The huge demand for negroes in Jamaica 
 prevented the rise of opportunity for any great number 
 of white men. The demand for overseers was limited 
 by the number of plantations; and the opportunity for 
 white mechanics, merchants, and laborers was not large. 
 The acquisition of Jamaica did not wholly relieve 
 the congestion in Barbadoes. The Barbadian, John Col- 
 leton, soon turned the attention of some of his associates 
 to the continental coast as a further opportunity for ex- 
 pansion. Under a charter of 1663 for Carolina, a band 
 of Barbadians and Englishmen planted the town of 
 Charleston in 1670. Ignorant of the local resources, they 
 found little of a profitable character to do. Trading 
 with the Indians and exporting a small volume of naval 
 stores, the settlement followed a self-sufficing economy
 
 INTRODUCTION 8i 
 
 on a petty scale and languished, until the resource of 
 rice production was discovered in 1694. Following this, 
 there was a rapid importation of negro slaves and a 
 rapid extension of settlement along the fertile strips of 
 land in the neighborhood of the water-broken coast. 
 South Carolina became highly prosperous, and spent 
 most of her earnings in the purchase of more slaves to 
 raise more rice. The addition of indigo as a supple- 
 mentary staple, about 1745, doubled the resources and 
 intensified the system. The typical estate came to be a 
 plantation with about thirty working hands, cultivating 
 rice in the swampy lands and indigo in the drier fields, 
 in a steady routine which lasted nearly the whole year 
 through. The nature of the climate and the work to be 
 done precluded, as in Jamaica, the use of any but negro 
 labor in the gangs. The prevalence of malaria in the 
 hot months caused most of the planters to abandon their 
 estates for much of the year to the care of overseers and 
 foremen. In contrast with this, the usual type of estate 
 in the Virginia plantation districts had only five or ten 
 working hands, of whom part were likely to be white 
 redemptioners ; and the master and his family were 
 usually on the estate the year round. The periodical ab- 
 senteeism in the rice district, together with the rela- 
 tively large size of the industrial units, brought about a 
 status of race relations more similar to that of Jamaica 
 than to that of Virginia, where the negro servants had 
 gradually replaced the white ones and were often in 
 close touch with their masters' families. 
 
 In Georgia, the rulers of the colony tried hard to 
 keep out slave labor; but about 1750 had to yield to the 
 inevitable. Thereafter the sea-island district of Georgia 
 tended to assume the same complexion as that which the 
 South Carolina lowlands had acquired.
 
 82 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 The rice and indigo district, unlike the Virginia- 
 Maryland region, developed town life as well as rural. 
 Charleston, and on a much smaller scale Savannah, 
 were centers of commerce and society. These towns 
 developed some interesting relations between slave, free 
 negro, and white labor, which some of our documents 
 will indicate. The Charleston-Savannah district, em- 
 ploying very few indented servants and attracting very 
 few independent white laborers, furnished only a small 
 number of farmers or frontiersmen. Industrial society 
 was not upon a basis to produce pioneers. Furthermore, 
 no gateway was at hand leading to the continent's in- 
 terior. The great sandy tract which covers most of the 
 coastal plain from southern Virginia to Texas, pine- 
 grown and barren of resources for the men of the 
 period, was widest in South Carolina and Georgia. To 
 reach the country of rolling hills, hard wood timber and 
 clay soil, the men from Charleston and Savannah would 
 have to journey across a hundred and fifty miles of the 
 vacant and forbidding pine-barrens. Access to the 
 Carolina-Georgia piedmont from the northeastward 
 was much easier for pioneers, because the route lay 
 through resourceful country, uniform and familiar in 
 character, and already in part occupied. The tide of 
 migration from Pennsylvania and Virginia had reached 
 the piedmont of South Carolina before any people from 
 the coast had begun to cross the great belt of pine- 
 barrens which shut them in. Thereafter there was but 
 a thin stream from Charleston to join the tide from the 
 northward. In the South Carolina-Georgia coast dis- 
 trict there was little opportunity for small farmers, and 
 much for capable planters with their gangs. Farmers, 
 therefore, had little occasion to enter the district, and 
 planters in the eighteenth century no occasion to leave
 
 INTRODUCTION 83 
 
 it. This region, accordingly, grew to be one of those 
 most thoroughly dominated by the plantation system; 
 and it came to be less in touch than any other on the 
 continent with the needs and policy of the farming dis- 
 tricts and the frontier. 
 
 The result of colonial developments may be pictured 
 in a view of conditions prevailing on the eve of the war 
 for independence : 
 
 I The Chesapeake lowlands and the eastern part of 
 the neighboring hill country were the seat of the tobacco 
 industry, then yielding what was still the most im- 
 portant staple on the continent. By far the most of the 
 output was produced in the plantation system and by 
 far the most of the laborers were negro slaves. The 
 units of plantation industry were relatively small, 
 ranging usually below twenty and often below ten field 
 hands to the plantation. There was a large number, 
 also, of free farmers and an appreciable number of in- 
 dented servants, especially in Maryland. The lands in 
 the older parts of the districts were by this time largely 
 exhausted and industry somewhat depressed. Eastern 
 Virginia on the whole had begun to pass the zenith of 
 her prosperity. The tobacco staple was a resource of 
 decreasing value, and many people were finding it 
 necessary to resort instead to the production of food- 
 stuffs for market. A readjustment was beginning, which 
 involved the decline of the plantation system in that 
 district. There was a striking dearth of towns and of 
 manufacturing. The trade of most planters with Lon- 
 don was inconveniently remote. The towns of Balti- 
 more, Annapolis, Norfolk and Richmond were rising 
 to some little consequence; but the Virginia-Maryland 
 community on the whole was overwhelmingly rural. 
 Across the North Carolina boundary, the district about
 
 84 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Albemarle Sound was merely a subprovince of the 
 Chesapeake region. By this time it had received some 
 slaveholding immigrants from Virginia, and thus 
 added to its small-farming population a certain number 
 of tobacco planters. 
 
 2 The Shenandoah Valley and most of the pied- 
 mont country from Maryland to eastern Georgia was 
 now occupied by a large but thinly scattered population 
 of backwoods farmers, whose area of occupation 
 touched the plantation district in Virginia, but was 
 widely separated from it in the Carolinas and Georgia 
 by the intervening pine-barrens. The western portions 
 of these settlements were much of the frontier com- 
 plexion. The main advance guard of the pioneers, 
 however, had now reached the "western waters" in 
 what we now call East Tennessee, and the most adven- 
 turous of them had recently crossed the barrier of the 
 Cumberland range and staked out claims in central 
 Kentucky and the Nashville district. 
 
 3 The South Carolina-Georgia lowlands were a 
 segregated area occupied by plantations of a large aver- 
 age size, and with but few nonslaveholding farmers. 
 Most of the unattached working men who by chance 
 entered this district either took employment in the com- 
 mercial towns or pushed across the pine-barrens to join 
 the backwoodsmen of the Piedmont. 
 
 4 St. Augustine, Pensacola, Mobile, Biloxi, New 
 Orleans, Natchez, etc., in the provinces of Florida and 
 Louisiana, both at this time held by Spain, were either 
 feeble garrisons or trifling posts for the Indian trade. 
 No considerable agriculture had been developed except 
 in a few clearings upon the banks of the Mississippi; 
 and even in them industry languished. The industrial 
 future of the country was clearly in the hands of the
 
 INTRODUCTION 85 
 
 Anglo-Americans; and the Gulf region awaited their 
 coming. 
 
 The war for independence brought, of course, a se- 
 vere economic depression; and this caused some geo- 
 graphical and industrial readjustment. Eastern Vir- 
 ginia suffered a large emigration of its planters, many 
 of whom removed only to the adjacent Piedmont; but 
 some were bold enough to make the long journey to 
 Kentucky with their slaves to exploit the newly famed 
 tobacco lands there. Others enquired for openings in 
 Georgia and Florida, and only awaited favorable re- 
 ports thence to migrate southward. The planters in the 
 rice district were also depressed for the time, because 
 the withdrawal of the British bounty on indigo had 
 ended their profits from that staple. As for the Pied- 
 mont, the number of farms was gradually being in- 
 creased; and so also in east and middle Tennessee. 
 
 The depression of the planting industry lasted only 
 until the resort to the new staple of cotton. Sea-island 
 cotton was made available in 1786, and upland cotton 
 by the invention of Whitney's gin in 1793. The former 
 revived the prosperity of the rice coast; the latter had 
 tremendous results in revolutionizing the economy and 
 the social constitution of the Carolina and Georgia 
 Piedmont and developing the country westward as far 
 as Texas and north to the southwestern point of Ken- 
 tucky. Slaveholders from all of the older plantation 
 districts now began to pour into the Carolina and Geor- 
 gia upland. Very many of the farmers in that region 
 at the same time advanced to the status of planters 
 through the devotion of their earnings from high-priced 
 cotton to the purchase of slaves. 
 
 In this newly developing cotton belt a pell-mell 
 regime prevailed. In a scrambling scattered mass of
 
 86 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 many sorts of people, planters, slaves, farmers, poor 
 whites, and frontiersmen nearly all were concerned 
 with getting cotton lands. The Creeks and Cherokees 
 resisted the pressure upon their hunting grounds; and 
 there was accordingly a mixture of plantation and fron- 
 tier regimes in middle Georgia, as also afterward in Al- 
 abama and Mississippi. The passage of years witnessed 
 a systematizing process in the cotton belt, and in some 
 measure a segregating process which put the planters 
 in control of most of the fertile and accessible areas. 
 
 Meanwhile it had been discovered in Louisiana in 
 1794, that sugar could be produced there with success; 
 and a development of sugar plantations on a consider- 
 able scale had begun in the brief remaining period of 
 the Spanish and French dominations. The arrival of 
 the American regime in the sugar district of Louisiana 
 had much the same stimulating and systematizing effect 
 as that which, as we have noted, followed the English 
 capture of Jamaica. Large and thoroughly organized 
 plantations became the characteristic feature. The 
 sugar district was confined by climatic limitations to 
 the southern part of the present state of Louisiana. 
 Soon after the Louisiana Purchase, it became known 
 that the alluvial lands north of the sugar district could 
 be used for short-staple cotton. The bottoms were rela- 
 tively slow, however, in acquiring a good reputation 
 except for sugar production. The Georgia and Caro- 
 lina midlands were for a period in more active de- 
 mand. 
 
 The War of 18 12 brought another economic crisis, 
 which again hastened the developments already in 
 progress. Eastern Virginia and Maryland were further 
 depopulated, and the Virginia Piedmont also supplied 
 emigrants. The high cotton prices which came with
 
 INTRODUCTION 87 
 
 the return of peace brought a new influx from these 
 districts, and also from the Carolina coast, into the cot- 
 ton belt. The defeat of the Creeks in war by Andrew 
 Jackson had meanwhile forced a cession of a large part 
 of Alabama; and within the next two decades the 
 Southern Indians were obliged to give up all their re- 
 maining lands east of the Mississippi. Thereby a large 
 territory was rapidly opened to receive the spread of 
 settlement. The result was a thin occupation at the ou^ 
 set, in a wildly speculative regime, followed by a sober- 
 ing process, in which a heavy fall in cotton prices 
 assisted. The lowlands upon the Mississippi River, 
 ofifering the attraction of inexhaustibly fertile soil, be- 
 came a district of specially large slaveholdings, whether 
 for cotton or sugar production, and specially subject to 
 spasms of inflation and depression. In the same period 
 the population was being increased in Kentucky and 
 middle Tennessee in more sedate fashion, as well as in 
 the territory north of the Ohio River. Florida, also^ 
 received some immigration after its purchase in 18 19; 
 but Florida lay without the cotton belt proper and suf- 
 fered a relative neglect. The only great extension of 
 the plantation area remaining to be mentioned was that 
 into Texas. The attractions of that region were the 
 prairies for cattle and the river lands for cotton. The 
 process of occupation, from the industrial point of 
 view, was not widely different from that of other new 
 districts in the cotton belt, except that the farms and 
 plantations were more sparsely distributed and industry 
 was somewhat more diversified, and the proportion of 
 negro laborers smaller than in the other cases. The 
 occupation of Arkansas and West Tennessee was merely 
 an extension of the movement into the Mississippi cot- 
 ton region. Rough conditions prevailed for a period;
 
 88 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 but industry in sober routine was not slow in replacing 
 the regime of legal and social chaos. The settlement of 
 Missouri was marked by an effort to extend the planta- 
 tion system into a region not suited to the staples. A 
 considerable number of slaves were carried thither; but 
 they were found relatively unprofitable as laborers ; and 
 as years passed their number tended to diminish through 
 sales to the cotton belt. 
 
 A factor which strongly marked off the later period 
 in the Old South's history and exerted great influence 
 upon its industrial constitution was the closing of the 
 foreign slave trade by the congressional act of 1808. 
 Thereafter the tobacco and rice districts had a corner 
 on the supply of slave labor which the cotton belt was 
 demanding; slave prices entered upon a great rise and 
 became subject to wild fluctuations ; the industrial units 
 and the several plantation districts competed strenu- 
 ously for the possession of the available slaves ; industry 
 reached very much a speculative basis; crises of great 
 severity became periodical; and the stress of the times 
 quickened migration and hastened the segregation of 
 types. Under these stimuli, the people of the South had 
 gotten fairly acquainted with the qualities and relative 
 advantages of every part of their country, by 1850 or 
 i860, and in each area had to a large degree developed 
 that distinctive industrial system which, under the gen- 
 eral circumstances of their legal system and their labor 
 supply, served best to utilize local opportunities. 
 
 A survey on the eve of the War of Secession will 
 show the conditions of industrial society as follows : 
 
 Tide water Virginia and the greater part of Mary- 
 land had long been exhausted for plantation purposes 
 and were being reclaimed by farmers working with 
 much the same methods as were followed in the north-
 
 INTRODUCTION 89 
 
 ern states. The large land- and slave-owners mostly 
 followed an example which George Washington had 
 set and divided up their estates into small units in each 
 of which a few negroes worked in the raising of varied 
 crops under the control of a white man who was more 
 a foreman leading the squad than an overseer driving 
 it. Planters, who adhered to the old methods, were now 
 of decayed estate, supported more by the sale of slaves 
 than by the raising of tobacco. Incidentally, eastern 
 Virginia and Maryland had come to have a very large 
 number of free negroes. 
 
 The Piedmont in Virginia and the Carolinas had also 
 reached a stage of some exhaustion and depopulation. 
 The great liability of the hillsides to the washing away 
 of their soil made the preservation of fertility pecul- 
 iarly difficult in this rolling country, while the planta- 
 tion system as generally administered was notorious for 
 its carelessness of tillage. 
 
 The Charleston-Savannah district was moderately 
 prosperous with its rice and sea-island cotton; and still 
 excluded all small farmers except the poor whites, who 
 were too low in the scale of industry and comfort to feel 
 any effects of competition. The pine-barrens, includ- 
 ing most of Florida, were vacant of people except for a 
 thin sprinkling of farmers who tended more or less to- 
 ward the poor white status. 
 
 The South Carolina and Georgia uplands were a 
 fairly prosperous region dominated by planters but 
 with a large portion of each neighborhood owned and 
 cultivated by small farmers. The Alabama black lands, 
 running across the State in a belt just below Montgom- 
 ery and thence up the Tombigbee Valley, together with 
 the Mississippi and Red River bottoms and a portion of 
 Texas, formed the western cotton belt, which for four
 
 90 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 decades had been buying all the spare negroes from 
 every other part of the South and smuggling in some 
 from abroad to help in meeting its demand. The cotton 
 estates in the alluvial districts tended to have larger 
 gangs than those elsewhere; but of course the greatest 
 industrial units of all were the sugar estates, where the 
 need of the large economies incident to the operation 
 of a sugar mill on each plantation discouraged all small 
 or medium-sized units from attempting to compete. It 
 must be observed, however, that all the western cotton 
 belt and the sugar district was interspersed more or less 
 with barren or remote tracts where poor whites or other 
 small farmers might live undisturbed by ofifers of tempt- 
 ing prices for their lands. 
 
 Kentucky and middle Tennessee were a region of 
 diversified industry, producing grain and live stock, to- 
 bacco, some cotton, and in one district a large output of 
 hemp. Manufacturing, too, reached appreciable di- 
 mensions. Some of the agriculture permitted the plan- 
 tation system; some did not. Much of the region had 
 a considerable minority of negroes in its population, 
 but very few localities had a majority of them. 
 
 In the Shenandoah Valley, northern models of farm- 
 ing were followed, producing large crops of grain, hay, 
 fruit, etc. Attempts by eastern Virginians had been 
 made to establish plantations in the Shenandoah, but 
 only to fail. Slaves were sprinkled in the population 
 but served only as help, not as gang labor. East Ten- 
 nessee was practically a duplicate of the Shenandoah 
 in its industrial society. It had long been shut out by 
 the mountains from any access to markets for its prod- 
 uce; but the building of railway connection to the cot- 
 ton belt brought a long delayed wave of prosperity. It 
 of course produced none of the southern staples; it had 
 no slaves to speak of, and no plantations.
 
 INTRODUCTION 91 
 
 As for the people living in the midst of the moun- 
 tains, in West Virginia, Kentucky, western North Car- 
 olina, etc., they were so completely isolated, self-suf- 
 ficing and unprogressive as to have practically no 
 influence upon the rest of the South and little develop- 
 ment of their own. 
 
 The succession of stages and systems which we have 
 observed in this outline of the development in the sev- 
 eral areas on the continent was largely analogous to that 
 which other students have described among the West 
 India Islands. Merivale,^ for example, has written in 
 substance as follows on the remarkable repetition of in- 
 dustrial history in the West Indies : The same causes, 
 operating in one island after another, produce the same 
 effects. The opening of a fresh soil, with freedom of 
 trade, gives sudden stimulus to settlement and industry; 
 the land is covered with free proprietors, and a general 
 but rude prosperity prevails. Then follows a period of 
 more careful cultivation, during which estates are con- 
 solidated, gangs of slaves succeed to communities of 
 freemen, the rough commonwealth is transformed into 
 a most productive factory. But fertility diminishes; 
 the cost of production augments; slave labor, always 
 dear, becomes dearer through the increased expense of 
 supporting it. At this stage, new islands are occupied, 
 and fresh sources of production opened; the older colo- 
 nies, meeting thus a ruinous competition, descend after 
 a period of difficulty and suffering into a secondary 
 state, in which capital, economy, and increased skill 
 make up in part only for the advantages which have 
 been lost. Thus, the Windward Islands first supplied 
 almost all the then limited consumption of sugar and 
 coffee in Europe ; Jamaica rose on their decay, and went 
 through precisely the same stages of existence; San 
 
 '^Lectures on Colonization and Colonies (London, 1841), 92, 93.- Ed.
 
 92 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Domingo in turn greatly eclipsed Jamaica, but was 
 overwhelmed by the great negro insurrection, and never 
 reached the period of decline. Lastly the Spanish Col- 
 onies of Cuba and Porto Rico, after centuries of com- 
 parative neglect, started all at once into the front rank 
 of exporting islands, while the British planters, with 
 the aid of their accumulated capital, were struggling 
 against encroaching decay. The parallel of the history 
 of the islands with that of the staple areas on the main- 
 land is remarkably close, and is useful in confirming 
 the views we have reached of the nature, influence and 
 history of the plantation system. 
 
 Our outline of the history of southern industrial so- 
 ciety suffices to show the striking repetition of process 
 and to indicate the dififerentiation of types, area by area. 
 It demonstrates that documents to illustrate either the 
 frontier or the plantation regime can be chosen indiffer- 
 ently from numerous areas, provided that a due regard 
 be had to the periods of time and stages of development 
 within which the writings respectively may fall. 
 /"'' Within the several plantation districts, the systems of 
 labor were determined largely by the requirements of 
 the staples. The size of the units was controlled in 
 large measure by the degree of fitness of the soil and 
 the staple for full routine in simple tasks. Sugar cane 
 offered the best opportunity for plantations of great 
 size, because no delicate work was required and there 
 was employment throughout the year for crude muscu- 
 lar force with a minimum of intelligence and pains- 
 taking. The rice crop was next in the order of these 
 qualifications. Indigo was so delicate a plant and 
 needed so much care in preparing the product that ne- 
 gro labor was poorly suited for the work. Cotton had 
 the disadvantage of needing delicate handling at some
 
 INTRODUCTION 93 
 
 seasons; but it had the great staple virtue of keeping 
 the laborers busy nearly all the year in a steady routine. 
 No time of fair weather at any season need be lost in 
 that idleness and unremunerative work which it was 
 the planter's chief business to guard against. In to- 
 bacco, the routine season was shorter and the need of 
 painstaking greater; and tobacco accordingly was aban- 
 doned by many planters who turned in preference to 
 cotton or sugar. The cultivation of corn and wheat as 
 main crops gave such long rest seasons, necessary to fill 
 by job work in by-industries, that no slaveowning 
 planter could well compete in their production for the 
 market. Small farms abounded in the several southern 
 districts in inverse proportion to the fitness of their soil 
 and their staple for full routine with crude labor. For 
 example, the deep and durable soils of the Mississippi 
 bottoms were more conducive to the use of large gangs 
 in cotton raising than were the rolling lands of the Car- 
 olina Piedmont which had only a surface fertility. In 
 the Piedmont there was frequent need of clearing new 
 fields in a process which disturbed the routine; and the 
 uneven character of the land promoted a scattering of 
 fields, which wasted the time of the gangs in going to 
 and coming from work and made effective supervision 
 more difficult. Farmers could there compete in pro- 
 ducing the staple with less disadvantage than in the al- 
 luvial lands, and small planters could hold their own 
 against the great ones. The piedmont plantations on 
 the whole were accordingly smaller on the average and 
 less formal in system than those in the several lowland 
 districts. That contrasts existed among the numerous 
 frontier areas and types is obvious. The variations were 
 too many and complex to permit of discussion here. 
 To make fuller the portrayal of southern industrial
 
 94 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 society, we include in the volume a selection of docu- 
 ments on mining, manufacturing, handicrafts, wage- 
 earning labor in general, mechanics' societies, town reg- 
 ulations, etc. With a partial exception as regards the 
 yeoman class, the collection may thus stand as fairly 
 illustrative of the whole regime in the English Southern 
 Colonies and the Southern States. 
 
 ■^ The temper and philosophy of the people were 
 formed chiefly by the combined and interacting in- 
 fluence of the frontier and plantation systems. The 
 frontier had a lasting influence only in its giving a 
 stamp of self reliance and aggressiveness to the char- 
 acter of men. The frontier influence was the more 
 widely extended ; for it affected nearly all the country. 
 North and South. The influence of the plantation sys- 
 tem and problems was more local and more lasting. 
 The system gave a tone of authority and paternalism to 
 the master class, and of obedience to the servants. The 
 plantation problems, further, affected the whole com- 
 munity; for after the close of the seventeenth centur}" 
 the plantation problem was mainly the negro problem, 
 and that was of vital concern to all members of both 
 races in all districts where the negroes were numerous. 
 The wilderness and the Indians were transient; the 
 staples and the negroes were permanent, and their influ- 
 ence upon the prevailing philosophy became intensified 
 with the lapse of years. It eventually overshadowed the 
 whole South, and forced the great mass of the people 
 to subordinate all other considerations to policies in this 
 one relation. Some of our documents will show the 
 nature and intensity of this influence. 
 
 In preparing this collection of documents the policy 
 has been as far as possible to use material combining
 
 INTRODUCTION 95 
 
 three qualities in each instance, rareness, unconscious- /" 
 ness, and faithful illustration. The purpose is to show] 
 the most saliently characteristic features of southern 
 industrial society, through the writings not only of con- 
 temporaries, but preferably of actual participators who 
 wrote with no expectation that what they wrote would 
 be published. Every experienced student will appreci- '' 
 ate the value of "unconsciousness" in a document. Its 
 writer is in general more likely to be simple and faithful 
 to facts and conditions, which he incidentally mentions, 
 than if he had written with a purpose of publishing 
 on the subject. Since the aim of the work is to contrib- 
 ute to knowledge, rareness in the documents has been 
 at a premium in the selection. But the faithfulness of 
 illustration is of course the main consideration. A per- 
 fect combination of these three qualities in documents 
 dealing with all the salient features could not be hoped 
 for. Some of the most eloquent material is already in 
 widely accessible print; some of the most faithful de- 
 scriptions were made with the conscious purpose of por- 
 trayal; and some of the rarest and most illuminating 
 documents are descriptive rather of the exceptional 
 than of the average in the types under consideration. 
 Where sacrifice of one element or another has been nec- 
 essary, the considerations of faithfulness and illumina- 
 tion have been held paramount. In some cases docu- 
 ments already well known to students are used, but on 
 the whole the editor has been unusually fortunate in 
 finding rare and hidden materials of the sort which he 
 has been seeking. His success here is largely a conse- 
 quence of the unworked nature of the field. 
 
 In securing accuracy of reproduction, great care has 
 been exercised. In some cases the verification of copies 
 has been impracticable; but reasonable assurance is
 
 96 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 fully justified that no serious errors have crept in. 
 The source of the document and its present location, 
 if in manuscript, are indicated in each instance. No 
 conscious departure from the text of the original has 
 been made, except in two cases where abstracts are pre- 
 sented instead of the language of the documents. 
 These instances are the record of slave trials in Baldwin 
 county, Georgia, and the record of the regulation of 
 negroes by the town corporation of Milledgeville. In 
 preparing a report on Georgia local archives some years 
 ago, the present editor made full abstracts of these rec- 
 ords. To secure verbatim copies has not since been 
 practicable. The material is excellently illustrative, 
 and nothing like it is available for our purpose. Hence 
 the exception in its favor. 
 
 It has been an aspiration to present through the docu- 
 ments a reasonably full view of southern industrial so- 
 ciety. Perfect accomplishment in this could not be 
 hoped for. The mosaic will not fit the pattern, and the 
 bits can be but very lightly trimmed. The crude natu- 
 ralness of the material is too precious to permit its sub- 
 ordination to any mechanical outline. 
 
 The portrayal of the regime by the documents is nec- 
 essarily uneven. Some features are much better treated 
 than others in the documents which have been found. 
 Some items are thus overemphasized and some neg- 
 lected. Part of this lack of balance has been inten- 
 
 I tional. Important features of the regime, which are 
 widely and truly understood already, may here need 
 
 ■little demonstration. Other features, perhaps of minor 
 importance, have been forgotten by the world and 
 knowledge of them is here revived. In such cases it 
 is thought well to publish the data more fully, for the 
 sake of both description and proof. An example is the
 
 INTRODUCTION 97 
 
 group of documents evidencing that some free persons 
 of color voluntarily enslaved themselves. Another 
 case, somewhat in the same class, is the material on the 
 industrial phase of the settlement of Texas. All the 
 histories of Texas are curiously wanting in this regard; 
 and space has here been taken from other topics to sup- 
 ply some of the sources. On the subject of small farms, 
 on the other hand, the reader must keep in mind that 
 there is a hiatus in the documents; the farms were an 
 important element in the general situation, though over- 
 shadowed in large part by the more striking and dis- 
 tinctive establishments. 
 
 In some cases where documents, which describe what 
 the editor judges to be the normal type in a given in- 
 stance, have not been found, the plan has been followed 
 of printing in that category several documents which, 
 through their diversity in point of view, or through 
 treating different phases, give the reader a chance to 
 fill out a picture of the normal type by the use of his 
 own constructive imagination. This use of the imagi-^ 
 nation, however, must be made with great caution. I 
 The South has already suffered grievously from the I 
 conjectures of hit-or-miss writers ; and it is partly to | 
 reduce the acceptance of such harmful conjectures thatj 
 this work is intended. 
 
 The truthful insight of the editor in his selection of 
 material to show the general features can not of course 
 be guaranteed. The documents in most cases, however, 
 furnish their own warranty. Generalities have mostly 
 been avoided. The great majority of the documents 
 deal concretely, unconsciously, and in evident faithful- 
 ness with a special matter with which the writer was 
 concerned in a matter-of-fact way. The facts are sim- 
 ply and plainly stated; and no matter what generaliza-
 
 98 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 tions from them may or may not be justified, the facts 
 are what they are. The documents, which exhibit prev- 
 alent philosophy and public opinion, are of course 
 more open to question. But the selection of such has 
 been made with distinct caution. The method of the 
 whole work has its obvious limitations of unevenness 
 : and incompleteness. The result is fragmentary at best. 
 1 But the result can not fail to be suggestive, at least, and 
 'furnish a basis for true knowledge. 
 
 Most of the documents resist any attempt at classifi- 
 cation within strict categories. One relating mainly to 
 plantation management, for example, is likely to have 
 items on overseers, slave labor, negro character, fac- 
 torage, Irish ditching gangs, etc. Documents on mi- 
 gration must deal with matters which might almost as 
 well fall into numerous other categories. Poor whites, 
 again, were a class with vague limits, and whatever its 
 limits, our documents do not quite fit the class as it has 
 existed in the popular imagination. The volumes must 
 be used, with the understanding that the categories are 
 loose as well as broad, and it is safer to use the collec- 
 tion as a whole, or any single document from it, rather 
 than to take the material under any single heading as 
 being at all fully descriptive. 
 
 Volume one comprises the following sections : 
 L The subject of our first category, "Plantation 
 Management," is necessary as a setting for the condi- 
 tions of labor and society. The series of plantation 
 regulations belong to a class of material too little 
 known and appreciated. These writings, largely un- 
 conscious, are evidently sincere, though the ones which 
 have come to light and are here printed would show, if 
 taken as a description, too idyllic a view of the sys-
 
 INTRODUCTION 99 
 
 tern. What they show in fact is rather the aspirations 
 of the high class planters than the actuality on the aver- 
 age plantation. The next items illustrate the disad- 
 vantages from the use of plantation labor in its various 
 aspects as slave labor, negro labor, and gang labor. 
 The advertisement from the Virginia Gazette, 1767, is 
 a gem of special value in suggesting an answer to the 
 question what regime could replace the plantation sys- 
 tem in case of its abandonment. The Manigault, Cobb 
 and McMichael papers, deal concretely with various 
 aspects of rice and cotton plantation affairs, showing 
 interestingly at times the frame of mind as well as the 
 business affairs of the planters. The section on by- 
 industries illustrates the interest sometimes prevailing 
 in other matters than the staples. 
 
 II. Under "Plantation Routine" are given selec- 
 tions from diaries kept by sugar and sea-island cotton 
 planters, showing the organization of labor in the large 
 unit industries. 
 
 III. In the absence of adequate "Descriptions" of 
 the topography and equipment of plantations from or- 
 dinary sources the advertising columns of newspapers 
 have been chiefly drawn upon. 
 
 IV. In the category of "Staples," the documents on 
 method of production relate mainly to rice and sea- 
 island cotton. The concluding section on the exces- 
 sive interest and reliance of the people upon their sta- 
 ples, illustrated in the case of short-staple cotton, is one 
 of the most important. 
 
 V. The items on "Plantation Supplies and Factor- 
 age" show the sort of things the planters needed, and 
 point the inconvenience entailed upon communities by 
 the failure to diversify industry. 
 
 VI. Among "Plantation Vicissitudes," are indicated
 
 lOO AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the many emergencies and mishaps which might occur 
 to test the capacity of manager and laborers and per- 
 haps to wreck the establishment. 
 
 VII. The documents on "Overseers" are perhaps 
 of a more unfavorable tone than would be typical of 
 the average case. Supplementary items on overseers 
 may be noted in the other categories. 
 
 VIII. Of all features of southern industrial history, 
 "Indented Labor" has received the fullest and most 
 satisfactory monographic treatment. The documents 
 here given are illustrative of miscellaneous features. 
 
 Volume two comprises the following sections: 
 
 IX. On "Slave Labor," the first two documents are 
 general descriptions, the rest are mostly concrete. Spe- 
 cial notice should be called to the items, "Slaveholding 
 hard to avoid," "Cases of chronic shirking and trouble- 
 making" and "Slaves' purchase of freedom" (particu- 
 larly the letter of Billy Proctor) . 
 
 X. The documents on the "Slave Trade" illustrate 
 in wide variety of items the concrete features of that 
 traffic and the sentiments with which it was regarded. 
 It will be observed that the demand for slave labor 
 fluctuated widely, ranging very low between 1780 and 
 1800, and rising highest about i860. 
 
 XI. The items on "Fugitive and Stolen Slaves" 
 point out the weakest spots in the whole slaveholding 
 system, the precariousness of slave labor as a form of 
 wealth, the injustice and hardships of slavery when im- 
 posed upon the exceptional "person of color," and the 
 failure of the rigid legal system to allow for evolution 
 and readjustment. 
 
 XII. In the documents on "Slave Conspiracies and 
 Crime" we have illustration of the necessity, the de- 
 gree of success and failure, and the results of subjecting
 
 INTRODUCTION lOi 
 
 the imported Africans to a tyranny of Anglo-American 
 law and industry. The memorial of the citizens of 
 Charleston, following the discovery of the negro plot 
 in 1822, is of special value. 
 
 XIII. The material on "Negro Qualities" deals 
 mainly with the freshly imported Africans, with a brief 
 item pointing the development which the negroes in 
 favorable districts might secure through association 
 with the whites. 
 
 XIV. Concerning "Free Persons of Color," the ma- 
 terial illustrates the industrial and social status and 
 points the fact of serious limitation upon their actual 
 enjoyment of freedom. 
 
 XV. The "Poor Whites" have left no records of 
 their own, and satisfactory concrete evidence regarding 
 them is hard to find. The documents presented, except 
 perhaps that by Stokes, the first of the category, are 
 faithful of their sort. 
 
 XVI. The plantation community, where nearly all 
 industry proceeded in fixed routine, was one of special 
 difficulty for the unattached "Immigrant" to enter and 
 establish himself. The problem of race relations, also, 
 was vexatious. The new communities, however, had 
 plenty of room for settlers, and when the price of sta- 
 ples was high, there was strong demand for extra labor. 
 An item of special note is the extensive employment by 
 planters in the eighteen fifties of gangs of Irishmen and 
 Germans for ditching and other heavy and dangerous 
 work, to safeguard the health of the then precious negro 
 slaves. 
 
 XVII. The documents on "Migration," dealing 
 mainly with the westward movement of planters, arc 
 concrete and clear enough to speak for themselves. 
 
 XVIII. On "Frontier Settlement," the documents
 
 I02 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 show the essential features of the process, and permit 
 many interesting comparisons of the development in 
 different areas and periods. 
 
 XIX. In "Frontier Industry," the emphasis is of 
 course upon the requirement of versatility and self- 
 sufRciency. 
 
 XX. "Frontier Societ}^," likewise, required self re- 
 liance and ability to cope with emergencies. The docu- 
 ments illustrate varied aspects. 
 
 XXI. To complete the view of the regime in the 
 Old South, documents are added on the industrial life 
 of the factories and towns. In the "Manufacturing" 
 category, the data relating to the textiles is of chief 
 significance. 
 
 XXII. A few items are inserted on "Public Regu- 
 lation of Industry" to illustrate a tendency which occa- 
 sionally showed itself. Most of this was in the spirit 
 of conservatism, even of medievalism, and not of prog- 
 ress. As a rule the tone of society was too individualis- 
 tic to permit of such regulation, except as concerned the 
 labor of negroes. 
 
 XXIII. The documents on "Artisans and Town 
 Labor" illustrate the labor demand, labor conditions, 
 and particularly relations between wage-earning whites 
 and the negro labor in the same employments. The me- 
 chanics' associations, to which the concluding docu- 
 ments relate, were in most cases not of the nature of 
 trades unions. Trades unions were but sporadic in the 
 South and not characteristic. 
 
 I have lived so intimately for so many months with 
 the documents here printed, and others of similar na- 
 ture, that their substance has become very much a mat- 
 ter-of-course in my mind. The respective significance
 
 INTRODUCTION 103 
 
 and limitations of each item, as I have seen them, have 
 grown so obvious in my view as to need no pointing out. 
 This dulling of the sense of proportion, however, is 
 doubtless not a misfortune; for in the great majority 
 of items, the documents are well able to tell their own 
 story. 
 
 A sympathetic understanding of plantation condi- 
 tions was my inevitable heritage from my family and 
 from neighbors, white and black, in the town of La- 
 Grange and Troup County, Georgia, where I was born 
 and grew up. A deepening appreciation of the histor- 
 ical significance of the plantation and of the preceding 
 frontier regimes I owe to Dr. Frederick J. Turner of 
 the University of Wisconsin, whose constant disciple 
 I have been since 1898. I am indebted also to Dr. 
 William A. Dunning, Dr. Richard T. Ely, Prof. John 
 R. Commons, Dr. Charles McCarthy, Dr. Edward A. 
 Ross, and Dr. Morton A. Aldrich, and to other pre- 
 ceptors and colleagues at Columbia, Wisconsin and Tu- 
 lane Universities, for direction and encouragement. 
 
 The financial support of the American Bureau of 
 Industrial Research has made the assembling of this 
 collection of documents possible. 
 
 My remarks prefixed to the separate documents men- 
 tion only a few of the legion of Southern people who 
 have rendered substantial aid. In addition to those 
 named in that way, I must here make particular men- 
 tion of my indebtedness to the following: Alfred H. 
 Stone, Esq., of Dunleith, Miss., Hon. Thos. M. Owen 
 of Montgomery, Ala., Miss Julia A. Flisch of Augusta, 
 Ga., W. J. De Renne, Esq., of Wormsloe, Savannah, 
 Ga., Col. A. R. Lawton and William Harden, Esq., 
 both of Savannah, Prof. Yates Snowden of South Caro- 
 lina College, and Isaac de C. Porcher, Esq., of Pinop-
 
 I04 INTRODUCTION 
 
 olis, Berkeley County, S. C. Everywhere I have met 
 with interest and eager hospitality, and the personal 
 contacts, South and North, which the research has oc- 
 casioned, have combined with the inherent attractive- 
 ness of the task to make the pleasure of my work en- 
 viable. 
 
 Ulrich B. Phillips 
 Tulane University of Louisiana, New Orleans, May 
 10, 1909
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 To supplement the foregoing introduction, the fol- 
 lowing articles by the present editor will be of service : 
 
 "The Economics of the Plantation," in the South Atlantic Quar- 
 terly, July, 1903. 
 
 " The Plantation as a Civilizing Factor," in the Sewanee Review, 
 July, 1904. 
 
 " The Economic Cost of Slaveholding in the Cotton Belt," in the 
 Political Science Quarterly , June, 1905. 
 
 " The Origin and Growth of the Southern Black Belts," in the 
 American Historical Review, July, 1906. 
 
 " The Slave Labor Problem in the Charleston District," in the 
 Political Science Quarterly, September, 1907. 
 
 " Racial Problems, Adjustments and Disturbances," in The South 
 in the Building of the Nation (New York, 1909), vol. iv, 194-241. 
 
 " The Slavery Issue in Federal Politics," in The South in the 
 Building of the Nation, vol. iv, 382-422. 
 
 Other secondary material may be found in the gen- 
 eral histories of the United States, as for example : 
 
 Rhodes, J. F. History of the United States from the Compro- 
 mise of 1850, vol. i, chap, i, on slavery. 
 
 Von Holst, H. Constitutional and Political Historj^ of the 
 United States, vol. i, chaps, vii-x, on slavery. 
 
 McMaster, J. B. History of the People of the United States 
 from the Revolution to the Civil War, vol. iv, chap, xxxiii, and vol. v, 
 chap, xlv, on the westward movement. 
 
 Much fuller treatment in their respective fields may 
 be found in the following special works : 
 
 Plantation System and General Industry 
 Bruce, P. A. Economic Histor}-- of Virginia in the 17th Century 
 (New York, 1896), 2 vols.
 
 io6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Edwards, Bryan. History of the British Colonies in the West 
 Indies (London, 1793-1801), 3 vols.; fifth edition (London, 1819), 
 5 vols. 
 
 Hammond, M. B. The Cotton Industry (New York, American 
 Economic Association, 1897). 
 
 Von Halle, Ernst. BaumwoUproduktion und Pflanzungswirt- 
 schaft (Leipzic, 1897-1906), 2 vols. 
 
 Phillips, Ulrich B. Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt 
 (New York, 1908). 
 
 De Bow, J. D. B. Industrial Resources and Statistics of the 
 Southern and Western States (New Orleans, 1852-1853), 3 vols. 
 
 Ingle, Edward. Southern Sidelights (New York, 1896). 
 
 Smedes, Susan D. A Southern Planter [Life of Thomas Dab- 
 ney], (Baltimore, 1887). 
 
 Indented Labor 
 
 Ballagh, J. C. WTiite Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, in 
 Johns Hopkins University Studies, xiii, nos. 6, 7 (Baltimore, 1895). 
 
 McCormic, E. J. White Servitude in Maryland, in ibid., xxii, 
 nos. 3, 4 (Baltimore, 1904). 
 
 Geiser, C. F. Redemptioners and Indentured Servants in Penn- 
 sylvania, in the Yale Review, x, no. 21, supplement (New Haven, 
 1901). 
 
 Slave Labor 
 
 Ballagh, J. C. A History of Slavery in Virginia, in Johns Hop- 
 kins University Studies (Baltimore, 1902), extra vol. xxiv. 
 
 Brackett, J. R. The Negro in Maryland, in ibid. (Baltimore. 
 1889), extra vol. vi. 
 
 Bassett, J. S. History of Slavery in North Carolina, in ibid., 
 xvii, nos. 7, 8 (Baltimore, 1899). 
 
 Peytraud, L. p. L'Esclavage aux Antilles Frangaises avant 
 1789 (Paris, 1897). 
 
 Moore, G. H. Notes on Slavery in Massachusetts (New York, 
 
 1877). 
 
 Hart, A. B. Slavery and Abolition, in the American Nation 
 (New York, 1906), vol. xvi. 
 
 Wilson, Henry. History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave 
 Power (Boston, 1872- 1877), 3 vols. 
 
 Cairnes, J. E. The Slave Power (London, 1862) ; second 
 edition, enlarged (London, 1863).
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 107 
 
 Race Relations 
 
 Williams, G. W. History of the Negro Race in America (New 
 York, 1883), 2 vols. 
 
 FiTZHUGH, George. Sociology for the South (Richmond, 1854). 
 Van Evrie, J. H. Negroes and Negro Slavery (New York, 
 1861). 
 
 [Harper, Hammond, Simms, and Dew]. The Pro-Slavery Ar- 
 gument (Philadephia, 1853). 
 
 Weston, George M. Progress of Slavery in the United States 
 (Washington, 1857). 
 
 Frontier 
 
 Turner, F. J. Rise of the New West, in the American Nation 
 (New York, 1906), vol. xiv. 
 
 Significance of the Frontier in American History, in the Amer- 
 ican Historical Association Report for 1893 (Washington, 1894). 
 
 The Old West, in the Wisconsin Historical Society Proceed- 
 ings for 1908 (Madison, 1909). 
 
 American Historical Association Report. Significance of 
 the Frontier in American History (Washington, 1893), 199-227. 
 
 Kercheval, Samuel. A History of the Valley of Virginia 
 (Winchester, Va., 1833). 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore. The Winning of the West (New York, 
 1 889- 1 896), 4 vols. 
 
 WiNSOR, Justin. The Westward Movement (Boston, 1895). 
 
 Phelan, James. History of Tennessee (Boston, 1888). 
 
 Pickett, A. J. History of Alabama (Charleston, 1851), 2 vols.; 
 new edition, enlarged (Birmingham, 1900). 
 
 Garrison, G. P. Westward Extension, in the American Nation 
 (New York, 1906), vol. xvii.
 
 I. PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 
 I STANDARDS OF MANAGERIAL DUTY 
 
 (a) Instructions given by Richard Corbin, Esq., to his agent for the 
 management of his plantations; Virginia, 1759. MS. in the posses- 
 sion of the Virginia Historical Society. 
 
 Mr. James Semple: i Jan. 1759. 
 
 As it will be necessary to say something to you and 
 to suggest to you my thoughts upon the business you have 
 undertaken, I shall endeavor to be particular & circum- 
 stantial. 
 
 I St. The care of negroes is the first thing to be rec- 
 ommended that you give me timely notice of their 
 wants that they may be provided with all Necessarys : 
 The Breeding wenches more particularly you must In- 
 struct the Overseers to be Kind and Indulgent to, and 
 not force them when with Child upon any service or 
 hardship that will be injurious to them & that they have 
 every necessary when in that condition that is needful 
 for them, and the children to be well looked after and 
 to yve them every Spring & Fall the Jerusalem Oak 
 seed for a week together & that none of them suffer in 
 time of sickness for want of proper care. 
 
 Observe a prudent and watchful conduct over the 
 overseers that they attend their business with diligence, 
 keep the negroes in good order, and enforce obedience 
 by the example of their own industry, which is a more 
 effectual method in every respect of succeeding and 
 making good crops than Hurry & Severity; The ways 
 of industry are constant and regular, not to be in a
 
 no AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 hurry at one time and do nothing at another, but to be 
 always usefully and steadily employed. A man who 
 carries on business in this manner will be prepared for 
 every incident that happens. He will see what work 
 may be proper at the distance of some time and be grad- 
 ually & leisurely providing for it, by this foresight he 
 will never be in confusion himself and his business in- 
 stead of a labor will be a pleasure to him. 
 
 2nd. Next to the care of negroes is the care of stock 
 & supposing the necessary care taken, I shall only here 
 mention the use to be made of them for the improve- 
 ment of the Tobo [i.e., tobacco] Grounds, Let them be 
 constantly and regularly Pend. Let the size of the Pens 
 be 1000 Tobo Hills for loo Cattle, and so in proportion 
 for a Greater or less Quantity, and the Pens moved once 
 a week. By this practise steadily pursued a convenient 
 quantity of land may be provided at Moss's neck with- 
 out clearing, and as I intend this seat of land to be a 
 settlement for one of my sons, I would be very sparing 
 of the woods, and that piece of woods that lies on the 
 left hand of the Ferry Road must not be cut down on 
 any account. A proper use of the cattle will answer 
 every purpose of making Tobo without the disturbance 
 too commonly made of the Timber land & as you will 
 see this Estate once a Fortnight, you may easily dis- 
 cover if they have been neglectful of Pening the Cattle 
 and moving the Cowpens. 
 
 Take an exact account of all the Negroes & Stocks 
 at each Plantation and send to me; & Tho once a year 
 may be sufficient to take this account yet it will be ad- 
 visable to see them once a month at least; as such an 
 Inspection will fix more closely the overseers' atten- 
 tions to these points. As complaints have been made 
 by the negroes in respect to their provision of Corn, I
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT iii 
 
 must desire you to put that matter under such a Regu- 
 lation as your own Prudence will dictate to you; The 
 allowance to be Sure is Plentiful and they ought to 
 have their Belly full but care must be taken with this 
 Plenty that no waste is Committed; You must let 
 Hampton know that the care of the Negroes' corn, 
 sending it to mill, always to be provided with meal that 
 every one may have enough & that regularly and at 
 stated times, this is a duty as much incumbent upon him 
 as any other. As the corn at Moss's neck is always ready 
 money it will not be advisable to be at much Expense in 
 raising Hogs: the shattered corn will probably be 
 enough for this purpose. When I receive your Acct 
 of the spare corn At Moss's Neck and Richland which 
 I hope will be from King and Queen Court, I shall 
 give orders to Col. Tucker to send for it. 
 
 Let me be acquainted with every incident that hap- 
 pens & Let me have timely notice of everything that is 
 wanted, that it may be provided. To employ the Fall 
 & Winter well is the foundation of a successful Crop in 
 the Summer: You will therefore Animate the over- 
 seers to great diligence that their work may be in 
 proper forwardness and not have that to do in the 
 Spring that ought to be done in the Winter: there is 
 Business sufficient for every Season of the year and to 
 prevent the work of one Season from interfering with 
 the work of Another depends upon the care of the 
 overseer. 
 
 The time of sowing Tobo seed, the order the Plant 
 Patch ought to be in, & the use of the Wheat Straw I 
 have not touched upon, it being too obvious to be over- 
 looked. 
 
 Supposing the Corn new laid & the Tobo ripe for 
 Housing: To cut the Corn Tops and gather the blades
 
 112 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 in proper time is included under the care of Cattle, 
 their Preservation in the Winter depending upon Good 
 Fodder. I shall therefore confine myself to Tobo. 
 Tobo hhds should always be provided the ist v^^eek in 
 September; every morning of the month is fit for strik- 
 ing & strip [p]ing; every morning therefore of this 
 month they should strike as much Tobo as they can strip 
 whilst the Dew is upon the Ground, and what they strip 
 in the morning must be stemd in the Evening: this 
 method Constantly practised, the Tobacco will be all 
 prised before Christmas, wxigh well, and at least one 
 hhd in Ten gained by finishing the Tobo thus early. 
 You shall never want either for my advice or assistance. 
 These Instructions will hold good for Poplar Neck & 
 Portobacco & perhaps Spotsylvania too. 
 
 I now send my two Carpenters Mack & Abram to 
 Mosses Neck to build a good barn, mend up the Quar- 
 ters & get as many staves and heading as will be suffic- 
 ient for next years Tobo hhds ; I expect they will com- 
 pleat the whole that is necessary upon that Estate by the 
 last of March. . . 
 
 (b) Rules for plantation management on a Cotton estate in the Mis- 
 sissippi Bottoms. Instructions given to his overseers by J. IV. Fowler 
 of Coahoma county, Miss. MS. in the possession of John W. Stovall, 
 Stovall, Miss. 
 
 State of Mississippi, Coahoma County, near Friars 
 Point, A. D. 1857. 
 
 The health, happiness, good discipline and obedi- 
 ence; good, sufficient and comfortable clothing, a suffic- 
 iency of good wholesome and nutritious food for both 
 man and beast being indispensably necessary to success- 
 ful planting, as well as for reasonable dividends for the 
 amount of capital invested, without saying anything 
 about the Master's duty to his dependants, to himself
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 113 
 
 and his God - I do hereby establish the following rules 
 and regulations for the management of my Prairie 
 Plantation, and require an observance of the same by 
 any and all Overseers I may at any time have in charge 
 thereof to wit: - 
 
 Punishment must never be cruel or abusive, for it is 
 absolutely mean and unmanly to whip a negro from 
 mere passion or malice, and any man who can do this is 
 entirely unworthy and unfit to have control of either 
 man or beast. 
 
 My negroes are permitted to come to me with their 
 complaints and grievances and in no instance shall they 
 be punished for so doing. On examination, should I 
 find they have been cruelly treated, it shall be consid- 
 ered a good and sufficient cause for the immediate dis- 
 charge of the Overseer. 
 
 Prove and show by your conduct toward the negroes 
 that you feel a kind and considerate regard for them. 
 Never cruelly punish or overwork them, never require 
 them to do what they cannot reasonably accomplish or 
 otherwise abuse them, but seek to render their situation 
 as comfortable and contented as possible. 
 
 See that their necessities are supplied, that their food 
 and clothing be good and sufficient, their houses com- 
 fortable ; and be kind and attentive to them in sickness 
 and old age. 
 
 See that the negroes are regularly fed and that their 
 food be wholesome, nutritious and well cooked. 
 
 See that they keep themselves well cleaned: at least 
 once a week (especially during summer) inspect their 
 houses and see that they have been swept clean, examine 
 their bedding and see that they are occasionally well 
 aired; their clothes mended and everything attended to 
 that conduces to their health, comfort and happiness. 
 
 ^
 
 114 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 If any of the negroes have been reported sick, be 
 prompt to see what ails them and that proper medicine 
 and attention be given them. Use good judgment and 
 discretion in turning out those who are getting well. 
 
 I greatly desire that the Gospel be preached to the 
 Negroes when the services of a suitable person can be 
 procured. This should be done on the Sabbath; day 
 time is preferable, if convenient to the Minister. 
 
 Christianity, humanity and order elevate all - injure 
 none -whilst infidelity, selfishness and disorder curse 
 some - delude others and degrade all. I therefore want 
 all of my people encouraged to cultivate religious feel- 
 ing and morality, and punished for inhumanity to their 
 children or stock - for profanity, lying and stealing. 
 
 All hands should be required to retire to rest and 
 sleep at a suitable hour and permitted to remain there 
 until such time as it will be necessary to get out in time 
 to reach their work by the time they can see well how to 
 work - particularly so when the nights are short and 
 the mornings very cold and inclement. 
 
 Allow such as may desire it a suitable piece of ground 
 to raise potatoes, tobacco. They may raise chickens 
 also with privileges of marketing the same at suitable 
 leisure times. 
 
 There being a sufficient number of negroes on the 
 plantation for society among themselves, they are not 
 to be allowed to go off the plantation merely to seek 
 society, nor on business without a permit from myself 
 or the Overseer in charge - nor are other negroes al- 
 lowed to visit the plantation. 
 
 After taking proper care of the negroes, stock, etc. 
 the next most important duty of the Overseer is to make 
 (if practicable) a sufficient quantity of corn, hay, fod- 
 der, meat, potatoes and other vegetables for the con-
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 115 
 
 sumption of the plantation and then as much cotton as 
 can be made by requiring good and reasonable labor of 
 operatives and teams. 
 
 Have a proper and suitable place for everything and 
 see that everything is kept in its proper place, all tools 
 when not in use should be well cleaned and put away. 
 
 Let the cotton be well dried before cleaning it. Be 
 sure the seed put up for planting are well dried and a 
 sufficient quantity saved to plant the farm two or three 
 times over; and will suggest the propriety of sending a 
 few trustworthy hands ahead of the regular pickers to 
 gather from the early opening - where the plant is well 
 supplied with bolls - for seed for planting the ensueing 
 year; in this way by gathering sufficient quantity every 
 year to plant twenty or twenty five acres we shall be 
 able to keep up a supply of the best and most approved 
 Seed - nor should there be less care observed in select- 
 ing the Seed corn from the crib. 
 
 I would that every human being have the gospel 
 preached to them in its original purity and simplicity; 
 it therefore devolves upon me to have these dependants 
 properly instructed in all that pertains to the salvation 
 of their souls; to this and whenever the services of a 
 suitable person can be secured, have them instructed in 
 these things - in view of the fanaticism of the age it be- 
 hooves the Master or Overseer to be present on all such 
 occasions. They should be instructed on Sundays in the 
 day time if practicable, if not then on Sunday night. 
 
 J. W. Fowler. 
 
 (c) Rules on the Rice Estate of P. C. Weston; South Carolina, 1856. 
 De Bow's Review (Jan., 1857), vol. xxi, 38-44. 
 
 [It is characteristic of the coast district of South Caro- 
 lina and Georgia (the rice district) that the work was 
 assigned in individual tasks, instead of being done in
 
 ii6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the gang system which prevailed in all the other planta- 
 tion districts.] 
 
 The Proprietor, in the first place, wishes the Over- 
 seer most distinctly to understand that his first object is 
 to be, under all circumstances, the care and well being 
 of the negroes. The Proprietor is always ready to ex- 
 cuse such errors as may proceed from want of judg- 
 ment; but he never can or will excuse any cruelty, sever- 
 ity, or want of care towards the negroes. For the well 
 being, however, of the negroes, it is absolutely necessary 
 to maintain obedience, order, and discipline; to see that 
 the tasks are punctually and carefully performed, and 
 to conduct the business steadily and firmly, without 
 weakness on the one hand, or harshness on the other. 
 For such ends the following regulations have been in- 
 stituted; 
 
 Lists - Tickets. - The names of all the men are to be 
 called over every Sunday morning and evening, from 
 which none are to be absent but those who are sick, or 
 have tickets. When there is evening Church, those who 
 attend are to be excused from answering. At evening 
 list, every negro must be clean and well washed. No 
 one is to be absent from the place without a ticket, 
 which is always to be given to such as ask it, and have 
 behaved well. All persons coming from the Proprie- 
 tor's other places should show their tickets to the Over- 
 seer, who should sign his name on the back; those going 
 ofif the plantation should bring back their tickets signed. 
 The Overseer is every now and then to go round at 
 night and call at the houses, so as to ascertain whether 
 their inmates are at home. 
 
 Allowance - Food. - Great care should be taken that 
 the negroes should never have less than their regular 
 allowance: in all cases of doubt, it should be given in
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 117 
 
 favor of the largest quantity. The measures should not 
 be struck, but rather heaped up over. None but provi- 
 sions of the best quality should be used. If any is dis- 
 covered to be damaged, the Proprietor, if at hand, is 
 to be immediately informed; if absent, the damaged 
 article is to be destroyed. The corn should be carefully 
 winnowed before grinding. The small rice is apt to be- 
 come sour : as soon as this is perceived it should be given 
 out every meal until finished, or until it becomes too 
 sour to use, when it should be destroyed. 
 
 Work, Holidays, &c. - No work of any sort or kind 
 is to be permitted to be done by negroes on Good Fri- 
 day, or Christmas day, or on any Sunday, except going 
 for a Doctor, or nursing sick persons; any work of this 
 kind done on any of these days is to be reported to the 
 Proprietor, who \V\\\ pay for it. The two days follow- 
 ing Christmas day; the first Saturdays after finishing 
 threshing, planting, hoeing, and harvest, are also to be 
 holidays, on which the people may work for themselves. 
 Only half task is to be done on every Saturday, except 
 during planting and harvest, and those who have misbe- 
 haved or been lying up during the week. A task is as 
 much work as the meanest full hand can do in nine 
 hours, working industriously. The Driver is each 
 morning to point out to each hand their task, and this 
 task is never to be increased, and no work is to be done 
 over task except under the most urgent necessity; which 
 over-work is to be reported to the Proprietor, who will 
 pay for it. No negro is to be put into a task which they 
 cannot finish with tolerable ease. It is a bad plan to 
 punish for not finishing task; it is subversive of dis- 
 cipline to leave tasks unfinished, and contrary to justice 
 to punish for what cannot be done. In nothing does a 
 good manager so much excel a bad, as in being able to
 
 ii8 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 discern what a hand is capable of doing, and in never 
 attempting to make him do more. 
 
 No negro is to leave his task until the driver has ex- 
 amined and approved it, he is then to be permitted im- 
 mediately to go home ; and the hands are to be encour- 
 aged to finish their tasks as early as possible, so as to 
 have time for v^orking for themselves. Every negro, 
 except the sickly ones and those with suckling children, 
 (who are to be allowed half an hour,) are to be on 
 board the flat by sunrise. One driver is to go down 
 to the flat early, the other to remain behind and bring 
 on all the people with him. He will be responsible for 
 all coming down. The barn-yard bell will be rung by 
 the watchman two hours, and half an hour, before 
 sunrise. 
 
 Punishments. - It is desirable to allow 24 hours to 
 elapse between the discovery of the oflfence, and the 
 punishment. No punishment is to exceed 15 lashes: in 
 cases where the Overseer supposes a severer punishment 
 
 necessary, he must apply to the Proprietor, or to , 
 
 Esq., in case of the Proprietor's absence from the neigh- 
 borhood. Confinement (not in the stocks) is to be pre- 
 ferred to whipping: but the stoppage of Saturday's al- 
 lowance, and doing whole task on Saturday, will suffice 
 to prevent ordinary offences. Special care must be taken 
 to prevent any indecency in punishing women. No 
 Driver, or other negro, is to be allowed to punish 
 any person in any way, except by order of the Over- 
 seer, and in his presence. 
 
 Flats, Boats, &c. - All the flats, except those in im- 
 mediate use, should be kept under cover, and sheltered 
 from the sun. Every boat must be locked up every 
 evening and the keys taken to the Overseer. No negro 
 will be allowed to keep a boat.
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 119 
 
 Sickness. - All sick persons are to stay in the hospital 
 night and day, from the time they first complain to the 
 time they are able to go to work again. The nurses are 
 to be responsible for the sick not leaving the house, and 
 for the cleanliness of the bedding, utensils, &c. The 
 nursed are never to be allowed to give any medicine 
 without the orders of the Overseer or Doctor. A 
 woman, beside the plantation nurse, must be put to 
 nurse all persons seriously ill. In all cases at all ser- 
 ious the Doctor is to be sent for, and his orders are to be 
 strictly attended to; no alteration is to be made in the 
 treatment he directs. Lying-in women are to be at- 
 tended by the midwife as long as is necessary, and by 
 a woman put to nurse them for a fortnight. They will 
 remain at the negro houses for 4 weeks, and then will 
 work 2 weeks on the highland. In some cases, however, 
 it is necessary to allow them to lie up longer. The 
 health of many women has been entirely ruined by want 
 of care in this particular. Women are sometimes in 
 such a state as to render it unfit for them to work in 
 water; the Overseer should take care of them at these 
 times. The pregnant women are always to do some 
 work up to the time of their confinement, if it is only 
 walking into the field and staying there. If they are 
 sick, they are to go to the hospital, and stay there until it 
 is pretty certain their time is near. 
 
 Nourishing food is to be provided for those who are 
 getting better. The Overseer will keep an account of 
 the articles he purchases for this purpose, during the 
 Proprietor's absence, which he will settle for as soon as 
 he returns. 
 
 Bleeding is under all circumstances strictly prohib- 
 ited, except by order of the Doctor. - The Overseer is 
 particularly warned not to give strong medicine, such
 
 I20 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 as calomel, or tartar emetic; simple remedies such as 
 flax-seed tea, mintwater. No. 6, magnesia, &c., are suf- 
 ficient for most cases, and do less harm. Strong medi- 
 cines should be left to the Doctor; and since the Pro- 
 prietor never grudges a Doctor's bill, however large, he 
 has a right to expect that the Overseer shall always send 
 
 for the Doctor when a serious case occurs. Dr. 
 
 is the Physician of the place. When he is absent. Dr. 
 
 . Great care must be taken to prevent persons 
 
 from lying up when there is nothing or little the matter 
 with them. Such must be turned out immediately; and 
 those somewhat sick can do lighter work, which en- 
 courages industry. Nothing is so subversive of disci- 
 pline, or so unjust, as to allow people to sham, for this 
 causes the well-disposed to do the work of the lazy. . . 
 
 Duties of Officials. - Drivers are, under the Overseer, 
 to maintain discipline and order on the place. They 
 are to be responsible for the quiet of the negro-houses, 
 for the proper performance of tasks, for bringing out 
 the people early in the morning, and generally for the 
 immediate inspection of such things as the Overseer 
 only generally superintends. For other duties of 
 Driver, see article Work. 
 
 Watchmen are to be responsible for the safety of the 
 buildings, boats, flats, and fences, and that no cattle 
 or hogs come inside the place. If he perceives any 
 buildings or fences out of repair, or if he hears of any 
 robberies or trespasses, he must immediately give the 
 Overseer notice. He must help to kill hogs and beeves. 
 
 Trunk-minders undertake the whole care of the 
 trunks, [i.e., sluice-valves] under the Proprietor's and 
 Overseer's directions. Each has a boat to himself, 
 which he must on no account let any body else use. 
 
 Nurses are to take care of the sick, and to be respon-
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 121 
 
 sible for the fulfilment of the orders of the Overseer, 
 or Doctor, (if he be in attendance.) The food of the 
 sick will be under their charge. They are expected to 
 keep the hospital floors, bedding, blankets, utensils, &c., 
 in perfect cleanliness. Wood should be allowed them. 
 Their assistants should be entirely under their control. 
 When the Proprietor and Overseer are absent, and a 
 serious case occurs, the nurse is to send for the Doctor. 
 
 Yard Watchman is responsible for the crop in the 
 yard, and for the barns. 
 
 Cooks take every day the provisions for all the peo- 
 ple, the sick only excepted, (see article Allowance.) 
 The Overseer is particularly requested to see that they 
 cook cleanly and well. One cook cooks on the Island, 
 the other on the Main, for the carpenters, millers, high- 
 land hands, &c. 
 
 The child's cook cooks for the children at the negro- 
 houses; she ought to be particularly looked after, so that 
 the children should not eat anything unwholesome. 
 
 Miscellaneous Observations. -The Proprietor wishes 
 particularly to impress on the Overseer the criterions 
 by which he will judge of his usefulness and capacity. 
 First -by the general well-being of all the negroes; 
 their cleanly appearance, respectful manners, active 
 and vigorous obedience; their completion of their tasks 
 well and early; the small amount of punishment; the 
 excess of births over deaths; the small number of per- 
 sons in hospital, and the health of the children. Sec- 
 ondly - the condition and fatness of the cattle and 
 mules; the good repair of all the fences and buildings, 
 harness, boats, flats, and ploughs; more particularly the 
 good order of the banks and trunks, and the freedom 
 of the fields from grass and volunteer. Thirdly - the 
 amount and quality of the rice and provision crops.
 
 122 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 The Overseer will fill up the printed forms sent to him 
 every week, from which the Proprietor will obtain 
 most of the facts he desires, to form the estimate men- 
 tioned above. 
 
 The Overseer is expressly prohibited from three 
 things viz : bleeding, giving spirits to any negro without 
 a Doctor's order, and letting any negro on the place 
 have or keep any gun, powder, or shot. . . 
 
 Women with six children alive at any one time, are 
 allowed all Saturday to themselves. 
 
 Fighting, particularly amongst women, and obscene, 
 or abusive language, is to be always rigorously pun- 
 ished. 
 
 During the summer, fresh spring water must be car- 
 ried every day on the Island. Any body found drinking 
 ditch or river water must be punished. 
 ^ Finally. - The Proprietor hopes the Overseer will 
 remember that a system of strict justice is necessary to 
 good management. No person should ever be allowed 
 to break a law without being punished, or any person 
 punished who has not broken a well known law. Every 
 person should be made perfectly to understand what 
 they are punished for, and should be made to perceive 
 that they are not punished in anger, or through caprice. 
 All abusive language or violence of demeanor should 
 be avoided : they reduce the man who uses them to a 
 level with the negro, and are hardly ever forgotten by 
 those to whom they are addressed. 
 
 (d) Contract befiveen Charles Manigault and his overseer, S. F. 
 Clark, for the year 1853, Chatham county, Georgia. [The document 
 was evidently drafted by the employer.] MS. in the possession of 
 Mrs. Hawkins Jenkins, Pinopolis, B.C. 
 
 [The plantations to be overseen by Clark according to 
 this contract were East Hermitage and Gowrie, to 
 which later documents in this collection also relate.]
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 123 
 
 The following agreement is hereby made and con- 
 cluded between Charles Manigault and Stephen F. 
 Clark for the year 1853. 
 
 I, Stephen F. Clark hereby undertake to manage to 
 the best of my abilities the two Plantations on Argyle 
 Island (which are now joined into one) comprising 
 about 500 acres of Rice land, all of which is to be 
 planted in Rice and I will devote all my experience and 
 exertions to attend to all Mr. Manigault's interests and 
 Plantation concerns according to his wishes and in- 
 structions and as most conducive to his interest and to 
 the comfort and welfare of his Negroes. I will treat 
 them all with kindness and consideration ii sickness 
 and in health. I will be at both settlements every day, 
 and supervise all that is going on at each place, and at- 
 tend personally to giving out allowance every Sunday 
 morning and see to all other things myself. I will put 
 the banks and lands etc., of his plantation in the best 
 possible order so as to have every branch of it in such a 
 secure and forward state as to give the best hopes of suc- 
 cess, with a view of planting, buUwarking, harvest- 
 ing, placing safely and securely in the Barn yard, 
 threshing (by steam or otherwise) milling and sending 
 away such a crop as his Plantation ought to produce 
 under good management and my best personal attend- 
 ance to all things. I will never work his Negroes off 
 the Place, no lending and borrowing of hands being 
 permitted by Mr. Manigault. I will keep the Flats 
 and other things in good repair and will never lend out 
 his flat or other boat or any thing belonging to his Plan- 
 tation and never send either away unless there is abso- 
 lute necessity for it. Mr. Manigault never borrows or 
 lends if he can help it and hereby instructs Mr. Clark to 
 write to Messrs. Habersham & Son for any thing which 
 in his judgment Mr. Manigault's Plantation stands in
 
 124 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 need of. I will take special care to keep the Carpenters 
 constantly employed in the most useful and necessary 
 Plantation works, and when work is slack with them I 
 will put them at the old and new Wharf, etc., or to 
 caulking and repairing Flats Etc. I will attend to the 
 Steam Thresher and Rice Mill as far as lays in my 
 power and see that the measurements of rough rice and 
 the delivery of it and of barrels of clean rice from Mill 
 for market be all properly attended to and written down 
 and I will have a close supervision, but at the same time 
 be careful not to interfere too much with the beating 
 and management of the Rice Mill in cases where I am 
 unacquainted with such machinery and the working of 
 it, as the Negroes in charge have much experience 
 therein. In case of accident I will use all my energy 
 to have it repaired in Savannah as soon as possible. 
 There being no Physician engaged on the place I will 
 provide myself with a good book of Medical instruc- 
 tion and be careful to have at hand the few requisite 
 Plantation Medicines and I will attend myself to mix- 
 ing and instructing the nurses how to administer them. 
 And in the event of any serious accident resulting in the 
 fracture of a limb, I will place the patient on a door 
 in the fastest boat I can command and immediately send 
 him to Savannah to be conveyed on the door by the boat 
 hands and placed in the care of Dr. Bullock or at his 
 Hospital. I engage to keep neither Horse, Hog or 
 Poultry of any kind on Mr. Manigault's Plantation. I 
 am to be supplied (solely for myself and family) with 
 Plantation provisions consisting only of Corn and small 
 Rice, all other provision and supplies for myself I am 
 to procure at my own expense. I am to have a woman 
 exclusively devoted to washing and cooking for me, she 
 being the only person belonging to the Plantation that I
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 125 
 
 am to give any call or occupation to whatever for any 
 of my household affairs, she never to be a field hand. I 
 am also to be provided with a boy to wait on me and to 
 go to the new Ground to cut wood from any logs or 
 stumps for my fire wood. I will endeavour to prevent 
 any one trespassing on Mr. Manigault's Island in wood 
 opposite Mr. Legare's Plantation, by forbidding any 
 one whatever cutting the wood or digging and flatting 
 mud from it. Mr, Manigault's row boat being kept 
 solely for his own use, with its oars &c. is always to be 
 placed carefully in the Mill during his absence. I shall 
 always prefer transacting any business I have with 
 Savannah by letter sent by a boy in a canoe. Whenever 
 a hard storm of rain sets in and does not clear oft' to- 
 wards the afternoon, unless the people are at some very 
 pressing and important work Mr. Manigault wishes 
 me to call them in to their houses for the rest of the 
 rainy stormy afternoon, and Mr. Manigault wishes the 
 Driver to be told this, so that should the Overseer not 
 be present with them the Driver can act accordingly 
 and bring the people home, for Mr. Manigault's long 
 experience is that always after a complete wetting par- 
 ticularly in cold rainy weather, in winter or spring one 
 or more of them are made sick and lie up, and at times 
 serious illness ensues. Mr. Manigault wishes Mr. Clark 
 to sell for him all the Rice flour made in his Mill to 
 any one in small or large quantities, always and to every 
 one for cash and should Mr. Clark be induced on any 
 occasion to give credit to any one it must be at his own 
 risk, and my account with Mr. Clark must be credited 
 with the amount. . . 
 
 To all of which terms I, Stephen F. Clark hereby 
 agree and bind myself to conform to it in every respect, 
 and on my fulfilling all that I hereby agree to in the
 
 126 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 above agreement then and in that case Mr. Charles 
 Manigault hereby binds himself to pay me for my afore- 
 named services at and after the rate of Five Hundred 
 Dollars pr annum for this present year and at the same 
 rate for any portion of the year that I may continue in 
 his services. S. F. CLARK - CHARLES ManigaulT. 
 
 (e) Instrucrions by Alexander Telfair, of Savannah, Ga., to the over- 
 seer of his plantation near Augusta, dated June ii, 1832. MS. in the 
 possession of the Georgia Historical Society, trustee for the Telfair 
 Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah. 
 
 Rules and directions for my Thorn Island Plantation 
 by which my overseers are to govern themselves in the 
 management of it.- ALEXANDER TELFAIR. 
 
 (The directions in this book are to be strictly attended 
 to.) 
 
 1 The allowance for every grown Negro however 
 old and good for nothing, and every young one that 
 works in the field, is a peck of corn each week, and a 
 pint of salt, and a piece of meat, not exceeding fourteen 
 pounds, per month. 
 
 2 No Negro to have more than Fifty lashes inflicted 
 for any offence, no matter how great the crime. 
 
 3 The sucking children, and all other small ones 
 who do not work in the field, draw a half allowance of 
 corn and salt. 
 
 4 You will give tickets to any of the negroes who 
 apply for them, to go any where about the neighbor- 
 hood, but do not allow them to go ofT it without, nor 
 sufifer any strange negroes to come on it without a pass. 
 
 5 The negres to be tasked when the work allows it. 
 I require a reasonable days work, well done - the task 
 to be regulated by the state of the ground and the 
 strength of the negro. 
 
 6 The cotton to be weighed every night and the 
 weights set down in the Cotton Book. The product of
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 127 
 
 each field to be set down separately - as also the produce 
 of the different corn fields. 
 
 7 You will keep a regular journal of the business 
 of the plantation, setting down the names of the sick; 
 the beginning, progress, and finishing of work; the state 
 of the weather; Births, Deaths, and every thing of im- 
 portance that takes place on the Plantation. 
 
 8 You are responsible for the conduct of all per- 
 sons who visit you. All others found on the premises 
 who have no business, you will take means to run off. 
 
 9 Feed every thing plentifully, but waste nothing. 
 
 10 The shade trees in the present clearings are not 
 to be touched; and in taking in new ground, leave a 
 thriving young oak or Hickory Tree to every Five 
 Acres. 
 
 1 1 When picking out cotton, do not allow the hands 
 to pull the Boles off the Stalk. 
 
 12 All visiting between this place and the one in 
 Georgia is forbidden, except with Tickets from the re- 
 spective overseers, and that but very seldom. There 
 are none who have husbands or wives over there, and 
 no connexions of the kind are to be allowed to be 
 formed. 
 
 13 No night-meeting and preaching to be allowed 
 on the place, except on Saturday night & Sunday morn. 
 
 14 Elsey is allowed to act as midwife, to black and 
 white in the neighborhood, who send for her. One of 
 her daughters to stay with the children and take charge 
 of her business until she returns. She draws a peck 
 of corn a week to feed my poultry with. 
 
 15 All the Land which is not planted, you will 
 break up in the month of September. Plough it deep 
 so as to turn in all the grass and weeds which it may be 
 covered with.
 
 128 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 i6 If there is any fighting on the Plantation, whip 
 all engaged in it - for no matter what the cause may 
 have been, all are in the wrong. 
 
 17 Elsey is the Doctoress of the Plantation. Incase 
 of extraordinary illness, when she thinks she can do no 
 more for the sick, you will employ a Physician. 
 
 18 My Cotton is packed in Four & a half yard Bags, 
 weighing each 300 pounds, and the rise of it. 
 
 19 Neither the Cotton nor Corn stalks to be burnt, 
 but threshed and chopped down in every field on the 
 plantation, and suffered to lie until ploughed in in the 
 course of working the land. 
 
 20 Billy to do the Blacksmith work. 
 
 20 [sic] The trash and stuff about the settlement 
 to be gathered in heaps, in broken, wet days to rot; in a 
 word make manure of every thing you can. 
 
 21 A Turnip Patch to be planted every year for the 
 use of the Plantation. 
 
 22 The Negroes measures for Shoes to be sent down 
 with the name written on each, by my Raft hands, or 
 any other certain conveyance, to me, early in October. 
 All draw shoes, except the children, and those that 
 nurse them. 
 
 23 Write me the last day of every month to Savan- 
 nah, unless otherwise directed. When writing have the 
 Journal before you, and set down in the Letter every 
 thing that has been done, or occurred on the Plantation 
 during the month. 
 
 24 Pease to be planted in all the Corn, and plenty 
 sowed for seed. 
 
 25 When Picking Cotton in the Hammock and 
 Hickory Ridge, weigh the Tasks in the field, and hawl 
 the Cotton home in the Wagon. 
 
 26 The first picking of Cotton to be depended on 
 for seed. Seed sufficient to plant two Crops to be saved,
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 129 
 
 and what is left, not to be thrown out of the Gin House, 
 until you clean it out before beginning to pick out the 
 new Crop. 
 
 27 A Beef to be killed for the negroes in July, Au- 
 gust and September. The hides to be tanned at home 
 if you understand it, or put out to be tanned on shares. 
 
 28 A Lot to be planted in Rye in September, and 
 seed saved every year. The Cow pens to be moved 
 every month to tread the ground for this purpose. 
 
 29 When a Beef is killed, the Fifth quarter except 
 the hide to be given to Elsey for the children. 
 
 30 Give the negroes nails when building or repair- 
 ing their houses when you think they need them. 
 
 31 My Negroes are not allowed to plant Cotton for 
 themselves. Every thing else they may plant, and you 
 will give them tickets to sell what they make. 
 
 32 I have no Driver. You are to task the negroes 
 yourself, and each negro is responsible to you for his 
 own work, and nobodys else. 
 
 33 The Cotton Bags to be marked A. T. and num- 
 bered. 
 
 34 I leave my Plantation Shot Gun with you. 
 
 35 The Corn and Cotton stalks to be cut, and 
 threshed down on the land which lies out to rest, the 
 same as if it was to be planted. 
 
 (f) Practical rules for the management and medical treatment of Negro 
 Slaves in the Sugar Colonies. By a Professional Planter (London, 
 1803). Extract from chap, viii, on discipline. 
 
 [The book was a West Indian product.] 
 
 Negroes should be so well treated, as not to be com- 
 pelled to transgress by the urgency of their wants; in 
 which case, your discipline cannot be too exact, for you 
 will find even the happiness of your slave to depend on 
 a regular maintenance of authority. You cannot resign 
 him to the guidance of his own discretion, but, like a
 
 ijo AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 soldier in the ranks, he must be a mere machine, with- 
 out either will or motion, other than you impress upon 
 him. 
 
 The basis of this discipline must consist in accustom- 
 ing your negroes to an absolute submission to orders; 
 for if you suffer them to disobey in one instance, they 
 will do so in another; and thus an independence of 
 spirit will be acquired, that will demand repeated pun- 
 ishment to suppress it, and to re-establish your relaxed 
 authority. You should, therefore, lay it down as a 
 rule, never to sufifer your commands to be disputed; 
 and, at the same time, you should take care to give none 
 but what are reasonable and proper; for negroes are 
 penetrating enough into the foibles of their masters. 
 If you have any, you should conceal them, and endeavor 
 by all means, to impress them with a good opinion of 
 your temper and judgment. 
 
 If your negroes are properly managed, as recom- 
 mended in the preceding chapters, you will have the 
 pleasure of finding their offences comparatively very 
 few, a great part of those which they commit, proceed- 
 ing from a penury of food, and exhausted strength, 
 which leads them to pilfer, and to skulk from their la- 
 bors. Negroes, however, like other human beings, pos- 
 sess diversities of temper, and the best treatment you 
 can give them, will not always prevent them from of- 
 fending to a degree that will call for chastisement. 
 
 2 THE INCONVENIENCE OF A RIGID LABOR SUPPLY 
 
 Letter to Robert Carter of Nomoni Hall, Virginia, 1785, from his over- 
 seer. MS. in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society, Carter 
 Papers. 
 
 Coale's point June 23d 1785. 
 
 Hon Sir: the Draft oxen heare is so Deficiant I 
 
 Cant Drive More then two plowes and them not to plow 
 
 more then two thousand Corn hills Each per day which
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 131 
 
 is But half as much as a plow aught to plow, I have one 
 hundred and sixty thousand Corn hills that aught to be 
 plowed and Eighty of it very grasse and also sixty thou- 
 sand Tobo. hills an fore Ds of Gotten which wants 
 working at this time and hoes is Chefe my Dependanc 
 I hope your Hon will gudg from this what Chanc I 
 have of getting my Crop Clean without the assistance of 
 more Teem or hands, if it lies in your Honers power 
 to help me now it will be much to your advantage, for 
 the Spring has bin so very wet an want of teem that I 
 am much in the grass. 
 
 3 SOIL WASTAGE, TYPICAL 
 
 Extract discussing the prevailing system of agriculture, from John L. 
 Willianos's The Territory of Florida (1837). 
 
 . . The course commenced in Florida is the same 
 that has generally been pursued, in all the slave holding 
 states, north of us. A course which has destroyed the 
 native fertility of the soil, from the Chesapeake Bay to 
 the St. Mary's river, with few exceptions. The object 
 has been to cultivate as much land and with as few hands 
 as possible. To exhaust the soil and turn it common, 
 and then to remove and pursue the same course again, 
 upon new land. It is really to be hoped that in future, 
 some system may be adopted which may tend not only 
 to preserve, but to improve the soil we cultivate. Near 
 the sea coast we have boundless means in the sea weed 
 and marsh mud, to improve our lands; and facts abun- 
 dantly demonstrate, that it is much less expensive to 
 preserve the fertility of a good soil by manuring it, 
 than to clear up new and heavy timbered lands. Be- 
 sides it is something to preserve the fruits that we have 
 planted, and the improvements that we have made in 
 early life, or those which we have received from our 
 ancestors. Besides, we are approaching the limits of
 
 132 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 our peregrinations, unless we fly off in a western tan- 
 gent; and it will be a long journey in that direction 
 which will bring us to good uncultivated lands. . . 
 
 4 SOIL PRESERVATION, EXCEPTIONAL 
 
 Editorial from the Federal Union (Milledgeville, Ga.), Apr. 23, 1850, 
 on the preservation of broken lands. The surprise and enthusiasm 
 of the writer at finding a planter who, by horizontal plowing and 
 hillside ditching, prevented the washing of his soil away, indicates 
 by contrast the careless practices followed by the neighboring plant- 
 ers and farmers. 
 
 . . . Two questions present themselves :- one is, 
 could this desolation have been prevented? and the 
 other, can it be repaired or modified? A few days 
 since, in common with the great mass of agriculturists 
 in Georgia, we should have answered both of these 
 questions in the negative. A recent visit, however, to 
 our friend Gen. Tarver in Twiggs County, and a min- 
 ute examination of his plantations in the vicinity of his 
 residence, have materially changed our opinion. His 
 lands there are as hilly and broken as any of the table 
 lands of Georgia; yet upon none cleared within the last 
 few years was there a single gully or red hill to be seen, 
 and what is more, none will ever be seen, as long as his 
 present system is practiced. He has not only succeeded 
 in rendering secure and permanent his fresh land, but 
 has also taken fields abandoned by their former owners, 
 and which are trenched by gullies thirty and twenty 
 feet wide and as many deep, and whose hillsides have 
 been too poor to yield the poorest grasses, and he is 
 resuscitating and restoring them to a condition in which 
 they will again be productive, filling up the gullies, and 
 by a process that is as simple and economical as it is 
 successful. 
 
 All who know Gen. Tarver, know that he is one of 
 the largest and most successful planters in the South.
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 133 
 
 He indulges in no theory that will not by its practical 
 results commend itself. The system by which he has 
 perfected such wonders is simply in his fresh lands so 
 to conduct the water by trenches as to prevent washing, 
 and in his old land so to conduct it as to accomplish 
 this end and at the same time to repair the washes occa- 
 sioned by the former rush of the water. Before we had 
 examined Gen. Tarver's plantation we had read much 
 about and seen something of, hillside ditches and cir- 
 cular plowing, but had no conception of what could be 
 accomplished by either the one or the other. His suc- 
 cessful experiments have enlisted the admiration of his 
 neighbors and all who have noticed them. He has 
 demonstrated the truth and practicability of the theory 
 that he has practiced; and if, as it has been said, he is 
 a public benefactor, who can cause two straws to grow 
 where before but one grew, Gen. Tarver is entitled to 
 that epitaph. None can visit his Twiggs plantation 
 without being forcibly struck with what Georgia would 
 now be, had her lands been tilled by such agriculturists, 
 or what she would yet be, were they under the control 
 of men of his energy and practical skill. . . 
 
 5 BREAKDOWN OF THE PLANTATION SYSTEM IN 
 THE CEREAL PRODUCING AREA 
 
 Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), Oct. 22, 1767. Advertisement for a 
 "riding boss" (in modern southern parlance), to manage a scattered 
 slave peasantry. 
 
 Wanted Soon ... A Farmer, who will under- 
 take the management of about 80 slaves, all settled 
 within six miles of each other, to be employed in making 
 of grain. Any such, well recommended, will meet with 
 encouragement by applying to Mr. John Mercer in 
 Stafford, or to the subscriber in Williamsburg, during 
 the sitting of the present General Court. 
 
 James Mercer.
 
 134 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 6 RECORDS OF A RICE PLANTATION 
 
 Extracts from the plantation records of Louis Manigault, 1833-1860, 
 owner of the Gowrie and East Hermitage estates, operated as one 
 plantation, on Argyle Island, Georgia, on Savannah River twelve 
 miles above the city of Savannah. MSS. in the possession of Mrs. 
 Hawkins Jenkins, Pinopolis, S.C. 
 
 (A) GENERAL STATEMENT FOR 1833-1839. 
 
 I purchased my Savannah River Plantation, Jany, 
 1833, 220 Acres cleared, 80 uncleared & a fine Rice mill 
 & 50 Negroes for $40,000., viz: the Negroes at $300. 
 each = $15,000. The place $25,000. 
 
 I have now April, 1839, Planted & sold six crops. 
 
 Sent to market in 1833 I made 200 Bbls. 
 
 1834 
 
 " 380 
 
 1835 
 
 " 294 
 
 1836 
 
 " 389 
 
 1837 
 
 " 404 
 
 1838 
 
 " 578 
 
 
 2245 
 
 roll 
 
 70 
 
 During these years I made at my mill by Toll 
 
 Also during these six years I made, but did not sell, 
 Dirtv Rice 
 
 2315 
 
 50 
 
 My crop this last year averages $4 pr. 100 
 But I take $3. as a liberal average for 
 the last six years ^ 
 
 2365 
 3.x 6 18. 
 
 18920 
 2365 
 
 42570. 
 
 I estimate my Expenses at $2000. per an. for 6 years 1 2000. 
 
 Revenue during six years Dollars 30570- 
 
 2 Barrels of rice contained six hundred pounds each. - Ed.
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 
 
 ^3S 
 
 My crop planted last year by 35 hands on 193 Acres pro- 
 duced of Rice 578 Bbls, average sale $4.x 6= $13,872.00 
 Also 433 1/2 Bushels Small Rice or 3 Pecks to each 
 Barrel of Whole Rice at $2. pr. Bush. 867.00 
 Also 200 Bushels of Peas planted on 16 acres 200.00 
 And I sold Rice flour from my Mill for 300.00 
 
 But I gave my Negroes the small rice worth $2.50 per 
 bush, instead of Corn which I could have bought for 
 $1.00 per bush. 
 
 Cost of Negroes pr. annum each grown hand 
 52 Pecks corn, 13 Bushels, at $1. = 
 Winter and Summer Clothes 
 Shoes 
 
 13. 
 7- 
 I. 
 
 15,239.00 
 
 Doctor's Bill 
 Meat, at times. 
 Salt, Molasses. 
 
 Neg 
 
 Harry (Driver) 
 
 Stephen (Miller) 
 
 Bina 
 
 London (child) 
 
 Charles 
 
 Juna 
 
 Nelly (child) 
 
 Nat (Heargrove's 
 
 child) 
 Betsey 
 Paul (born March, 
 
 1839) 
 Matty 
 
 George (Cooper) 
 Peggy 
 Jack 
 Tommy 
 
 roes at Gowrie, April 
 Amey 
 Minty 
 Rihna 
 
 Billy (child) 
 Scotland (child) 
 Bina (nurse) 
 Sampson 
 Kasina 
 Benty (purchased 
 
 Feb'y, 1837) 
 Chalotte (do.) 
 Sam (child) 
 Jenny (child) 
 Scipio 
 Big Lucy 
 
 Ned (trunk minder) 
 Julia 
 
 $21. 
 
 , 1839 
 Young Ned 
 Little Lucy 
 Hanna 
 Polly (child) 
 Susey 
 
 Martha (child) 
 Betsey 
 
 Peggy (child) 
 Fortune 
 Joaney 
 Catey 
 Matty 
 Chloe 
 
 Mary (cook) 
 Abram 
 
 Rachel (cook to over- 
 seer)
 
 136 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Jacob Sam (cooper) Hector 
 
 Nancy Moses Little Charles 
 
 Bob Maria 
 
 Binkey Nanny 
 
 Negroes Bought Feby, 1839 
 
 Brave Boy, Carpenter, 40 years old 
 
 Phillis, his wife, 35 
 
 Pompey, Phillis's son, 18 
 
 Jack B. Boy & Phillis's son, 16 
 
 Chloe child do do 
 
 Primus B. Boy's son, 21 
 
 Cato Child, B. Boy's son 
 
 Jenny (Blind) B. Boy's mother 
 
 Nelly's husband in town, 30 
 
 Betty, her sister's child who died - child 
 
 Affey Nelly's child,- child, 1 1 
 
 Louisa her sister's child who is dead - child, 10 
 
 Sarah, Nelly's child, 8 
 
 Jack, Nelly's carpenter boy, 18 
 
 Ishmel, Nelly's, 16 
 
 Lappo Phillis & Brave Boy's, 19 
 
 I paid cash for these 16 Negroes, $640. each — 
 
 $10,240.00 
 
 (B) LISTS OF NEGROES, 1857. 
 
 List of Negroes at Gowrie, this 
 
 George (Driver) 
 
 Betty 
 
 Nat 
 
 Simon | 
 
 and V (In house) 
 
 Polly j 
 
 Captain (Chimney 
 
 Sweeper) 
 Minda 
 Mathias 
 Julia 
 Rhina 
 
 Charles (Trunk 
 
 Minder) 
 Juna 
 
 Jack (Short) 
 Louisa 
 Mendoza 
 Elizabeth & Rebecca 
 
 (Infants, 3 weeks) 
 Scotland 
 Tommy 
 Catherine 
 Phillis 
 
 30th April, 1857 
 
 Hector (Captain, 
 Chief boat Hand) 
 
 Joaney 
 
 Tyrah 
 
 How-qua 
 
 Fortune, Old (Plan- 
 tation Cook) 
 
 Betsey ( Carpenter's 
 Cook, Nurse) 
 
 Cato 
 
 Jack Savage (Head 
 Carpenter)
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 
 
 137 
 
 Amey and Mary 
 
 Harry (With Car- 
 penters) 
 
 John Izard (Engineer 
 and Carpenter) 
 
 Judy 
 
 Clary 
 
 Sary-Ann 
 
 Primus 
 
 Lucy 
 
 Billy (Carpenter, 
 
 little sense) 
 Jenny 
 
 Minty & Scotland 
 Fortune, runaway 
 
 (Waiting on 
 
 Overseer) 
 Binah Currie 
 
 London (My House 
 
 Boy) 
 Nancy Hunt 
 Abel 
 
 George (Carpenter) 
 Dolly (My Cook and 
 
 Washer) 
 Lydia (House Girl, 
 
 12 yrs.) 
 
 List of Negroes at Hermitage, this 30th April, 1857 
 
 Ralph (Driver) 
 Clarinda & Maria 
 Will (Prime, 28 yrs.) 
 Klima & Stephney 
 Nanny (Prime, 28 
 
 yrs.) 
 Abraham 11 yrs. 
 August 8 yrs. 
 Parker (Prime, 18 
 
 yrs.) 
 Die, Joe, Rose, 
 
 Martha 
 Harriet (Prime, 21 
 
 yrs.) 
 
 Celim 
 
 Bella 
 
 Quash 
 
 Linda 
 
 Clary (Plantation 
 
 Cook) 
 William 
 
 Cotta 
 
 Martha 
 
 Pompey 
 
 Sarey & Jane 
 
 Simon (In house. 
 Cook) 
 
 Deborah 
 
 Jimmy (Second En- 
 gineer, Fireman) 
 
 Tilla 
 
 Sam (Died of pneu- 
 monia, March, 
 1858) 
 
 Bess 
 
 Hector 
 
 Betty (Brister) 
 
 Fortune (Head Bird- 
 Minder with Gun, 
 Prime, 20 yrs.) 
 
 Sophy (Prime, 44 
 yrs.) 
 
 Ann (3/4 Hand, 22 
 
 yrs.) 
 Charles (Prime, 45 
 
 yrs.) 
 Lucas 
 Patty (Prime, 
 
 at times ailing, 43 
 
 yrs.) 
 Venus (11 yrs.) 
 Isaac 
 Katrina (Prime, 19 
 
 yrs.) 
 July (Prime, 19 yrs.) 
 Kate (Prime, 18 yrs.) 
 Andrew (7 yrs.) 
 Eve (Old, Quite old, 
 
 cost nothing) 
 Miley (Prime, 21 
 
 yrs.) 
 Ishmael 
 Betty (Nurse) 
 
 Camp Guardians 
 
 Daniel (Old) New Comer, cost nothing. Hannah 
 old. 
 
 N. B. Nineteen New Negroes bought this January 
 13th, 1857, costing $11,850,- being at an average 
 $623.70 for each.
 
 138 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Number Negroes at Gowrie 
 
 do " East Hermitage 
 
 do " Camp 
 
 48 
 
 47 
 
 2 
 
 Total this May 3d, 1857 97 
 
 Prime Hands S4-H- 
 
 Gave out Summer Clothes this Sunday, May 3d, 
 
 1857. 
 
 Gave out Winter Clothes this Sunday, December 
 13th, 1857. And every Man, Woman & Child has re- 
 ceived a blanket, with new born Infants, One Hundred 
 in number. 
 
 (C) 
 
 LISTS OF NEGROES IN 
 
 1 8 60. 
 
 
 List of Negroes at Gowrie, this 2 
 
 2d April, i860 
 
 John 
 
 Jack, Savage (Chief 
 
 Nancy Hunt 
 
 Nancy Hunt 
 
 Carpenter) 
 
 George ( Carpenter, - 
 
 George - Driver - 
 
 Amey 
 
 Run away 26th 
 
 Betty 
 
 John Izard (Carpen- 
 
 Oct'n, i860; re- 
 
 Minda 
 
 ter, Brick Layer) 
 
 turned 25th Jan y, 
 
 Nat 
 
 Clary 
 
 1861) 
 
 Martha 
 
 Primus 
 
 Simon (Run away 2d 
 
 Julia 
 
 Lucy (With Over- 
 
 January, 1861 ; re- 
 
 Charles (Trunk 
 
 seer) 
 
 turned 25th Janu- 
 
 Minder) 
 
 Billy (Carpenter) 
 
 ary, 1861) 
 
 Juna 
 
 Jenny 
 
 Polly & Moses 
 
 Jack (Short) 
 
 Dolly 
 
 Lydia 
 
 Louisa 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Captain 
 
 
 Mendoza 
 
 Fortune ( Ran away 
 
 ( Drowned 
 
 In 
 
 Tommy 
 
 again April, i860. 
 
 in river 
 
 Catherine 
 
 Sold in Savannah, 
 
 June, i860) 
 
 irxuuo 
 
 Hector (Post Boy) 
 
 May, i860, for 
 
 Dolly 
 
 
 Joaney (Plantation 
 
 $1200, as he was 
 
 Nancy (Gowrie) 
 
 Cook) 
 
 always running 
 
 Martha (Age 22 yrs., 
 
 Tyrah 
 
 off) 
 
 a fine Mulatto 
 
 Betsey (Old, Carpen- 
 
 Abel 
 
 Woman given me 
 
 ter's Cook) 
 
 Binah Currie 
 
 by my Fat! 
 
 ler, to
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 
 
 139 
 
 act as Nurse &c Charleston, May, months after, - no 
 
 for our Child.- 1861, caught four longer with me) 
 
 Ran away in 
 
 We purchased in July, i860 for $500 of Mr. James 
 R. Pringle of Charleston, So. Ca. a Driver named 
 "John" who is at present the only Driver on the Planta- 
 tion, both George and Ralph, our former Drivers, be- 
 ing broken. Driver John is 44 years of age. Mr. Ca- 
 pers, our Overseer, tells me he has had much trouble 
 with the Negroes the past Summer and several Run- 
 aways. Two are now out since October 25th, i860, 
 and not a word has been heard of them - December, 
 i860.- Several children died suddenly, the past summer 
 at the Camp. 
 
 N.B. I gave blankets to every Man, Woman and 
 Child on the plantation, Dec'r, i860. 
 
 On 25th, January, 1861, all our Runaways (5 in 
 number) were brought in through fear of the dogs. 
 Our Children were poisoned at the Camp by Old Bet- 
 sey. 
 
 List of Negroes at Hermitage, this 22d April, i860 
 
 Ralph (Driver) 
 
 Clarinda 
 
 Maria 
 
 Will (Runaway 
 Dec'r, i860; re- 
 turned 25 th Jan'y, 
 1861) 
 
 Parker 
 
 Harriet 
 
 (Venter's Child) 
 
 Celim 
 
 Bella 
 
 Quash 
 
 Linda 
 
 Cotta 
 
 Clary (Plantation 
 Cook) 
 
 CuflFy 
 
 Joe 
 
 Rose 
 
 Pompey 
 
 Sarey 
 
 Jane 
 
 Pussy 
 
 Jimmy, Engineer 
 (Ranaway nth 
 Jan'y, 1861; re- 
 turned in a week, 
 & I let him off) 
 
 Tilla 
 
 Nelly 
 
 Bess 
 
 Stephney (Best 
 
 Ploughman) 
 Nanny 
 Abraham 
 Hannah (Old) 
 Hector (Ran away 
 
 26th Oct'r, i860; 
 
 returned 25th 
 
 Jan'y, 1861) 
 Betty Brister 
 Rachel
 
 140 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Sophy 
 
 July 
 
 Katrina & York 
 
 Ann 
 
 Kate 
 
 Ishmael 
 
 Charles Lucas 
 
 Andrew 
 
 Betty, Nurse 
 
 Patty 
 
 Miley 
 
 Deborah 
 
 Venus 
 
 Isaac 
 
 At Camp 
 
 
 Daniel (old) 
 
 Phlllis (old) 
 
 Martha 
 
 Eve (old) 
 
 Cato 
 
 August 
 
 Born since last April 
 
 Polly's Moses Jenny's Dolly 
 
 Katrina's York Sarey's Pussy 
 
 Gave out Summer Clothes this Sunday, 22d April, 
 i860. 
 
 Gave out Winter Clothes this Sunday, 2d December, 
 i860. 
 
 N.B. Gave out Blankets to All the field Hands this 
 year, according to Rule, viz : Once every third year. 
 
 (D) OPERATIONS; 1855 to i860. 
 
 Gowrie and East Hermitage Plantations, 
 Savannah River 
 
 1855 
 
 Oct'r 
 
 To Middleton Factors, Oct'r 1855 
 
 to 
 
 Dr. 
 
 1856 
 
 Oct'r 1856 
 
 • 
 
 ^1,994.42 
 
 Jan'y i 
 
 ic cc 
 cc 21 
 
 '' Overseer's Wages for past year 
 '' A. A. Solomons (Medicines) 
 ' W. H. May & Co. (Belting, &c.) 
 ' Dr. W. G. Bullock . 
 
 • 
 
 700.00 
 
 30-57 
 43-54 
 14.00 
 
 cc cc < 
 
 Feb'y I 
 
 ' A. McAlpin & Bro. (Lumber) 
 '' R. & J. Lacklison 
 
 • 
 
 217.09 
 272.77 
 
 " 6 
 
 ' Dr. J. McP. Gregorie 
 
 ^ 
 
 58.00 
 
 May 
 
 '■'■ J. M. Eason & Bro. (improving Tresher) 
 
 900.00 
 
 54^230.39 
 
 [Summary of crops and earnings], 1855- 1856. 
 [Marketed betvi^een Oct. 25, 1855 and Apr. 4, 1856, in 
 nine shipments to Charleston, 22,805 bushels rough rice
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 141 
 
 and 995 bu. clean rice, sold at 4^ to 3^)^ cents per lb. 
 in a declining market, yielding $25,869.35 gross and 
 $20,867.58 net.] 
 
 Nett Amount of Sales as per Credit, $20,867.58 
 
 Plantation Expenses as per Debit, 4,230.39 
 
 Proceeds from Gowrie & East Hermitage, $I5>637.I9. 
 
 Remarks : Considering the immense losses We have 
 experienced during the past three years, the Cholera 
 having swept ofif in 1852 and 1854 rnany of our very 
 best hands, a destructive freshet visiting us in August, 
 1852, just in the midst of harvest, (damaging to a great 
 degree not only the standing Crop, by rendering the 
 grain soft, of a dingy Colour, & almost unfit for market, 
 but causing also a vast quantity of Volunteer & light 
 rice in the Crop of 1853.) I^ thinking also of the ever 
 memorable Hurricane of 8th September, 1854, ^^^^ 
 moon, & wind N.E., the salt water direct from the 
 Ocean submerged the plantations on Savannah River, 
 such a thing not having happened for fifty years, the 
 Consequence being that We, on Savannah River, made 
 only ^ of a Crop, ourselves 8000 Bushels instead of 
 four times that amount, most of the Crop Cut, and in 
 small stacks, swept away, and the entire plantation 
 strewed with loose rice, a vast injury to the Crop of 
 1855. Considering all this; I do not complain of our 
 present Crop. Rice this year, caused as is supposed by 
 the now pending Crimean War, has been very high, & 
 our entire crop has sold well. I lost my Overseer, Mr. 
 S. F. Clark, of Consumption in Dec'r, 1855, but since 
 the last Cholera (Dec'r, 1854) we have lost no one of 
 any Consequence, and perfect health has prevailed on 
 the plantation. My Thresher was much out of order, 
 but the boiler has been added to, & power increased &c,
 
 142 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 all being in good order for the next Crop. Besides the 
 above quantity of Rice sent to market in Charleston, I 
 have kept back fifteen hundred bushels for seed. 
 Gowrie (Savannah River) ist May, 1856. 
 
 1856 Dr. 
 Oct'r To Middleton & Co. Factors, Oct'r, '56 
 
 to Oct'r, '57 . . . ^2,094.66 
 1857 
 
 Jan'yi " Overseer's Wages for past year . 300.00 
 " 6 " Wall's Pine Land called "Camp" 771 
 
 Acrs. .... 2,250.00 
 
 " 8 " Estate John Poole (Painter) Savannah 60.00 
 " ^3 " % Cash on $11,850 — 19 Negroes at 
 
 ;^623.70 Average . . . 3,950.00 
 
 " 16 " McAlpin & Bro. Lumber , 308.54 
 
 " " " O. Johnson. Shoes for Plantation . 88.35 
 
 " " " Sullivan (Elevating Cups) . . 13*50 
 
 " " " W. H. May & Co. (Belting &c.) . 34.82 
 
 " 29 " Carson (Shingles) . . . 50.00 
 
 July 7 " O. Johnson & Co. (Shoes) . . 18.85 
 
 " Claghorn & Cunningham . . 29.03 
 
 "do do . . . 6.03 
 
 " Wm. Lake, 6 oar'd boat 36:2 " How-qua " 100.00 
 
 " Goodrich (Grocer) . . . 45-10 
 
 " Nevitt, Lathrop & Rogers (Dry Goods) 36-31 
 
 " do " do . . 34-47 
 
 " Sundries .... 100.00 
 
 $9,519.66 
 
 [Summary of crops and earnings], 1856- 1857. 
 
 [Marketed between Nov. 10, 1856 and Mch. 6, 1857, 
 
 in four shipments, 15,590 bu. rough rice and 700 bu. 
 
 clean rice, at 3^ to 3 J^ cents, yielding $15,921.04 gross, 
 
 and $12,661.27 net.] 
 
 Nett Amount of Sales as per Credit $12,661.27 
 
 Plantation Expenses as per Debit 9,519.66 
 
 Proceeds from Gowrie & East Hermitage $ 3,141.61 
 
 Upon the death of my Overseer (loth Dec'r, 1855) 
 I was left alone on the plantation. We soon finished
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 143 
 
 threshing the Crop & I went to work preparing the 
 lands for the next year. There were many applications, 
 as Overseers, for this place, but none pleased us. The 
 latter part of February was now approaching, still we 
 had no Overseer. At last we were recommended (by 
 Mr. Wm. Bull Pringle of Charleston, S. C.) a young 
 man who had acted as Sub-Overseer for 2 or 3 years 
 upon his Brother's (Mr. R. Pringle's) Plantation on 
 Black River, about 20 miles from Georgetown, So. Ca. 
 Mr. Leonard F. Venters, 24 yrs. of age reached this on 
 2 1 St Feb'y, 1856. He struck me as being very young; 
 I explained however all Concerning our mode of 
 "water Culture" & how our Crops were treated on Sa- 
 vannah River, a very diflferent method being used here 
 from what, I was told, they used on other rivers, where 
 black soil could not stand the water which these stiff 
 clay lands did, &c. We commenced planting on the 
 15th March, & finished the entire tract of 638 Acres 
 (all Open plant) on 3d May, when we began to hoe 
 Rice and I left the plantation for the summer. Venters 
 made two great and fatal mistakes. He drew off his 
 "Sprout Water" too rapidly, prostrating his rice to the 
 ground, & again he kept his fields dry too long, before 
 he could get at them to give first hoeing. His rice was 
 all stunted, sickly, and grass took him. We have made 
 one half a Crop. He says "he will do better another 
 year, that now he sees into it", and as is well known, 
 "Never change an Overseer if You can help it". We 
 try him once (but only once) more. We have purchased 
 19 Negroes, amongst them 13 prime hands Costing in 
 all $11,850. Also 771 Acres High Land on Georgia 
 Main, for Cholera Camps, Children's Summer resi- 
 dence, &c. Costing $2,195. We have been blessed with 
 health during the past year, & now as hope ever bears us
 
 144 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 onward, I try to forget the past, looking forward with 
 brighter expectations for the Coming Season, that We 
 may be blessed with "the kindly fruits of the Earth so 
 that in due time we may enjoy them". 
 Gowrie, (Savannah River), ist February, 1857. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 To Middleton & Co. Factors, Oct'r 1857 
 to Oct'r 1858 
 
 1857 
 Oct'r 
 
 $1,880.81 
 
 1858 
 
 April 
 
 Bs. seed 
 • 142 Bbls. 
 
 Jan'y 30 
 
 blankets) 
 
 " Middleton & Co. 1450;^ 
 Rice at $1.20 $1740.60- 
 at 87^^ cents ;^I24.25 
 (part of this Rice sent to Silk Hope) 
 
 " Overseer's Wages for past year 
 
 " R. & J. Lacklison . 
 
 " Boyle Henderson (ploughs) 
 
 " O. Johnson & Co. 
 
 " W. G. Dickson (Grocer) 
 
 " A. A. Solomons 
 
 " Ross & Co. 
 
 " Nevitt, Lathrop & Rogers (flann 
 
 " R. B. Donnoly 
 
 " A. McAlpin & Bro. 
 
 " Dr. W. Gaston Bullock (for Hector's eye) 
 
 " R. A. Allen & Co. (Shingles) 
 
 $4,918.23 
 
 [Summary of crops and earnings], 1857- 1858. 
 
 [Marketed between Nov. 17, 1857 and Apr. 5, 1858, 
 in five shipments, 20,336 bu. rough rice and 990 bu. 
 clean rice, at 2 13/16 to 3^^ cents, yielding $16,978.98 
 gross and $12,964.68 net.] 
 
 Nett Amount of Sales as per Credit $12,964.68 
 
 Plantation Expenses as per Debit 4,918.23 
 
 1,864.85 
 
 300.00 
 32.76 
 20.00 
 
 10.75 
 10.46 
 
 44.56 
 
 76.29 
 
 270.40 
 
 9318 
 
 167.60 
 51.00 
 95-57 
 
 Proceeds from Gowrie and East Hermitage $ 8,046.45 
 
 My expectations with regard to the Overseer's im- 
 proving upon his past year's sad experience were vain. 
 Mr. Venters did do a little better than before, as far as
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 145 
 
 an increase in the Crop was concerned, but very little, 
 moreover elated by a strong and very false religious 
 feeling he began to injure the plantation a vast deal, 
 placing himself on a par with the Negroes, by even 
 joining in with them at their prayer meetings, breaking 
 down long established discipline, which in every Case 
 is so difficult to preserve, favouring and siding in any 
 difficulty with the people, against the Drivers, besides 
 Causing numerous grievances which I now have every 
 reason to suppose my Neighbours knew; & perhaps I 
 was laughed at and ridiculed for keeping in my employ 
 such a Man. I discharged Mr. Venters, and on 8th 
 January, 1858, engaged Mr. Wm. H. Bryan, a mar- 
 ried Man aged 31 yrs. with a Wife and two Children. 
 He is very highly recommended by Dr. King, & highly 
 spoken of as a good planter and man of Character. I 
 give him $800. for the year 1858. The plantation be- 
 ing overrun with Volunteer, I have used for the first 
 time the sub-soil plough & I think to advantage. I have 
 also planted the entire Tract in new seed, viz : 194 Acres 
 in Ogeechee Inland Swamp Rice & the remainder of 
 the plantation in Gov'r Allston's Celebrated George- 
 town seed purchased in Charleston at $1.20. I now 
 leave the plantation (April, 1858) with Mrs. Manigault 
 for Europe until December next. I can judge of the 
 stand of 400 Acres, viz: ist & 2d planting which thus 
 far looks well. 
 
 (The sub-soil ploughs proved a failure, our lands drain 
 well enough without.) 
 Cowrie (Savannah River) 20th December, 1858. 
 
 [Summary] 1858-1859 
 
 Nett Amount of Sales as per Credit $10053.00 
 
 Plantation Expenses as per Debit 6784.74 
 
 Proceeds from Gowrie and East Hermitage $ 3268.26
 
 146 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 The Crop of 1858, W. H. Bryan Overseer, has turned 
 out wretchedly. From what I can learn since my return 
 from Europe and after spending the entire winter of 
 '58, '59 on the plantation, there has been gross neglect 
 & great want of attention on the part of the Overseer. 
 For the first time we allowed the Overseer's family to 
 reside, during the summer, at our pine land Tract called 
 "Camp", leaving it to Mr. Bryan, when, & how often, 
 he should visit them. He took advantage of this, & 
 for days did not visit the plantation, neglecting all 
 things. I have been without an Overseer since January 
 I St to 8th April & have planted one half of our present 
 Crop myself. I have had very great difficulty in get- 
 ting off the thin stubble of last year, the winter too hav- 
 ing been mild with much rain. The Spring has been 
 very Cool, & on Sunday 24th April We had frost, Ther. 
 35°, killing some of the tender Sprouts of the Rice, 
 without destroying the entire plant, yet backening the 
 Crop much, and Causing it to look yellow. On 8th 
 April, 1859, Mr. Wm. Capers Jr., an Overseer of high 
 rank & standing, who has managed two years for GovV 
 Aiken on Jehossee Island, & had much experience as 
 Overseer near Georgetown &c, takes charge, at the rate 
 of One thousand Dollars per Annum, the highest Salary 
 We have yet paid. Mr. Capers has numerous enemies, 
 but even by these he is recognized as a Competant Man- 
 ager of a Rice Crop, & a Capable & intelligent Man. 
 He is a fine looking Man, 44 yrs. of age, & has with him 
 a Wife and six Children. 
 Gowrie (Savannah River), 3d May, 1859. 
 
 [Summary] 1859- 1860 
 
 Nett Amount of Sales as per Credit $13593-36 
 
 Plantation Expenses as per Debit 7654.82 
 
 Proceeds from Gowrie and East Hermitage $ 5938.54
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 147 
 
 Upon Mr. Capers' taking Charge (8th April, 1859) 
 he found the plantation in a great state of disorder and 
 neglect. I told him I knew it, and that I had been 
 nearly all winter hoeing off the thin stubble, for I could 
 not get it to burn, & I had only had time sufficient to 
 rake out the ditches in a rough way before the planting 
 had overtaken us. He pointed out to me that the 
 ploughs had been skipping ground, & doing very bad 
 work. He immediately proposed throwing out fifty 
 Acres of the worst volunteer squares, planting twenty 
 Acres in Cow peas, & not planting the remaining thirty, 
 to which I agreed. The truth is on a plantation to at- 
 tend to things properly it requires both Master & Over- 
 seer. Mr. Capers has not made a large Crop, but he 
 says it was much on a/c of the bad Condition in which 
 he found the plantation, & I believe him, & am satisfied 
 thus far with him, feeling that he has had no Chance. 
 We have bought two new Mules this winter, working in 
 all six mules. During the past winter Mr. Capers has 
 done much work. He has cut a new Canal through 
 two Squares, on the upper portion of the plantation, 
 which I think will be of service. We have for the first 
 time used the double horse ploughs, turning the lands 
 much deeper than previously. The past winter has not 
 been severe, and the Spring has been very favorable for 
 the rice. Strange however We had hardly a shower in 
 April, the Showers coming in May & June." We plant 
 again this year fifty Acres in dry Culture, viz : in sweet 
 potatoes & Cow peas. I place Confidence in Mr. Ca- 
 pers. He has had a good beginning this year, & all the 
 rice which is up thus far looks as well as I have ever 
 seen Rice in this stage looking. 
 Gowrie (Savannah River) 24th April, i860. 
 
 3 Kept this & wrote it in June- Grig.
 
 148 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 (E) PLANTATION JOTTINGS, 1845. 
 
 Mr. Basshaw says he gives as Christmas Holidays 3 
 entire week days, half a peck of small Rice Extra, to- 
 bacco, & molasses, & Pork 3 lbs. each ; at harvest 3 lb. 
 Pork & Molasses each week alternately - & Pork once 
 or twice during the summer when the work is hard in 
 hoeing &c. Molasses & tobacco 2 or 3 times during the 
 year - to children Molasses frequently, with a little pork 
 frequently when out at pine-land. 
 
 ist Jan'y 1845: Mr. McMillan King informs me 
 that his Father purchased Mr. Young's Estate on Sa- 
 vannah River on ist Jan. 1838 for $110,000, Containing 
 500 Acres Rice Land, 1000 Acres high Land on Geor- 
 gia Shore, & 190 Negroes, a fine Rice Mill, Settlement 
 good, Flats, boats, &c. But the most agreeable feature 
 of the purchase was that Mr. King sold out $60,000 of 
 U.S. Bank stock to pay it just before the Bank failed. 
 
 Mr. McMillan King, who manages for his father, 
 says he has Never made more than 1050 Barrels of Rice 
 off of the 500 Acres, which is a poor interest after pay- 
 ing the great Expenses. The Negroes have not de- 
 creased, perhaps now number 3 or 4 above the number 
 purchased. . . 
 
 7th April 1845: I this day (being 50 years of age) 
 walked up to the High ground on Mr. Guerard's Estate, 
 where I have a Negro house for my Negro children to 
 reside in summer, built on a piece of Land which Mr. 
 D. Heyward bought from Mr. McPherson for this 
 purpose & permitted me also to put a dwelling on it for 
 the children - which has proved of great benefit as a re- 
 treat from the bad summer climate of our rice fields 
 for children. . . Mr. Porcher, who manages Mr. 
 Guerard's Estate, says there are there 120 Negroes, but 
 only about 45 workers & that this year he only plants
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 149 
 
 220 in Rice, besides 40 or 50 in dry Culture- He in- 
 forms me that The Tract formerly owned by Mr. Hugh 
 Rose (just above alluded to) was recently purchased 
 by a Mr. Winkler of Savannah for $5,000, That Mr. 
 Bullae's plantation just opposite to it on the Georgia 
 Shore has been recently purchased by a Mr. Dillon for 
 $4000. He (Dillon) has been keeping a grog shop in 
 Savannah for several years, & made his money by trad- 
 ing with Negroes, & has already established a grog & 
 trading shop on his new purchase.- Mr. J as. Potter tells 
 me this nth April 1845 that Mr. H. Rose upwards of 
 20 years ago purchased this place for $36,000, & paid 
 $10,000 Cash. But never could make any thing on it to 
 effect another payment, & all His other property being 
 mortgaged he abandoned this place to the former own- 
 ers in January 1837 without any further paymt. I told 
 Mr. Potter this nth April that "If he buys Mr. Wil- 
 liamson's Plantation of 20 or 230 Acres lieing between 
 his brother Dr. Potter's plantation (called Tweedside) 
 & his (called CoUeraine) that I should like to purchase 
 from him his tract of 240 Acres on Argyle Island ad- 
 joining my plantation." Should it ever happen that 
 he offers it for sale I must remember what he stated to 
 me this day, viz: "that at the sale of my Plantation in 
 183 1 Mr. McAlpin bid $18,000 when he (Mr. Potter) 
 bid $19,000, & that it was knocked down to Mr. McAl- 
 pin for $20,000, these being the only three bids.- I after- 
 wards, viz: in 1833, gave Mr. McAlpin $25,000 for it, 
 which latter price estimating my fine Rice Mill at only 
 $7,500 puts the Cleared land at $70, & the Uncleared 
 @ $37 per acre. Mr. Potter's land next to me is good 
 clay land, just like mine, but it has been worked some 
 years longer than mine, but putting it at the same price 
 [Concluded on page 166]
 
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 1 66 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 as I paid for mine, viz : $70 per acre, it will be for the 
 240 Acres, $16,800, & much less if sold at the price at 
 which he stopped bidding for mine in i83i (viz, 
 $19,000). This Tract adjoining me is at a great dis- 
 tance from Mr. P.'s Settlement [i.e., plantation head- 
 quarters, negro yard, etc.], having to cross two rivers, 
 & a canal in flatting the crop from it, to the Barn yard 
 on the Georgia main.- Mr. James Potter says his 
 brother Dr. P. plants in all 500 Acres, & this last season 
 made 30,000 Bushels whereas he planting 550 Acres 
 did not make near as much. . . 
 
 I asked Mr. Rowell (Dr. King's Overseer) this after- 
 noon respecting that Plantation at the head of Argyle 
 Island. He says the whole tract calls for 414 acres of 
 Rice Land. Dr. King has on it 72 Negroes. The work- 
 ers, full & halves taken together, make 35 full Hands 
 or 42 hoes. Plants this year 230 acres in Rice & 20 in 
 Corn. 
 
 15th April 1845: Allen Smith informed me that he 
 pays Dr. Wragg settled in Savannah $1.50 per head for 
 to attend to all his Negroes by which the Doctor en- 
 gages to go up, say eight miles by water, whenever he 
 is wanted there, merely by a boat being sent for him - 
 so that if there are 100 Negroes he gets for all his Serv- 
 ices $150, without any charge for Mileage or any thing 
 else. Dr. Pritchard asked me I think $1.25 per head 
 for his medical services during the year, but I preferred 
 going by the visits.
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 167 
 
 8 MANAGEMENT OF SCATTERED PLANTATIONS 
 
 Letters of John B. Lamar, 1844 to 1849, to his sister Mrs. Howell Cobb 
 and her husband, Howell Cobb, then Member of Congress. Colonel 
 Lamar was managing Mr. Cobb's plantations as well as his own, 
 and other properties of the family, lying in the counties near Macon, 
 Georgia, and in southwest Georgia and Florida. The letters are 
 dated at Macon, Lamar's headquarters, and addressed either to 
 Athens, Ga., or Washington City. MSS. in the possession of Mrs. 
 A. S. Erwin, Athens. 
 
 (a) To Howell Cobb Macon, Jan. 8, 1844. 
 
 Dear Howell : I returned from the Hurricane on Sat- 
 urday evening, when I found things rather at sixes & 
 sevens. But I hope we shall be able to get everything 
 straight for another crop. Gibson went oft, & left the 
 crop of corn in the field ungathered, or there would not 
 be any difficulty, but what could be overcome very 
 easily. 
 
 They are gathering & housing the corn as fast as pos- 
 sible. But every hour that is spent at that business be- 
 longs of right to getting in & fencing two hundred 
 acres of fresh cotton land. If I can possibly have that 
 land got in, in time, I shall calculate very surely on 
 making 250 bags of Cotton at that place this year. But 
 I am not sure of being able to do so, with the backsets 
 Gibson has - intentionally, I believe - thrown in the 
 way. If it is possible, it will be done I think, as I am 
 very much pleased with our new man Harvey. I like 
 his ideas & mode of doing business well. 
 
 I hope the corn will last us until the next crop is ready 
 for use. As it is not yet housed, I cannot tell exactly. 
 But I rather think it may be made to hold out. 
 
 I had the hogs killed while I was there & had the 
 meat all salted away, before I left. The weight was 
 7500 lbs. It will require several thousand more, say 
 3000.
 
 1 68 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 The cotton crop is ginning as fast as possible. There 
 are lo bags packed at the plantation. Seven ginned and 
 ready for packing, and about 26 or 7 in the seed. Har- 
 vey says that Gibsons account w2ls, that v^ith the cotton 
 sent off to Sav[annah] & that at the plantation, there 
 would be about 1 10 bags. 
 
 I shall have four mules to buy, & you must furnish 
 the money, out of the crop of last year. There are nov/ 
 16 on the place, but I vs^ish to run 20 ploughs this year. 
 
 With that number of ploughs & the energy & "new- 
 broom" zeal of Harvey, I think the old Hurricane, will 
 astonish the natives in Baldwin & Jones who have 
 looked upon it as an old worn out place. To view it 
 from the road it is an unsightly place, truly. But take 
 it upon the whole I had rather have it than any place 
 of the same number of acres I know of anywhere; 
 Sumpter, Lee &c not excepted. 
 
 If I am only able to get in the 200 acres, above spoken 
 of, I only ask a tolerable season to make 250 bags. I am 
 not dealing in hyperbole at all, but rather underesti- 
 mate than otherwise, as with such a season as '42, I 
 should calculate, to overgo that number considerably. 
 
 (b) To Howell Cobb Macon, March 17, [1844 ?]. 
 
 Dear Howell : I have just this evening returned from 
 the Hurricane where I have spent a week in organizing 
 for a vigorous campaign against grass, & in favour of 
 Messrs Corn, Cotton & Pork. I think I have succeeded 
 in infusing an "esprit du corps" into our forces there, 
 which will be proven by the result next winter. 
 
 We have been unable to get in the 200 acres of land 
 joining Dr. White, of which I told you, on account of 
 having to gather Gibson's crop of corn & to hawl off 
 cotton & repair the fencing around the whole planta-
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 169 
 
 tion, which he was pleased to leave in a wretched fix. 
 The bad weather in January caused much delay in our 
 progress; the whole crop of corn had to be gathered in 
 baskets & carried out to the road by hand as the earth 
 in the field was so wet as not to admit of the passage of 
 a waggon over it. This you may imagine was tedious, 
 but it was the only chance. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this backset, I shall have 400 
 acres of very good ground in cotton, which will yield 
 200 bales of cotton averaging 400 lbs., I think; also 250 
 acres of land in corn, which will make an abundance; 
 & fifty acres in oats. The hogs look well ; so with the 
 additions which I have made to the stock by purchasing 
 all of the hogs owned by the negroes, I think we can 
 raise every pound of meat for another years consump- 
 tion. 
 
 If I live, I intend another winter not only to fence 
 in all of the cleared land on the place, but to set to work 
 & make horizontal ditches on the hill sides, so as to 
 prevent the fresh land from being torn into gullies by 
 washing rains. The 300 acres of new ground cannot 
 be excelled as cotton land by any land I have ever seen, 
 but as it lies rolling, it would soon wash, as it is so light 
 & mellow, if pains is not taken to prevent it. 
 
 I wish to begin next winter, if the other business of 
 fencing does not prevent, to prepare to build by de- 
 grees good framed negro houses, with brick chimnies. 
 Before doing this I will show you an estimate of the 
 cost, which will not be much, with the aid of the ex- 
 perience I have in such matters. 
 
 I have told you before that I was pleased with the old 
 Hurricane. I have looked over it again & repeat, I 
 would not give it, if it was mine, for no plantation of 
 2200 acres of land, in Georgia.
 
 I70 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 By making the permanent improvements, I have in 
 view, & in the course of a few years reducing the force 
 to 25 or 30 hands, it will be rich inheritance for your 
 children, instead of an old worn out place, as it has been 
 considered. 
 
 Dr. Little, the Physician of Mr. Gibson's patroniz- 
 ing, called to see me, while at the Hurricane, with his 
 bill of $500.00. I gave him the plainest talk, -& I 
 reckon myself tolerable good at a plain job - that he has 
 ever had since he left his Ma's knee, I expect. He left, 
 determined on plunging into law, up to the eye-brows, 
 which course I advised him to pursue. I spoke rudely 
 to the Dr. as I considered his account a part of a system 
 of plunder that has been going on against you. I told 
 him so. But there was some "method in my madness", 
 as I intended my remarks as precepts for the overseer 
 & neighbours, in future cases. The effect will be 
 good. . . 
 
 (c) To Howell Cobb Macon, May 5, 1844. 
 
 Dear Howell : Yours of the 9th was waiting for me 
 on my return from Jefiferson, where I had gone to give 
 out summer clothes. Linam desired that I would delay 
 any engagement for another years service, until my re- 
 turn in Novr. I found out that he & his wife are desir- 
 ous of moving to Ala. next year was the reason of desir- 
 ing delay. Altho I was loth to do so I consented to put 
 off the matter so long, inasmuch as I expect he will be 
 unable to move next year & will consequently stay with 
 us. I like his management & tractability and as the 
 negroes like him too, I am anxious to retain him. 
 
 The crop looks very well in despite of the excessive 
 drought. In some sections the cotton has never come up 
 & in others where it is up it is dying for want of rain. 
 My places & Cherry hill are lucky in a good stand, &
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 171 
 
 good looking cotton. The corn is small, but looks green 
 & shows no disposition to twist & turn yellow, like some 
 I have seen. How we fare at the Hurricane I am not 
 apprized, I go there in the morning & will write on my 
 return. 
 
 Tell Aunt Sylvia that Polly and Eliza are well & 
 look as lively as two crickets. Polly's occupation is to 
 carry water in the fields to the hands. Eliza amuses 
 herself by driving up the cows, & turning out the calves, 
 and has learned to sing out like an old drover. They 
 seem so pleased with life at Cherry hill, that I think 
 they will be unwilling to exchange it for a residence at 
 the Cowpens or Athens when their mistress comes 
 home. . . 
 
 (d) To Howell Cobb Macon, Feb. 17, 1845. 
 
 Dear Howell : I have just received yours of the 12th 
 and hasten to answer it. 
 
 With reference to the Florida estate the arrangements 
 for making a crop this year with the negroes was the 
 only saving one I could make under the circumstances, 
 as to have removed them to Georgia would have been 
 to have thrown away all the corn, meat & other et 
 ceteras, besides not having any place for them here. 
 
 And my suggestions as to dividing them or farming 
 jointly hereafter with them & the Andrews negroes, was 
 based on what I thought the impracticability of selling 
 to advantage in Florida, and I could not bear the idea 
 of bringing them off to Georgia & selling them to be 
 separated from each other. 
 
 As Mr. Levy wishes to purchase I am willing to sell 
 the whole establishment. Andrew, I know, would pre- 
 fer the money to the negroes. You can tell Mr. Levy 
 for me that he can have them at an average of $350, 
 three hundred & fifty dollars. The negroes are un-
 
 172 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 usually likely, as he no doubt is aware was the general 
 character of Maj. Robinson's negroes. In the lot is a 
 superior Blacksmith, a wheel wright, a shoemaker who 
 understands tanning, a weaver, a plain cook, and a pas- 
 try cook. The young negroes are as likely and intelli- 
 gent as I ever saw. Maj. Robinson was attentive to the 
 morals of his negroes, and they bear the reputation of 
 being honest, among all the neighbors. There are thir- 
 ty six of them in number, at present & the prospect of 
 an accession of one or two more, by birth. 
 
 If Mr. Levy is desirous of taking the whole lot at the 
 price named, I will meet him at any time he may desig- 
 nate at Marianna and shew him the negroes & conclude 
 the trade. In the meantime he can consult the follow- 
 ing citizens of Jackson County, Florida, who acted as 
 appraisers at the division of the estate, & are I believe 
 among the leading men of that county as to the 
 character & value of the negroes, viz: Col. Wm. Mc- 
 Nealy, I. G. Rowlac, Esq., I. I. Edwards, Elijah Bryan, 
 Thomas M. White. 
 
 If Mr. Levy wishes to purchase, ask him in designat- 
 ing a time to meet me at Marianna, to name some day 
 antecedent to the month of June, as although an ad- 
 mirer of the balmy atmosphere of Florida, in the winter 
 & spring, I being of a bilious habit & terribly opposed 
 to mosquitos, would dislike a summer visit there. 
 
 And let me say in your private ear, if he is not dis- 
 posed to give 350 $ average, do not let the bargain be 
 broken off as I will take something less. But the terms 
 must be cash - have that understood. . . 
 
 (e) To Howell Cobb Macon, Feb. 19, 1845. 
 
 . . . Cotton is dull - prices have receded a little 
 and the whole world of planters, buyers &c are on tip
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 173 
 
 toe for the news by the steamer which left Liverpool on 
 the 4th February. My prayers are fervent for advices 
 of a ha'penny advance & large sales, great demand for 
 cotton goods, spinners prosperous, corn plenty & all that 
 sort of parlance, so interesting to us poor toads under a 
 harrow, yclept planters of cotton. . . 
 
 (f) To Mrs. Howell Cobb Macon, Dec. 2, 1845. 
 
 . . . Your life for two years [i.e., as a congress- 
 man's wife] has been on the two extremes. Mine is so 
 much the same way that I know just how it is. I am one 
 half the year rattling over rough roads with Dr. Physic 
 & Henry, stopping at farmhouses in the country, scold- 
 ing overseers in half a dozen counties & two states 
 ( Florida & Geo.) , and the other half in the largest cities 
 of the Union, or those of Europe, living on dainties & 
 riding on rail-cars and steamboats. 
 
 When I first emerge from Swift Creek, into the 
 Hotels and shops on Broadway of a summer, I am the 
 most economical body that you could imagine. The 
 fine clothes and expensive habits of the people strike me 
 forcibly. I think like John Grier, in one of Howell's 
 tales, of my "poor land," and how hard my money 
 comes, concluding that such things may answer for rich 
 folks but don't suit me. In a week I become used to 
 everything - and in a month I forget my humble con- 
 cern on Swift Creek & feel as much a nabob as any of 
 them : - none of Frost's clothes seem high & Cozzens 
 Champaign appears moderate, very, at two dollars a 
 bottle. . . We are very much like chameleons in our 
 ideas, - they take their dimensions very much from the 
 objects that surround us. At home when everything is 
 plain & comfortable, we look on any thing beyond that 
 point as extravagant. When abroad where things are
 
 174 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 on a greater scale, our ideas keep pace with them. I 
 always find such to be my case. And if I live to a hun- 
 dred I reckon it will always be so. . . 
 
 (g) To Howell Cobb Macon, Apr. 12, 1846. 
 
 . . . I returned from Florida on the 2nd. You 
 never wrote me what Levy said about buying those ne- 
 groes in Florida. I am so tired of travelling night & 
 day through those pine woods that I feel like letting 
 my interest ofif like a county bridge - to the lowest bid- 
 der to be rid of the annoyance. I am taken away from 
 home, from important business, & jolted to death in the 
 stage, & what I dislike worse, thrown into constant com- 
 pany of my relations about it, & it's all to be of no profit 
 to any of us in its present shape. I tried to swap my 
 share to Andrew for his Early lands [i.e. in Early 
 county, Ga.], & offered my share of the Andrews negroes 
 to boot, to be quit of it. But he hemmed & ha'd & didn't 
 know whether he would do it or not, until I got so nerv- 
 ous that by way of relief I mounted a hard trotting 
 horse & rode a half a day in the pine woods, for relief. 
 Damn his Early lands, I had no particular use for them, 
 only that it would be a happy exchange of a quiet piece 
 of property for a troublesome one. The lands would 
 lie still & not bother me, like the negroes, and when I 
 would go to look at them I would have no Uncles & 
 Auntys & Cousin this, that & tother in that neighbor- 
 hood. I wish Levy would buy the negroes, for FU be 
 shot if I know what to do with them. 
 
 I go to the Hurricane tomorrow. I heard from Jef- 
 ferson direct yesterday. They are getting on well & 
 have a promising crop. But Linam left us precious lit- 
 tle in the way of Corn, fodder & meat to go on. 
 
 As soon as I go "the grand round," I will come up
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 175 
 
 to the Cowpens, say about the 25th inst. I want to see 
 you & have a long talk on matters & things in general. 
 
 I have hired waggons to hawl off the balance of the 
 Hurricane Cotton. Harvey makes so much there, it 
 takes all the year to get it to market. 35 bags have been 
 hawled of the 150 which were left over at the planta- 
 tion. Cotton's rising thank God, I hope it will stay up 
 until all is got to market. . . 
 
 PS Tell Sister, trotting down to Florida has put me 
 as much out of sorts as before I went to Europe. I wish 
 to God I could go over again this year but its out of the 
 question. I'll go next year certain, if I dont die on the 
 road to Florida. I have to go down again in June- 
 just think of that will you, to divide the land and cows, 
 as Col. John Milton failed to meet me according to 
 promise on the 15th March for the purpose of division. 
 
 (h) To Mrs. Cobb Macon, Apr. 22, 1846. 
 
 . . . While I was absent I had a young negro 
 woman killed by a mule. She was riding him from the 
 field to the house with the other plough hands, and had 
 the traces wound up to form a sort of stirrup. The mule 
 shied out of the road & threw her, & her feet hitching 
 in the traces, she was dragged to death. She was a sister 
 of Philip, named Luncinda, about 20 years old & re- 
 markably likely. . . 
 
 (i) To Howell Cobb Macon, Dec. 29, 1846. 
 
 . . . I am up to my eyebrows in business just now, 
 I have just this day moved my squadron off to Sumpter. 
 I only returned from Florida last week, where I put my 
 little family in motion for the same destination as those 
 who have gone today. I go to Baldwin tomorrow to see 
 a new overseer installed at the Hurricane & then push 
 back to see a new one I have at my Bibb place, and then
 
 176 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 away as fast as I can scamper to Sumpter to put a new 
 overseer to work there on a plantation almost as new to 
 me as to him. If I had been brought up a business man, 
 & was systematic, I should get on very smoothly, but 
 never taking to business until 30 years of age, I find my- 
 self frequently with matters of importance calling my 
 attention & presence at two places 100 miles apart at the 
 same time. I can't be at both places at once, and things 
 go wrong & annoy me. But I do the best I can & that is 
 all a man can do. 
 
 (j) To Howell Cobb Macon, Jan. lo, 1847. 
 
 With reference to my management of the Trust estate, 
 it is not conducted to advantage by any means. I am 
 dissatisfied with its condition & prospects, but how to 
 better them I can't devise under the circumstances. My 
 health is such that I cannot attend to it & my own busi- 
 ness as I should like. If my health was good, my busi- 
 ness I guess together would wear out an iron frame, 
 scattered as it is, and addle a better head than mine. 
 Then to cultivate so much thin & even poor land with 
 such an able force looks like throwing work away. I 
 have an opportunity of purchasing a tract in Baker of 
 2000 acres, 600 cleared and ready for cultivation. I can 
 get it cheap at 8000 $ and have i, 2 & 3 year (without 
 interest) to pay it in. The hands sent to it, say half your 
 force or less, would pay for it out of the crops easily, 
 without calling on the Baldwin crop at all. But you 
 see my own interests come in to prevent my acceding 
 to the offer. 
 
 I have established a large planting interest in Sump- 
 ter, having purchased 2500 acres. Of this I have paid 
 for one place 5500 $ already & have i & 2 years to pay 
 4000 for the other. Now you see at one extremity of 
 this land & joining the first place I bought, I have a
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 177 
 
 neighbor owning 600 acres of most superior land, which 
 I shall buy to add to my last purchase, which will make 
 me one place of unequalled fertility. And at the other 
 extremity I have a chance of buying from an estate 
 1200 acres, joining the second purchase, which added to 
 it will make a plantation scarcely inferior to the above 
 named. All put together will make an investment of 
 24,000 $. I have already paid 5500 $. I shall be able 
 to pay say 5000 $ out of the crop of this year. And then 
 I shall have 14,000 $ to pay in one & two years. This is 
 pretty extensive business for one so scary as I am about 
 pecuniary responsibility. But I have ciphered it out 
 and it can be done without risk. With the arable land 
 I already have and what is on the two places to be pur- 
 chased, considering the quality, for it is all fresh & rich 
 as river bottoms, I can pay through easy. I have made 
 my calculations safely. I have estimated my crops at 
 i/3rd less than an average & calculated on 6 cents per 
 pound for cotton, & I can pay out & have a surplus. 
 After this recital you see I shall be too heavy laden to 
 take on the Baker place for the Trust estate until I get 
 through with Sumpter. 
 
 Lord, Lord, Howell you and I have been too used to 
 poor land to know what crops people are making in the 
 rich lands of the new counties. I am just getting my 
 eyes open to the golden view. On those good lands, 
 when cotton is down to such a price as would starve us 
 out, they can make money. I have moved i/3rd of my 
 force to Sumpter. I shall move another i/3rd this fall 
 or winter, leaving the remaining i/3rd to cultivate the 
 best lands on my Bibb place. This year I shall do bet- 
 ter than I ever have done, & next I shall do better than I 
 ever expected to do. This year I shall cultivate very 
 little poor land & next year I shall not waste labour on
 
 178 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 a foot of unprofitable soil. All will be of the ist qual- 
 ity. When I work through I will try & help you on- 
 ward to the promised land. But for 2 years after the 
 present one, I shall be up to my chin in responsibility. 
 I hate responsibility, but I have figured it out, that 
 unless I take some as other prudent folks do I shall be 
 like John Grier of Chack farm cultivating poor land 
 all my life, which I am resolved not to do. 
 
 (k) To Howell Cobb Macon, May 16, 1847. 
 
 . . . The crop of this year promises to exceed that 
 of last year so far. At any rate you have more land 
 planted in cotton and we may safely calculate on 300 
 bags I think, and there is every prospect now that it will 
 command a remunerating price. I shall have a new 
 screw at the Hurricane & have the bags to average 400 
 lbs. this next crop at both places. 300 bags at 400 lbs. 
 the bag, at 10 cts. would bring 12,000 $. This is count- 
 ing chickens before they are hatched, but present pros- 
 pects promise that result. If it does turn out so it will 
 look more like paying debts than the prices of many 
 years past. But even such a result is small to what your 
 income ought to be, during good prices, if your prop- 
 erty was properly balanced. You have a large and ef- 
 fective force of hands, more effective than any of the 
 same number I know of in the State. But they cultivate 
 a large proportion of poor land, and there is not enough 
 of even poor land in Baldwin for them to be properly 
 employed. This will not! must not be, much longer! 
 Thirty good hands are sufficient to cultivate all the rich 
 spots on these old places in Baldwin. That number 
 could be employed as profitably there as anywhere else, 
 as there is some land there that is rich. Now think of 
 your having nearly 90 hands that work out, only one 
 third paying any profit, while all the rest have to be fed,
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 179 
 
 clothed &c. just as expensively as if they were at work 
 on good land. At low prices for cotton such a system 
 will not much over pay expenses. At high prices it will 
 pay just enough to make a body sigh over what they 
 could do if the remaining two thirds were profitably 
 employed, in place of being an expense. Thirty hands 
 at the Hurricane ought to make 150 bags of cotton. 
 Sixty more on good lands in Sumpter, Lee & Baker, the 
 worst years they have, would make 300 bags - 450 bags 
 of cotton is the least you ought to make & the least you 
 would make if your business was balanced properly & 
 managed with only ordinary energy. This would be a 
 minimum crop to be safely calculated on. More energy 
 & attention in a good crop year would swell it to over 
 500 bags. The increase of your negroes (& they in- 
 crease like rabbits) would soon carry the figures much 
 higher, & 10 or twelve years ought to double them. 
 Now this is no fancy work. It is "true as preaching." 
 But cut my calculation - which is moderate - down to a 
 crop of 400 bags for your force on good lands, which is 
 little over 4 bags to the hand & at 10 cents it would 
 bring you 16,000 $ - 6 cts. it would bring about $10,000 
 - and even at 5 cts. it would bring 8,000 $. So you see 
 with proper disposition of your force, a few years of 
 good prices would pay any kind of debts, & then if cot- 
 ton should fall to the distressing rates current for some 
 past years, or even to the lowest price we have known 
 in 1842, there would be enough to allow 2500 $ for ex- 
 penses and leave 5500 $ for a man to live like a prince 
 on & yet be able to add to his landed property as the 
 income & growth of his young negroes demanded. 
 
 I have been asleep to my interests for 10 years. I 
 have just woke up from a regular Rip Van Winkle nap 
 & found every body round me advancing & I just hold-
 
 i8o AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ing my own on poor lands, that were (most of them) 
 exhausted before I ever saw them. In my zeal of a new 
 convert to the doctrine of "progress" - 1 went down to 
 Sumpter and bought 17,500 $ worth of choice land 
 while cotton was selling at 6 cents & land low in propor- 
 tion. I have paid $5500 of that amount & if my crop 
 this year don't pay the balance of 12,000 & leave me a 
 handsome surplus I shall think myself very unlucky. 
 And my planting arrangements are not this year fully 
 developed either, as I do not get possession of one plan- 
 tation (included in the above named purchase) until 
 next Christmas. When I get that & divide my force 
 into three plantations & cultivate lands as rich as any 
 in Georgia, I shall begin to reap the benefits of my new 
 energy. 
 
 I have intended as soon as I paid for my lands, which 
 from the rise in Cotton I can now do with one crop (in- 
 stead of two as I expected when I bought) to select a 
 place & purchase it for your hands. But the rise in Cot- 
 ton has increased the value of lands awfully. You can 
 judge of the ideas of people as to the appreciation in the 
 value of cotton lands, from the fact that my neighbors 
 estimate my purchases as worth nearly fifty per cent on 
 the prices I paid. But "what goes up must come down," 
 as the school boys used to say when a gourd of water was 
 thrown over the heads of their fellows. Cotton will fall 
 & lands will fall & a short time hence we may find an- 
 other chance of buying. Buy we must! That is a fixed 
 fact, there is no getting around it. It must be done. 
 The fractions on the Flint River are choice lands and by 
 buying some lots of good land joining we might make a 
 plantation at an expense of 4 or 5000 $, but then it would 
 be all in the woods & have to be cleared. And ham- 
 mock land is awful to clear, so that we could make
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT i8i 
 
 nothing on the place for nearly three years. As lands 
 are too high to purchase "an improved place," this 
 course may be best. We will talk of it when we meet. 
 I want to talk matters and things in general over to you 
 & you must prepare to be bored egregiously when I 
 come. 
 
 . . . Aren't party matters in a nice snarl? The 
 Calhoun men will ruin us in Georgia & the Northern 
 Democrats ruin us every where. I think the "Crisis" 
 of this country is coming now sure enough. If the Un- 
 ion of these States survives the next administration 
 (whoscver it may be) I shall think it will last forever. 
 But I somehow think we shall all blow up & divide off 
 into little guerilla parties & fight each other for the 
 next half century. If I can see straight, there are awful 
 clouds lowering over the Southern States. 
 
 (I) To Howell Coh Macon, Feb. 7, 1848. 
 
 Dear Howell: Having two trips to make to Florida 
 I have been run oflf my legs to catch up with my business 
 at home, and as soon as I came back I had to hurry ofif 
 to the Hurricane & Cherry hill to set things going. 
 Overseers are very much given to stretching their pre- 
 rogatives in matters pertaining to their own inclinations, 
 but very strict constructionists in things where they 
 ought to exercise a proper judgement in the absence of 
 their employers. The hands I sent up from Jefiferson to 
 pick out the Hurricane cotton, would I expect never 
 have been sent home, unless I had gone & seen them off 
 myself. 
 
 Lynam made a miserable crop of 105 bags of cotton, 
 and a crop of corn that will not last more than half the 
 year. In view of which in connection with the scarcity 
 of meat there, as well as the demise of the three horses 
 you bought for that place, which with a full force of
 
 1 82 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 hands would render the purchase of several mules nec- 
 essary, I concluded to curtail the force to 30 hands, and 
 have sent the other 10 to the Hurricane where there is 
 plenty of corn, more meat & more horse power & where 
 they can be more profitably employed. 
 
 I am getting in the unfenced fields at the Hurricane, 
 and have some idea of purchasing the Widow Harris' 
 plantation, which joins & can be had for 1500 $ I think, 
 and establishing two plantations joining each other, if 
 you approve of the plan. The Harris place and a por- 
 tion of the Hurricane lands lying out, will make an ex- 
 cellent plantation. And by concentrating the business, 
 I can manage it more efficiently, at one half, or less, of 
 personal wear & tear in riding to see to the business. As 
 the business now is, it worries me almost to death to at- 
 tend to it properly. And as long as I pretend to attend 
 to it, my disposition is to carry on everything as econom- 
 ically, profitably & and with the same eye to the future 
 as I do my own business. 
 
 The Hurricane crop will amount to some 250 bags 
 of cotton & plenty of corn. We killed there 85 hogs 
 for meat. The cotton of both places amounts to about 
 355 bags, which owing to the failure in Jefferson is 45 
 bags short of my calculation when we planted. There 
 is yet about 100 bags at the Hurricane to gin & pack, 
 and 50 not hauled away. I have drawn on Habersham 
 for the wages of the two overseers, 400 $ each. . . 
 
 (m) To Mrs. Cobb Macon, Nov. i8, 1849. 
 
 My dear Sister : . . . I left particular directions 
 with Mr. Buckner about the curing of your hams. I 
 told him to put up loo hams weighing from 15 to 18 lbs, 
 when made into bacon. He professes to be very know- 
 ing in such matters & I hope will prove so. He puts a 
 pinch of salt petre on the fleshy part of the ham. He
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 183 
 
 ashes his hams he says in leached ashes, & says they will 
 not give it that strong Westphalia-ham sort of flavour 
 that unleached ashes do. He says to keep your hams 
 well when you get them, you ought to have auger holes 
 bored & long pegs driven into the scantling on the sides 
 of your smoke house & lay tw^o lathes on the pegs to put 
 the hams on. Lathes are better than board-shelves as 
 they let the air to the meat freely. The hams must be 
 laid with the skin side down, & must not be piled on 
 each other but laid in single rows. There will be con- 
 siderable surplus of meat at the Hurricane this next 
 year as there is the present. There will be about 31,000 
 lbs of pork killed at that place alone, which will make 
 nearly 20,000 lbs bacon. It takes nearly 16,000 lbs 
 bacon to do the place, 1000 lbs for the overseer- i or 
 2000 lbs hams for you & then leave i or 2000 lbs for 
 "dodging", which may mean allowing for mistakes in 
 weighing out allowances or to entertain the overseers 
 company or stealage or any casualties that nobody can 
 guard against who dont live on a plantation. . . 
 
 9 ILL SUCCESS IN NONRESIDENT PLANTING; 
 ALABAMA, 1835: EXPERIMENT ABANDONED l 
 
 (a) Letter of Daniel McMichael, Lowndes County, Ala., Sept. lo, 
 1835, to Thomas Glover, Orangeburgh, S.C. MSB. of this and the 
 tAvo following letters in the possession of A. S. Salley Jr., Columbia, 
 S.C. 
 
 Dear Sir: Your letter came to hand a few days ago 
 Requesting me to See Mr. Bodie if he wold come to 
 Carolina and live with you there he says the least that 
 he will come for is $325 Dollars and you bear hs ex- 
 pences and let his wages go on from the time that he 
 starts I dont beleve that you can get a better man than 
 Bodie he can get $400 in this country but he wants to 
 go to Carolina I wrote to your Brother Some time back
 
 1 84 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 abot the crop I am sorry to inform you that the crops 
 fallen off one half since the worms is taken our cotton 
 crop they take all they Small bold cotton was backward 
 in this country owing to the dry Spring the thruth is we 
 may Say that the year have all ben dry but three weeks 
 which came the right time for corn we is Burnt up now 
 and I beleve that is the ca[u]se of the worms you wish 
 me to give you som accont of what we will make I 
 cannot give any account of what [we] will make the 
 worms is goin on and destroy half g[r]own holds they 
 are generally as far as I have herd from our crops is half 
 lost at this time we are all well on your place and your 
 Brothers I rite a few lines to your Brother which I 
 hope you will show him you writen to me to now the 
 price of lands and negroes they have ben good lands 
 sold here for less than cost at govenment price it takes 
 a very prime fellow to bring $500 dolls, you can tell 
 Mr Hall that it is verry unsertin when Wolf Pon land 
 will be sold it may not be Sold in five years to come 
 they is 80 acres of the estate of Williams Pon that will 
 sute his plan with a good house on it but no cleard land 
 I suppose that his land, will be sold in January I dont 
 expect to make near as much Cotton as I did last year 
 and I dont beleve any person will as far as my knowl- 
 lege extends, every creek in this contry is dry and I ex- 
 pect that our cattle and hogs will perish for water and 
 perhaps ourselves nothing more at present but Remain 
 yours, 
 [postage 25 cts.] Daniel McMichael. 
 
 (b) Letter of T. W. Glover, Orangeburgh, S.C, SepL 21, 1837, to 
 Daniel McMichael, Lowndes County, Ala. 
 
 Dr. Mac : I regret to hear from yr. letter that the crop 
 has so much failed but there will be one consolation, 
 the hands can gather it sooner & be out here earlier -
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 185 
 
 You will say to Mr. Boddie that I will give him $325 
 per year & his wages beginning the day he starts from 
 Alabama -This you know is more than I ever gave 
 & I now do so on your recommendation - If he accept 
 it, I wish him to come out with my negroes & Stroman's 
 as soon as he gathers the crop -The sooner he is here 
 the better - He must prepare the wagon & get the mules 
 in order -but about the preparation to come I leave to 
 you entirely - If a mule or horse must be bought, do get 
 one cheap as they are very low here, & I would not want 
 more than 2.- You will oblige me by selling the cotton 
 as soon as possible so that all our debts may be paid & 
 Mr. B. may have enough to bring him out -We wish 
 you to sell everything that Mr. B, does not need to 
 bring with him. If you think the corn & fodder had 
 better be kept longer do so - After you have paid all we 
 owe in Alabama & yourself -you may send the balance 
 of the money by Mr. B. if you can get So. Ca. Bills - 
 if not wait till you can buy a draft and send it by mail - 
 Let Mr. B. have all our receipts, papers, &c. Let us 
 know if anyone wants our place at a fair price - If not 
 can it be rented on good terms? - We do not wish it neg- 
 lected or go to ruin - 
 
 Say to Mr. B. I am fixing up my place & the houses, 
 &c, will be in good order - You would hardly know it - 
 I have made a good crop of corn, &c, & have had no 
 sickness. It is a very healthy place - I wish you to write 
 to me by the earliest mail that I may hear from you, if 
 pos, by 20 Oct. Good health & good corn crops here - 
 Sea board injured by storms, &c. 
 
 (c) Letter of Daniel McMichael, Lowndes County, Ala., Oct. 11, 1837, 
 to T. W. Glover, Orangeburgh, S.C. 
 
 Dear Sir: Yours came to hand last evening I have 
 perswaded Mr Bodie to except the offer I dont know
 
 1 86 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 how your hands will go to travel Riner and Emaline 
 will they say be confind about the last December or 
 the first January and that will be as soon as they can 
 get ready your new ground cotton will not open much 
 until frost we had another north east Storm that lasted 
 from Friday until Mon evening I beleve to speak in 
 reason that I have lost Ten Bags of cotton and yours in 
 proportion had it not been for this storm we wold have 
 made more cotton than we expect however I beleve your 
 crop will make 20 bags yet Mr Bodie has 16,000 wt 
 seed cotton pict out and I have 36000 thousand you can 
 inform your Brother but cannot gin for the want of rope 
 the river fell so early this spring that no person in my 
 knowlege has rope nor bag but only them that had it 
 left from last year corn they will be no sale now for it 
 perhaps it will sell next summer and lands will not sell 
 for $3 per acre the Twentieth Section that join your 
 lands is offered at three dollars but no buyer lands will 
 not sell in this country for five years to come they is 
 thousands of acres that will be sold by the Sheriff an is 
 selling now there was prime land sold a few days since 
 at 70 cts per acre as to rent I dont beleve they will be 
 any chance for that you must rite your lowes prices per- 
 haps some person may come traveling along that might 
 buy Mr Bodie will have to have i horse you say they 
 is low in Carolina it [is] not the case here you can in- 
 form your Brother that I expect to make 50 bags cotton. 
 
 10 PLANTATION BY-INDUSTRIES 
 
 (a) Letter of Alexander Spotswood, Governor of the Colony of Vir- 
 ginia, March 20, 17 10, to the British Council of Trade. Virginia 
 Historical Society Collections, vol. i, 72-74. Depression in staples 
 leads to diversification of industry. 
 
 . . . The unhappy circumstances of the trade of 
 this Colony oblige me to lay before your Lordships the
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 187 
 
 consequences which I am apprehensive it may have on 
 that of Great Britain v^ithout the application of some 
 proper and speedy remedy. The great number of ne- 
 groes imported here (so long as there remained any 
 money or credit in the country to buy them) and solely 
 employed in making tobacco, hath produced for some 
 years past an increase of that commodity far dispropor- 
 tioned to the consumption that could be made of it in 
 all the markets which the war had left open, and by a 
 Natural Consequence Lowered the price to a great de- 
 gree. This was first felt in those parts of the country 
 where tobacco is reputed mean, and the people being 
 disappointed of the necessary supplies of cloathing for 
 their familys in return for their tobacco, found them- 
 selves under a necessity of attempting to Cloath them- 
 selves with their own manufactures. And the Market 
 for tobacco still declining and few stores of goods 
 brought in, other parts of the country, through the like 
 necessity, have been forced into the same humour of 
 planting Cotton and sowing Flax, and by mixing the 
 first with their wool to supply the want of coarse Cloath- 
 ing and Linnen, not only for their Negroes but for many 
 of the poorer sort of housekeepers. This is now become 
 so universal that even in one of the best countys for to- 
 bacco, I'm credibly informed there has been made this 
 last year above 40,000 yards of divers sorts of Woolen, 
 Cotton, and Linnen Cloth, and other countys where to- 
 bacco is less valuable have no doubt advanced their 
 manufacturers proportionably. Tho' this be at present 
 the general humor of the country, it is introduced more 
 by necessity than by inclination, and the people are so 
 little skilled in this kind of manufacture that they will 
 with difficulty attain any tolerable perfection in it, and 
 own that what they make now costs them dearer than
 
 1 88 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 that they usually had from England, when their tobacco 
 bore but a tolerable price. . . 
 
 (b) Extract from A Perfect Description of Virginia (London, 1649), 
 reprinted in Peter Force's Tracts, vol. ii. An early Virginia planter 
 as captain of varied industry. 
 
 . . . Worthy Captaine Matthews, an old Planter 
 of above thirty yeers standing, one of the Counsell, and a 
 most deserving Common-wealths-man, I may not omit 
 to let you know this Gentleman's industry. 
 
 He hath a fine house, and all things answerable to it; 
 he sowes yeerly store of Hempe and Flax, and causes 
 it to be spun; he keeps Weavers, and hath a Tan-house, 
 causes Leather to be dressed, hath eight Shoemakers 
 employed in this trade, hath forty Negroe servants, 
 brings them up to Trades in his house: He yeerly sowes 
 abundance of Wheat, Barley &c. The Wheat he selleth 
 at four shillings the bushell; kills store of Beeves, and 
 sells them to victual the ships when they come thither : 
 hath abundance of Kine, a brave Dairy, Swine great 
 store, and Poltery ; he married the Daughter of Sir Tho. 
 Hinton, and in a word, keeps a good house, lives 
 bravely, and a true lover of Virginia; he is worthy of 
 much honour. . . 
 
 (c) Extracts from the " Diary of John Harrower, Virginia, 1774.- 
 '775>" American Historical Revieiv, vol. vi, 91, 103, 105. Spinning 
 and weaving at odd hours. 
 
 December 6, 1774. Letter to Wife. 
 
 There grows here plenty of extream fine Cotton which 
 after being pict clean and readdy for the cards is sold at 
 a shilling the pound; and I have at this time a great 
 high Girl Carline as black as the . . . spinning 
 some for me for which I must pay her three shillings 
 the pound for spinning it for she must do it on nights 
 or on Sunday for any thing I know notwithstanding
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 189 
 
 she's the Millers wife on the next Plantation. But Im 
 determined to have a webb of Cotton Cloath According 
 to my own mind, of which I hope you and my infants 
 shall yet wear a part. . . 
 
 Munday, October i6th, 1775. This morning 3 men 
 went to work to break, swingle and heckle flax and one 
 woman to spin in order to make course linnen for shirts 
 to the Nigers, This being the first of the kind that was 
 made on the plantation. And before this year there has 
 been little or no linnen made in the Colony. 
 
 Tuesday, 17th. Two women spinning wool on the 
 bigg wheel and one woman spinning flax on the little 
 wheel all designed for the Nigers. . . 
 
 Saturday, January 13th, 1776. After 12 O Clock I 
 went six Miles into the Forrest to one Daniel Dempsies 
 to see if they wou'd spin three pound of cotton to run 8 
 yds. per lb., 2/3 of it belonging to Miss Lucy Gaines 
 for a goun and 1/3 belonging to myself for Vestcoats, 
 which they agd. to do if I carried the cotton there on 
 Saturdy. 27th Inst. . . 
 
 Munday, 15th. Miss Lucy spinning my croop of cot- 
 ton at night after her work is done ; to make me a pair of 
 gloves. 
 
 Wednesday, 17th. This evening Miss Lucy came to 
 school with Mr. Frazer and me, and finished my croop 
 of cotton by winding it, after its being doubled and 
 twisted the whole consisting of two ounces. . . 
 
 Saturday, 27th. After 12 pm I went to the forrest 
 to the house of Daniel Dempsies and carried with mc 
 three pound of pick'd Cotton two of which belongs to 
 Miss Lucy Gaines and one to me, which his wife has 
 agreed to spin to run 8 Yds. per lb., I paing her five 
 shillings per lb. for spinning it and it is to be done by 
 the end of May next. . .
 
 I90 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 (d) Letter of George Washington, Mount Vernon, Jan. 23, 1773, to 
 Thos. Newton Jr., merchant at Norfolk, Va. MS. copy in Washing- 
 ton's hand, in the Library of Congress, George JVashington Papers, 
 vol. xvii, 85. A fishery incidental to plantation operation. 
 
 To -Thomas Newton, Junr. Esqr. Marcht. in Nor- 
 folk. 
 
 Sir: By the Liberty Wm. Heath I send you 80 Barrl. 
 of Herrings pr. receipt Inclosed; which please to dis- 
 pose of for April pay; or, if price can be enhancd by it, 
 for that of July- 
 
 As I have never yet sold a Barrl. of my Fish under 
 15/ at my Landing- as I know them to be good (equal, 
 if not superior to any that is transported from this Coun- 
 try)- and in no danger of spoiling by keeping, being 
 well cured, and well pack'd in tight Cask; I shall hope 
 that you will be able, between this and the coming of the 
 New Fish, to sell these for 15/ clear of Freight & Com- 
 mission.- Some of the same Cargo shipd in the Fairfax 
 by a Gentn. to whom I sold them, fetchd 25/ in Ja- 
 maica; when other Herrings on board the same Vessell 
 scarce reachd 12/6, & some again sold for less than 
 10/ a Barrell.- 
 
 I have now a Vessell waiting (at the mouth of the 
 Creek on which my mill stands) to take in Flour to your 
 address, but the Ice prevents the delivery of it- A few 
 days may produce a change, and enable me to load it - 
 The quantity to be sent cannot be ascertaind; as the 
 Stoage of the Sloop is unknown; perhaps there may be 
 about 200 Barrl. of Superfine Burn - 50 of Midling 
 Do.- and 50 of Bisquet stuff, as it is supposed the Ves- 
 sell will carry about 300 Barrl. in all. . . 
 
 PS. If you have an oppertunity, I should be obliged 
 to you for sendg. a Barrel of these Fish to Mrs. Dawson 
 of Wmsburg, & let her know that it is sent as a compli- 
 ment from Yr. ser. G. W. N.
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 191 
 
 (e) Same to same; Mount Vernon, Dec. 14, 1773. MS. copy in Wash- 
 ington's handwriting, ibid, 113. Flour milling and biscuit making. 
 
 To Thomas Newton Junr. Esqr. Norfolk. 
 
 Sir: Inclosed you have Invoice of 26 Barrl of Bis- 
 cuit stuff; which with 35 sent off before I came home, 
 will be more than sufficient I conceive to mix with the 
 middlings for Bread; if so, please to dispose of the over- 
 plus for, and on my acct, as also of the Bread when 
 baked, and send me an acct. of the proceeds, with the 
 Cash, if any proper opportunity offers to Alexandria to 
 the care of Messrs. Rbt. Adam & Company - Please to 
 let me know what you think my best Superfine Flour 
 would sell at in Norfolk (freight to be paid by the pur- 
 chaser)- I have none, at least a very trifling quantity by 
 me at present, having sold all I have hitherto made at 
 two pence pr. Ib- 
 
 With the Flour, you will receive a Barrel of White 
 thorn Berry's for his Excellency the Govr. which please 
 to forward with the Inclosed Letter by the first opperty. 
 - charge the freight down to me - If you have heard 
 anything of the Brig Anne & Elizabeth, Captn. Pol- 
 locks please to inform me thereof by the Post and you 
 will much oblige, Sir, Yr. Most Obed. Servt. 
 Mt. Vernon Deer. 14th, 1773. Go. WASHINGTON. 
 
 (f) Extract from a letter of Elisha Cain, overseer on Retreat Planta- 
 tion, Jefferson County, Ga., Sept. ii, 1829, to his employer, Alex- 
 ander Telfair, Savannah. MSS. of this and the three following in 
 the possession of the Georgia Historical Society, trustee for the Tel- 
 fair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah. 
 
 As regards the weaving, 138 yards of Cotton Cloth is 
 now wove, and 368 Do. woUen. They are going on 
 with the spinning and weaving. Friday has not wove 
 any. There is plenty of wool to keep them busy a length 
 of time. I had 113 fleeces which weighed 475 lbs.
 
 192 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 (g) Extract from same to same, Nov. s, 1829. 
 
 Nancy has the tenth Peace of wool Cloth now in the 
 Loom. Friday has not wove any this year or since he 
 came here. He could not weave and has not done much 
 of anything but attende the Horses. As the hands who 
 are spining cotton are ahead of the weavers I have now 
 Put two of them to spin wool which will cause the 
 weaveing to go on much faster than it has been. 
 
 (h) Extract from same to his employer, Miss Mary Telfair, Savannah, 
 Ga., Oct. 25, 1833. 
 
 I received the box containing waistcoats handker- 
 chiefs &c. & have given them out as they were marked, 
 several of the hands are lacking (viz) Toney, John, 
 Sawney,- grown hands. Little Jim, Harculas, Bob, 
 Sippio, Sandy, Andrew, William Stephen, which are 
 small boys. Peggy, Lidia, Kate, small girls. As re- 
 gards the wool homespun, I have only eight pieces of 
 45 yards each, now made. The pair of cotton cards 
 which you wish to be informed of, has been received, 
 Nanny sent for them without my knowledge, which she 
 said she wanted for the purpose of making Towels. 
 The six pair which Mr. had an account of, were re- 
 ceived also, they were for Jinney, Hannah, Mary, Cot- 
 ton cards -& Nanny, Nancy, Charity, wool cards-. 
 The women that will want baby clothes are Peggy, 
 young Hetty, Venus, Priscilla, Amy, Mary & Inda. 
 
 (i) Extract from a letter of James Gannelly, overseer on the Mills 
 Plantation, Burke County, Ga., Jan. n, 1835, to his employer. Miss 
 Mary Telfair, Savannah. 
 
 Phyllis wove 2 pices of wool & cotton 50 yds in each 
 piece & put in annother piece of 50 yds & the wool give 
 out at weaving about 25 yds the Balance was filled out 
 with Cotton, that will make 125 yds Phyllis wove. I 
 give to the Children a cording to size, an infant ij^.
 
 PLANTATION MANAGEMENT 193 
 
 size like Iffrey 4 yds - a bout 8 or 9 yds will be enough 
 to send that will be for little Lucy and flornas 2 smalest 
 children. I had a vary good thick piece of Cotton Cloth 
 wove & the rest has taken of that that is Hannah old 
 Lucy sussy Cofify they are not exposed to no weather 
 in working out. I have reed 2 Tierces of salt the Nc- 
 gros arc all well at this time & all other affairs.
 
 II. PLANTATION ROUTINE 
 
 I DAIRY OF WORK ON A SEA-ISLAND COTTON 
 PLANTATION. 
 
 Extracts from the plantation diary of Thos. P. Ravcnel, of Woodboo 
 plantation, 1847-1850. MS. in the possession of the Ravenel family, 
 Pinopolis, S.C. Woodboo plantation lay in St. John's parish, Berke- 
 ley county, about thirty miles north of Charleston. It contained 
 
 about eleven hundred acres, of which probably less than one-fourth 
 was in cultivation. 
 
 1847. January: i, 2, preparing oats field. 4, ginning 
 cotton. 5, planted 10 acres oats. 6, 7, making fence 
 around oat field. 8, 9, 11, 12, sorting cotton. 13, 14, 15, 
 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, ginning and moting. 23, 25, 26, 
 27, 28, getting manure out of pond. 29, moting and 
 ginning. 30, sorting cotton. 
 
 February: i, getting out pond manure. 2, listing po- 
 tato ground. 3, ginning and moting. 4, finished listing 
 potato field. 5, 6, getting out pond manure. 8, 9, clean- 
 ing ground. 10, 11, 12, getting pond manure. 13, 15, 
 16, 17, 18, 19, listing cotton ground. 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 
 26, ditching and mending fence. 27, moting and 
 ginning. 
 
 March: i, 2, 3, bedding cotton ground. 4, 5, 6, gin- 
 ning and moting. 8, 9, bedding cotton ground. 10, 
 II, bedding potato ground. 12, sorting and ginning. 
 13, listing cotton ground. 15, 16, planted potatoes. 17, 
 listing cotton ground. 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, bedding 
 cotton field. 26, cotton house work. 27, 28, 30, 31, 
 bedding cotton field. 
 April: i, 2, 3, planted about 50 acres cotton. 5, bed-
 
 196 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ding potato field. 6, 7, 8, picking joint grass. 9, bed- 
 ding cotton field. 10, planted the rest of potato crop. 
 
 12, 13, bedding cotton ground. 14, planted the rest of my 
 cotton. 15, working on the ditch, along the road. 16, 
 17, making fence. 19, 20, opening ditches in corn field. 
 21, 22, 23, working cotton. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, working 
 cotton. 
 
 May: i, 3, working cotton. 4, listing corn field. 5, 6, 
 
 7, got through first working of cotton. 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 
 listing corn field. 14, planted 20 acres corn. 15, work- 
 ing potatoes. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, working cotton. 22, 
 working potatoes. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, working 
 cotton. 
 
 June: i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, working cotton. 11, 
 planted over my rice. 12, supplying cotton field in rice. 
 14, 15, 16, 17, working rice. 18, 19, 21, working pota- 
 toes. 22, working cotton. 23, planting slips. 24, 25, 
 26, 28, 29, 30, working corn. 
 July: I, 2, working corn. 3, planting slips. 5, 6, 7, 
 
 8, 9, working corn. 10, planting slips. 12, got thro' 
 first working of corn. 13, planted peas in corn. 13, 
 working cotton. 16, shucking corn to send to Pooshee. 
 19, planting slips. 20, 21, working cotton. 22, 23, list- 
 ing peas ground. 24, planted 8 acres peas. 26, 27, 28, 
 29, 30, 31, working cotton. Decidedly stuck in the 
 grass. 
 
 August: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, II, 12, working cotton. 
 
 13, listing ground for early peas. 14, planted early 
 peas. 16, 17, working slips. 18, 19, working peas. 20, 
 topped my cotton. 21, mending ditch and bank. 23, 24, 
 stripping blades. 25, 26, working cornfield peas. 27, 
 stripping blades. 28, 30, 31, working cornfield peas. 
 September: i, working peas. 2, 3, stripping blades. 
 4, 6, 7, 8, working cornfield peas. 9, working early
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 197 
 
 peas. 10, II, prepared turnip patch. 13, cleaning up 
 old field. 14, 15, picked thro' crop of cotton. 16, 17, 
 18, 20, 21, 22, cleaning new ground. 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 
 picked thro' cotton. 29, picking cotton. 30, cleaning 
 ground. Have in house 1200 lbs. cotton. 
 October: i, 2, 4, cleaning new ground. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 
 II, 12, 13, 14, picked thro' cotton. 15, 16, picking 
 peas. 15, slight frost. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, picking 
 cotton and peas. 25, 26, broke in corn. 27, 28, 29, 30, 
 picking cotton. 
 
 November: i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, picked thro' cotton 4 times 
 [i.e. the fourth time.] 8, 9, picking cotton. 10, 11, 12, 
 dug in slips. 13, picking cotton. 15, planted rye. 17, 
 18, 19, 20, picking cotton. 22, cleaning new ground. 
 23, ginning. 25, 26, 27, bring rails out of the swamp. 
 29, 30, ginning and moting. 
 
 December: i, picking cotton. 2, 3, 4, moting and 
 ginning. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, listing in manure. 11, planted 
 rye and oats. 13, moting and ginning. 14, banking po- 
 tatoes. 15, bedding over potatoes in field. 16, 17, 18, 
 20, 21, 22, 23, moting and ginning. 24, making fence. 
 29, 30, 31, moting and ginning. 
 
 1848. January: i, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, moting and ginning. 
 I, burn over turpentine land. 3, commenced making 
 boxes [i.e. to catch pine sap for turpentine.] 10, 11, 12, 
 13, picking cotton. 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 
 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, moting and ginning cotton. 
 February: i, 2, 3, moting and ginning. 4, 5, 7, 8, sort- 
 ing cotton. 9, 10, II, got thro' moting and ginning. 
 Made 6 bags white and 2 of yellow cotton. 12, making 
 slip field fence. 14, 15, 16, levelling field to list. 17, 
 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, listing land. 
 March: i, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, listing ground. 8, 9, making 
 cornfield fence. 10, ditching corn field. 10, 13, 14, list-
 
 198 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ing potato field. 15, 16, 17, bedding potato field. 18, 
 picking out joint grass. 20, 21, planted potatoes. 22, 
 23, 24, making fence. 25, listing ground. 27, 28, 29, 30, 
 31, bedding cotton. 
 
 April: i, 3, bedding cotton land. 4, 5, planted 40 
 acres cotton. 6, getting rails out of the swamp. 7, list- 
 ing ground for early peas. 8, cotton house work. 10, 
 II, listing ground for early peas. 12, trenching ground 
 for rice. 13, planted early peas and fodder peas. 14, 
 15, planted rice. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, listing corn field. 
 27, 28, planting corn. 29, cleaning ditches. 
 May: i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, working cotton. 2, slight 
 hail storm. 10, making fence. 11, 12, 13, working po- 
 tatoes. 15, working cotton. 16, 17, 18, working peas. 
 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, working cotton. 29, 30, 
 31, working corn. 
 
 June: i, 2, 3, 5, working corn. 6, working rice. 7, 
 planted peas in corn. 8, 9, working rice. 10, 12, 13, 
 working potatoes. 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 
 26, 27, working cotton. 28, 29, working peas. 30, list- 
 ing ground for slips. 
 
 July: 3, 4, 5, listing and bedding slip field. 6, work- 
 ing corn. 7, 8, 10, planting slips. 11, 12, working corn. 
 13, working rice. 14, 15, picking early peas. 17, 18, 
 19, 20, 21, 22, working cotton. 24, planted peas. 25, 
 26, 27, got thro' working cotton. 28, planted peas. 29, 
 picking peas. 31, stripping blades. 
 August: I, topping cotton. 2, planting early peas, fall 
 crop. 3, 4, stripping blades. 5, working slips. 7, 
 planted peas. 8, 9, working slips. 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 
 working peas. 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, stripping blades. 22, 
 23, working rice. Cut fodder peas. 26, 28, threshing 
 rye. 29, picking grass out of slips. 30, 31, working 
 peas.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 199 
 
 September: i, 2, 4, 5, working peas. 6, 7, picking cot- 
 ton. 9, left home for Georgia; was away until No- 
 vember. 
 
 November: 2, 3, two killing frosts. 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 
 digging slips. 22, 23, 24, ginning & moting cotton. 25, 
 27, 28, 29, 30, picking cotton. 
 December: Picking, ginning & moting cotton. 
 
 1849. January: Picking, ginning & moting cotton. 
 February: 3, burnt the field next the causeway to plant 
 cotton. 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 
 23, 24, listing cotton land. 25, 27, 28, 29, ginning & 
 moting. 
 
 March: i, 2, 3, ginning and moting cotton. 5, burnt 
 over turpentine woods. 6, finished listing cotton land. 
 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, bedding cotton. 
 21, repairing fence. 22, 23, 24, 26, listing potato field. 
 27, 28, planted cotton. 33 acres. 29, 30, bedding potato 
 ground. 31, planting potatoes. 
 
 April : 2, 3, planting potatoes. 4, making potato field. 
 5, planted 3 acres early peas. 6, making corn field 
 fence. 7, raking around the pond to burn. 9, 10, gin- 
 ning and moting cotton. 11, burnt the old field and big 
 pond next to Northampton. 12, 13, 14, ginning and 
 moting cotton. 15, sleet and snow storm. Cotton killed. 
 16, 17, planting over cotton crop. 18, 19, making fence 
 on the ditch and bank along the road. Frost and ice. 
 20, moting and ginning cotton. Frost. 21, listed and 
 planted fodder peas. 23, gave my people the day. 24, 
 25, 26, 27, moting and ginning cotton. 28, planted early 
 peas. 30, listing corn field. 
 
 May: i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, listing corn field. 10, the 
 first good rail since March. 10, 11, planted corn crop, 
 20 acres. 12, planting rice. Thermometer 47. 14, 15, 
 planting rice. 16, 17, working cotton. 18, rain. Cot-
 
 200 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ton house work. 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 
 31, working cotton. 
 
 June: i, planted over my crop of corn, destroyed by 
 crows. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, working cotton. 9, thin'd out my 
 cotton to one. 10, 12, drew down potatoes. 13, 14, 15, 
 16, 18, 19, working cotton. 20, 21, 22, drew up potatoes. 
 
 23, threshing peas. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, working corn. 
 July: 2, 3, listing ground. 4, planted corn, 4 acres. 
 5, 6, 7, working corn. 9, planted slips by aid of Pooshee. 
 [i.e. by the aid of hands from Pooshee plantation owned 
 by this planter's father.] 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, working 
 corn. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, listing peas ground. 23, planted 
 peas. 24, 25, working, 4 acres of July corn. 26, planted 
 peas. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, working cotton. 28, 30, 
 31, working 4th July corn. 
 
 August: I, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, working cotton. 13, 
 stripping fodder. 14, 15, 16, 17, working slips. 18, 20, 
 working my 4th July corn. Planted early peas in corn. 
 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, working peas. 27, stripping blades. 
 28, working rice. 29, 30, 31, working corn field peas. 
 September: i, working cornfield peas. 3, 4, 5, work- 
 ing 4th July corn. 6, 7, 8, stripping blades. 10, work- 
 ing early peas. 11, 12, 13, curing hay. 14, 15, getting 
 rails and mending fence. 17, 18, 19, 20, picking cotton. 
 21, 22, stripping blades. 26, 27, cutting and putting up 
 hay. 28, 29, picking cotton. Bought a pair of horse 
 cart wheels in Pineville. 
 
 October: i, 2, 3, 4, picking cotton. 5, 6, picking peas. 
 8, 9, 10, stripping blades. 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 
 picking cotton. 20, 22, rain: cutting down weeds. 23, 
 
 24, 25, picking cotton. 26, picking peas. 27, 29, 30, 
 cutting down weeds and listing. 
 
 November: i, picking peas. 2, 3, 5, 6, picking cotton. 
 7, listing weeds. 8, 9, 10, picking cotton. 10, 11, kill-
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 201 
 
 ing frost. 12, 13, breaking in corn. 14, picking cotton. 
 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, digging slips. 22, 23, 24, picking 
 cotton. 26, 27, listing ground. 28, 29, 30, picking 
 cotton. 
 
 December: i, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, picking cotton. 11, 
 listing ground. 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, picking cot- 
 ton. 20, 21, 22, 24, listing ground. 28, 29, planted rye. 
 21, commenced ginning cotton. 
 
 1850. January: i, finished dipping turpentine. 2, 
 
 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1 1, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, mot- 
 ing and ginning cotton. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, getting 
 cypress slabs for fence along the creek. 21, 22, 23, 24, 
 25, 26, ginning and moting. 28, 29, 30, 31, raking tur- 
 pentine Wood. 
 
 February: i, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, raking turpentine wood. 8, 
 ginning and moting. 9, raking straw for manure. 11, 
 12, 13, i4» 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, ginning and 
 moting. 20,'2i, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, making post fence. 
 25, 26, 27, 28, ginning and moting. 
 March: i, 2, 4, 5, 6, got thro' ginning and moting. i, 
 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1 1, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, finished 
 post and rail fence. 7, breaking cotton stocks. 8, 9, 11, 
 listing potato field. 12, making cotton field fence. 13, 
 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, listing cotton ground. 22, 23, 
 bedding cotton ground. 25, 26, 27, bedding potato field. 
 28, 29, 30, bedding cotton field. 
 April : I, 2, bedding cotton field. 3, picking joint grass. 
 
 4, planted cotton. 23 acres. 5, 6, listing corn ground. 
 8, planted highland corn. 8, commenced clipping 
 trees, [i.e., pine trees for turpentine.] 9, planted fod- 
 der peas. 9, 10, II, planted potatoes. 12, bedding po- 
 tato ground. 13, picking joint grass. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 
 20, repairing fence. 19, cotton up. 22, heading rails. 
 23, repairing fence. 24, 25, turning rice field. 26, mov-
 
 202 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ing and planting cow pen. 27, mending dam. 29, 30, 
 working cotton. 
 
 May: i, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, working cotton. 8, 9, 10, bedding 
 corn ground. 1 1, gave my people the day. 13, bedding 
 corn field. 14, transplanting corn, thinning cotton. 15, 
 16, 17, bedding cornfield. 18, thinning cotton. 20, 
 planting swamp corn. 21, worked highland corn. 22, 
 planted rice. 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, working cotton. 29, 30, 
 31, working potatoes. 30, hail storm in Pinopolis 
 neighboring crops much injured. 
 
 June: i, got thro' working potatoes. 3, 4, working 
 corn. 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, working cotton third time. 10, 11, 
 12, 13, 14, working corn. 15, 17, 18, worked potatoes. 
 18, Capt. Robertson found the first [cotton] blossom, at 
 Wampee. 19, 20, working rice. 21, 22, working corn. 
 24, planting peas in corn. 24, 25, listing slip ground. 
 26, 27, 28, working cotton. 29, gave my people the day. 
 
 30, the first rain worth while for a month, the crops hav- 
 ing suffered much from drought. 
 
 July: I, planting slips. 2, listing and bedding slip 
 ground. 3, 4, 5, got through 4th working of cotton. 
 Laid by one half of my crop. 5, 8, 9, 10, working corn. 
 II, 12, planting slips and bedding land. 13, 15, work- 
 ing corn. 16, planting peas in corn. 17, 18, 19, laying 
 by cotton. 20, 22, 23, planting slips part of each day. 
 
 20, 22, 23, list peas ground. 24, 25, planting peas. 25, 
 26, 27, listing peas ground. 29, 30, planting peas. 30, 
 
 31, working rice. 
 
 August: I, 2, 3, working rice, i, begun second dip- 
 ping of turpentine. 5, listing and planting early peas. 
 4, slight hail, no injury. 6, 7, 8, 9, working slips. 10, 
 working peas in corn. 12, patching slips. 13, working 
 peas in corn. 14, 15, stripping blades. 16, 17, 19, 20, 
 
 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, working peas. 24, very stormy. 27, 
 28, working slips. 29, 30, 31, stripping blades.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 203 
 
 September: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, stripping blades. 7, 9, work- 
 ing peas. 10, II, 12, 13, picking cotton. 14, 16, work- 
 ing peas. Rain. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, got thro' 
 first picking. 25, 26, 27, picking cotton. 20, com- 
 menced eating potatoes. 28, making potato field fence. 
 27, very heavy rain. 30, picking cotton. 
 October: i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, picking cot- 
 ton. Got thro' second picking of cotton. 15, 16, picking 
 cotton. 17, broke in a small field of corn. 8, 9, very 
 light frost. 18, 19, 21, picking peas. 22, 23, cutting 
 hay. 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, picking peas. 
 November: i, 2, 4, 5, 6, picking peas. 7, cutting rice. 
 8, 9, breaking in corn. 1 1, picking peas, making cellar. 
 12, 13, 14, 15, digging slips. 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 
 27, 28, picking cotton. Rain. 29, 30, ginning and mot- 
 ing cotton. 
 
 December: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 
 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 28, 30, 31, moting and ginning. 
 Have about three bags of old cotton and two bags of new 
 cotton. 
 
 2 ROUTINE OF INCIDENTALS ON A SEA-ISLAND 
 PLANTATION 
 
 Memoranda by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 1818-1819, of incidental* 
 at his plantation on Pinckney Island, near Charleston, S.C, MS. in 
 the Charleston College Library, written on blank pages in a volunie 
 of Hoff's Agricultural Almanac for 1818. 
 
 Negroes at Pinckney Island, April 12th. 1818 : At the 
 Crescent, 105; At the old place, 107; At the Point, 9; 
 [total.] 221. . . 
 
 April 6th. Left Charleston in the steam boat with my 
 Daughters at 6 o'clock this morning. 
 
 April 7th. Arrived at the Island about 9 o'clock this 
 morning. Sent the boat a Drum fishing and caught 5 
 Drum. Gave a Drum to each of the overseers, and one 
 among the Fishermen.
 
 204 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 April 8th. Sent the small yawl a fishing with George, 
 and Handy and little Abram from the old Place, and 
 York & Dago from the Crescent; they caught 4 dozen 
 Shrimp for bait last night & 14 Drum Fish today. 
 Gave two to fishermen. 
 
 April 9th. The Fishermen caught 3 dozen shrimp as 
 bait last night. Captn. Bythewood landed the articles 
 from Charleston this morning. Took out of the store- 
 room over the Kitchen 8 hams, 4 shoulders and 8 sides 
 & out of a Box in the smoke House i ham and 3 shoul- 
 ders & hung them all up to smoke. 
 
 Mr. Cannon sent today the meat of three Hogs (with 
 the Hogs Lard,) well cured. 
 
 Mr. Johnston sent today the meat of three Hogs (with 
 the Hogs Lard) well cured. Put the whole in Boxes in 
 the store room over the kitchen. 
 
 Mr. Johnston sent yesterday one dozen fowls and four 
 dozen eggs; and half a bushell of corn for the Pigeons. 
 Mr. Cannon sent yesterday 2 Fowls and one dozen and 
 one Eggs. Sent Captn. Rogers of the Steam Boat a 
 Cauliflower, 3 White Brocoli & a Drum fish. He re- 
 quested another which was fresher, and my Brother 
 gave it to him. Gave three to the Fishermen and one 
 to each of the overseers. 23 in the whole were caught. 
 
 April loth. The Fishermen caught 14 Drum. Gave 
 two to the Fishermen. 
 
 April nth. Gave to the Negroes of each Plantation 
 14 heads 19 back bones & 37 sides, of Drum fish. Mr. 
 Cannon sent one dozen and eight eggs. 
 
 The Fishermen caught 15 Drum. Gave the Fisher- 
 men two Drum. 
 
 April 1 2th. Gave to the Negroes of both plantations 
 and at the Point Pipes, Tobacco & Salt. 
 
 April 13th. The Fishermen caught 10 Drum Fish.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 205 
 
 Gave one to the Fishermen and one to each of the over- 
 seers. 
 
 April 14th. Gave to the Negroes of each Plantation 
 six heads 17 Sides & 6 Back Bones. 
 
 Took up two Cows to feed last night; in the whole 
 five are milked at present, which gave yesterday six 
 quarts of Milk. . . 
 
 Mr. Cannon finished today planting at the Crescent. 
 He has planted Cotton 146 acres. Corn 80 ditto. Sweet 
 potatoes 10 do. Oats 25 do. Irish Potatoes near 2 do. 
 
 April 2 1 St. The fishermen caught 5 drum none with 
 roes. The steam boat did not pass from Charleston 
 today. 
 
 April 22nd. Gosport & Quash from the Crescent & 
 January & Bob from the old place are the Fishermen 
 for the ensuing week. 
 
 The Crescent Fishermen caught 3 dozen shrimps last 
 night & the old Place Fishermen one dozen. 
 
 The Fishermen caught only 3 drum. Gave one 
 among them, & one to Captn. Rogers of the Steam Boat. 
 
 April 23rd. The two Cows that are fed gave 6 quarts 
 this morning; the Cows (three) not fed gave four 
 quarts. The Fishermen caught no drum. 
 
 April 24th. The Fishermen caught no Drum, but 
 one turtle. The weather still continues cold. 
 
 April 25th. The fishermen changed their situation 
 today to the northward of the Devil's Elbow, but still 
 caught no Drum, the weather continuing cool, but not 
 so cold as it was. . . 
 
 April 28th. The Fishermen caught 15 drum. Gave 
 them two. 
 
 April 29th. 1 8 18. Gave to the Negroes of each Plan- 
 tation this morning 10 heads, 11 Backs and 23 sides of 
 Drum Fish. Cuffie & Sambo from the Crescent and
 
 2o6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Adam & Ceasar from the Old Place begun fishing 
 today. The 2 fed cows gave 6 quarts this morning. The 
 three out Cows gave four quarts, and a pint. Mr. Can- 
 non sent I dozen eggs. James brought two chickens. 
 The Fishermen caught 8 drum. Gave one to Capt. 
 Rogers, one to themselves and one to each of the over- 
 seers. . . 
 
 Mr. Johnston has sent this evening the following 
 account of the crop planted at the Old Place this year: 
 On Harry Young's Old Ground, 46 acres ; New Ground 
 of 1 8 17, 23 do; New Ground of 18 18, 16 do; Total 
 Cotton on Harry Youngs, 86 acres. On Pinckney Is- 
 land: Pasture Land, 30 acres; New Ground of 18 16, 20 
 do; New Ground of 1818, 10 do; Old Ground, 5 do; 
 Total Cotton on Pinckney Island, 65 acres.- Cotton on 
 Harry Young's, 86; Cotton on Pinckney Island, 65; 
 Total Cotton at Old Place, 151 [acres]. 
 
 Corn for 2 Ploughs, 42 acres ; do. for the hoes, 40 do ; 
 Total Corn, 82 acres. 
 
 Sweet Potatoes, 10 acres ; Irish do., 2 do ; Oats planted 
 & slips to be planted, about 23 do : [Total,] 35 acres. . . 
 Total crop at Old Place, 268 acres. 
 
 May 9th. Killed a Lamb from the old Place. Gave 
 a hind quarter to the Overseers. Received from the old 
 Place a pair of Geese and a pair of Ducks. Caught 6 
 drum, gave one to each of the overseers, and one to the 
 Fishermen. 
 
 May loth. Gave tobacco, pipes, salt and Fish Hooks 
 to the Negroes of both Plantations, and at the Point. 
 My Brother's carriages and Horses were sent over to 
 Mr. Robertson's. 
 
 May nth. My Brother, Mrs. Pinckney and Miss 
 Drayton left us after breakfast this morning. The Fish-
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 207 
 
 ermen caught five drum and a Turtle. Gave one drum 
 to the Fishermen. 
 
 May 1 2th. The Fishermen did not go for shrimps 
 last night, and therefore only caught today two drum 
 fish. 
 
 May 14th. Gave Mr, Cannon sixteen dollars to pay 
 for 4.0CH3 shingles to complete the shingling his house, 
 and advanced him fifty dollars in part of salary for the 
 present year. 
 
 At the same time advanced Mr. Johnston sixty dollars 
 in part of salary for the present year. 
 
 Caught no drum today, & gave up fishing for the 
 season. 
 
 May 15th. Advanced Mr. Johnston fifteen dollars 
 more. 
 
 May 1 6th. The Wild Horse came to the point to 
 carry my daughters and self on board the steam boat. 
 
 Deer. 13th. arrived v^ith my daughter in the steam- 
 boat last night at 8 o'clock. We found our House Peo- 
 ple there who had arrived the Friday evening before in 
 Capt. Bythwood's schooner. 
 
 Found at the Point from the old Place 8 fowls, 4 
 ducks, 2 turkeys, i dozen and 4 eggs, i basket of sweet 
 potatoes. 
 
 Dec. 14th. Five Fowls were sent from the Crescent. 
 
 Dec. 15th. Teudey & Josey arrived last night. The 
 Jersey waggon & Horses were at the Fording Islands. 
 Bedford died on the road. 
 
 The Jersey waggon and Horses came over to the Is- 
 land today. 
 
 The steam boat passed on its return to Charleston, 
 wrote by it to Messrs Kershaw & Lewis. 
 
 Capt. Bythewood arrived off the Island. Sent him
 
 2o8 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 23 Bales of Cotton, 12 from the Crescent and 11 from 
 the Old Place. Ordered them to be shipped to Messrs 
 Earle at Liverpool by the first opportunity. 
 
 Drum fish caught in 1818: Drum fish, 219; Hard 
 roes, 38. 
 
 Crop made in 18 17 at the Old Place. 
 Sent to Town, 1 1 Bales ; Ginned, supposed, 4 ; Unginned, 
 supposed, 5; Yellow, Supposed, 3; [total,] 23. 
 
 Yet Mr. Johnston says Mrs. Langley's negroes made 
 240 lb. while each of mine did not make half as much. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Crop made in 1818. 
 Sent by Capt. Bythewood Dec. 15th. 18 18. 
 
 Crescent Old Place 
 
 White Cotton White Cotton 
 
 12 bales II bales 
 
 Sent by Capt. Bythewood, Jan. 12, 18 19. 
 
 18 Bales II Bales 
 
 3 WORK ON A LARGE TOBACCO AND WHEAT 
 PLANTATION, VIRGINIA 
 
 Extracts for tj'pical weeks in 185+ from the journal of the manager of 
 Belmead Plantation, Powhaton County, Virginia, about twenty miles 
 west of Richmond. MS. in the possession of Wm. M. Bridges, Rich- 
 mond, Va. 
 
 At the time of the journal there were one hundred and twenty-seven 
 slaves of all ages on Belmead, of which about one-half probably 
 comprised the working force. There were twenty-one work horses 
 and mules, sixteen work oxen, and a large supply of implements and 
 farm machinery listed in the quarterly inventories of stock and 
 equipment. The journal now extant covers the full year, 1854. 
 
 For the week commencing January i6, 1854. 
 Clear & warm MONDAY. 4 four horse ploughs ploughing 
 
 wind S W in Low grounds ploughed 6 acres one ox cart 
 
 hauled wood two hauling Turnips one four
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 
 
 209 
 
 Cloudy & Rain 
 wind N E 
 
 Cloudy & damp 
 wind N E 
 
 Cloudy & Rain 
 wind N E 
 
 Cloudy & Rain 
 wind S W 
 
 Cloudy & Rain 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & cold 
 wind N W 
 
 For the week 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind N W 
 
 horse wagon hauled straw 2 hands Loading 
 other hand puling Turnips and triming put 
 the Big Boat in the River this evening. 
 TUESDAY. 4 four horse ploughs ploughing 
 in Low grounds this morning untill 9 oclock 
 stoped By Rain two ox carts and one four 
 horse wagon hauled straw striped and prize 
 Tobacco from 10 oclock untill Night with all 
 hands. 
 
 WEDNESDAY. 4 four horse ploughs 
 ploughing in Low grounds ploughed 4 acres 
 one ox cart hauling wood two ox carts and one 
 four horse wagon hauling straw two hands 
 loading other hands clearing of creek Banks 
 THURSDAY. 4 four horse ploughs plough- 
 ing in Low grounds untill 12 oclock stoped By 
 Rain one ox cart hauling wood two ox carts 
 and one four horse wagon hauling straw 2 
 hands loading teams other hands opening water 
 furrows stuck 2 houses of Tobacco this even- 
 ing. 
 
 FRIDAY. All hands In the Tobacco house 
 striping and prizing Tobacco seven hands 
 clean wheat this evening three ox carts hauled 
 seventy Barrels of Flouar to the River the 
 Road in Bad order. 
 
 SATURDAY, three ox carts hauled three 
 loads of Flour to the River five loads of wheat 
 to the Mill and a load of corn and hauled 
 wood seven hands cleaning wheat other hands 
 striping and prizing Tobacco. 
 SUNDAY. Inspected quarters this Morn- 
 ing houses in good order. 
 
 commencing April 10, 1854. 
 
 MONDAY, six coalters and two harrows 
 preparing corn land five hands sowed plaster 
 one ox cart hauled plastor Jefferey Manuring 
 plant Beds four hands Bulking Tobacco other 
 hands choping ditch Banks Dick at the Mill.
 
 2IO 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Clear & cold 
 wind N W 
 
 Cloudy & cool 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & warm 
 wind S W 
 
 Cloudy & Rain 
 wind N E 
 
 Cloudy & Rain 
 wind N E 
 
 For the week 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 TUESDAY, six two horse coalters and two 
 harrows preparing land for corn one ox cart 
 hauled plastor five hands sewing four hands 
 Bulking Tobacco Jefferey Manuring plant 
 Beds other hands shelled seed corn. 
 WEDNESDAY, three ox carts hauled Ma- 
 nure 23 loads three three horse harrows pre- 
 paring corn land six one horse Ploughs and 
 cultivators planting corn seven hands droping 
 four hands prizeing Tobacco Jeffrey Manur- 
 ing plants Beads other hands opening furrows. 
 THURSDAY, three ox carts hauled Ma- 
 nure 24 loads three harrows preparing corn 
 land three one horse ploughs and three culti- 
 vators planting corn six hands droping corn 
 four prizeing Tobacco others dresing of corn 
 land. 
 
 FRIDAY, three ox carts hauled Manure 
 four hands prizeing Tobacco all other hands 
 and teames Imployed planting corn in low 
 grounds stoped By Rain this evening. 
 SATURDAY, all hands sheled corn prize 
 Tobacco and prepare fences in the evening 
 after it stoped raining. 
 SUNDAY. 
 
 commencing July 3, 1854. 
 
 MONDAY. Commence cutting oats this 
 Morning with eight cradels untill 9 oclock 
 weded Tobacco the Balance of the day three 
 hands Reparing wheat shocks three skimers 
 ploughing Tobacco Three horse Rakes gleen- 
 ing wheat field. 
 
 TUESDAY. Three skimers at work in To- 
 bacco Three horse Rakes gleening wheat field 
 all other hands weeding Tobacco weed 50 
 Thousand plants, 
 
 WEDNESDAY. Three one horse Rakes 
 gleening wheat field three skimers ploughing 
 Tobacco Erasamus Shear Sheep other hands 
 worked Tobacco fifty thousand hills.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 
 
 211 
 
 showry this 
 evening and 
 warm wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 For the week 
 
 hot and Rain 
 this evening 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 still shower 
 this evening 
 and hot wind S W 
 
 Clear & hot 
 wind S W 
 
 THURSDAY. Three one horse skimers at 
 work in Tobacco all other hands Replanted 
 Tobacco and cut oats stoped By Rain this 
 evening. 
 
 FRIDAY, all hands Replanted Tobacco un- 
 till 9 oclock cut oats and shock the Balance of 
 the day. 
 
 SATURDAY. Finish cutting oats this Morn- 
 ing and hill Tobacco seven ploughs ploughing 
 Tobacco. 
 
 SUNDAY. Inspected quarters this Morning 
 houses and yards in good order Rain this 
 Evening. 
 
 commencing July 17, 1854. 
 
 MONDAY, three ox carts hauled wheat two 
 four horse wagons hauled straw Daniel toped 
 Tobacco all other hands and teames Imployed 
 thrashing wheat thrashed two hundred Bush- 
 els stoped By Rain this Evening. 
 TUESDAY, six one horse coalters working 
 Tobacco JeflFery toping wheat shoks Blowed 
 of By wind Daniel toping Tobacco other hands 
 hilling Tobacco 20 thousand thrashed wheat 
 this Evening 100 Bushels. 
 WEDNESDAY, three ox carts and two four 
 horse wagons hauled wheat all other hands Im- 
 ployed at the Barn thrashing wheat thrashed 
 three hundred Bushels. 
 
 THURSDAY. Three ox carts and two four 
 horse wagons hauled wheat Daniel toped To- 
 bacco all other hands and teames thrashed 
 wheat two hundred and fifty Bushels. 
 FRIDAY, three ox teames and two four 
 horse wagons hauled wheat other hands and 
 teames thrashed two hundred and fifty Bushels 
 stoped By Rain at 4 oclock. 
 SATURDAY. Three ox carts and two four 
 horse wagons hauled wheat other hands and 
 teames Imployed thrashing thrashed two hun- 
 dred and fifty Bushels Daniel toped Tobacco.
 
 212 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 SUNDAY. Inspected quarters this Morning 
 houses and yards in good order. 
 
 For the week commencing Oct. 2, 1854. 
 
 Cloudy & warm 
 wind S E 
 
 MONDAY. Nine two horse ploughs plough- 
 ing corn Land for wheat in Mill field ploughed 
 14 acres two hands fireing Tobacco one hand 
 sewed guano other hands sheled corn 40 Bar- 
 els three ox carts hauled 10 ton of guano from 
 the River 3 hands weighed guano. 
 TUESDAY. Clean corn and grate guano 
 this Morning with all hands untill eight 
 oclock Rain untill that time fired Tobacco 
 ploughed with Nine ploughs and suckered To- 
 bacco the Balance of the day. 
 WEDNESDAY. Commence sewing wheat 
 in Mill field on corn land with 6 harrows and 
 one laying off sewed 24 Bushels other hands 
 suckered Tobacco and cut and housed tw'elve 
 hundred sticks. 
 
 THURSDAY, six harrows and one coaltor 
 Imployed sewing wheat on corn land in Mill 
 field sewed 26 Bushels cut Tobacco with five 
 of my hands and Alfred and his hands cut and 
 house Eighteen hundred sticks. 
 FRIDAY. Commence harrowing with six 
 harrows in field No 2 and sewing with drill 
 sewed 10 Bushels one hand sewed two thou- 
 sand lbs guano other hands cut and huse To- 
 bacco with Alfreds also. 
 SATURDAY, sewed ten Bushels of wheat 
 with the drill six harrows preparing fallow 
 land in field No 2 other hands housed To- 
 bacco and opening water furrows and spred 
 Manure. 
 
 SUNDAY. Inspected quarters this Morning 
 houses and yards in good order. 
 
 For the week commencing December 11, 1854. 
 Clear & cool MONDAY. Four four horse ploughs at 
 
 wind S W worke in Low grounds three ox carts hauled 
 
 Cloudy & Rain 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind N W 
 
 Clear & cool 
 with frost this 
 Morning wind N W 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind N W 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & warm 
 wind S W
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 
 
 213 
 
 wood ten hands cutting and Mauling wood 
 other hands cleaning ditch Banks. 
 TUESDAY. Four ploughs at work in Low 
 grounds three ox carts hauled Turnips Erasa- 
 mus with Mr. Tucker at Beldale Reparing 
 gaits all other hands gethering Turnips. 
 WEDNESDAY. Four ploughs at worke in 
 Low grounds twenty one hands and three ox 
 carts gethering and hauling Turnips at Mount 
 Pleasant. 
 
 THURSDAY. Five four horse ploughs at 
 worke In Low grounds ploughed five acres 
 the Land Verry dry and hard Eighteen hands 
 and three ox carts hauling Turnips at Mount 
 Pleasants. 
 
 FRIDAY. Five four horse ploughs plough- 
 ing in Low grounds Ben and Women clening 
 water furrows three ox carts hauled wood 
 four hands cutting and Mauling. 
 SATURDAY. Five four horse ploughs 
 ploughing in Low grounds Ben and Women 
 open water furrows three ox carts hauled wood 
 four hands cutting and Mauling wood. 
 SUNDAY. 
 
 commencing December 18, 1854. 
 
 MONDAY. Five four horse ploughs plough- 
 ing in Low grounds three ox carts hauled 
 wood other hands Maid sheep shelter cut wood 
 and open water furrows. 
 
 TUESDAY. all hands Imployed killing 
 Hogs untill twelve oclock five ploughs at 
 worke this Evening. 
 
 WEDNESDAY. Five four horse ploughs 
 ploughing in Low grounds the land Verry dry 
 and hard three hands cutting out hogs two 
 cutting wood three ox carts hauling other 
 hands open water furrows and grubing. 
 THURSDAY. Five ploughs ploughing in 
 Low grounds three ox carts hauled wood two 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind N W 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind S W 
 
 Clear & cool 
 wind S W 
 
 Cloudy & cool 
 wind NE 
 
 For the week 
 
 Cloudy & cool 
 wind N E 
 
 Cloudy & cold 
 wind N E 
 
 Clear & cold 
 wind N W 
 
 Clear & cold 
 wind N W
 
 214 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 hands cutting wood three hands cutting hogs 
 other hands opening water furrows. 
 Clear & cold FRIDAY. Ten hands cutting wood three ox 
 
 wind N W carts and two four horse wagons hauling Ben 
 
 and Women grubing the land two hard frozen 
 to plough. 
 Cloudy & cold SATURDAY. Eight hands cutting wood 
 
 wind N E two wagons and one ox cart hauling wood two 
 
 ox carts and one wagon hauled straw and shuks 
 to Beldale farm Ben and women grubing. 
 Cloudy & Rain SUNDAY. Inspected quarters this Morning 
 
 wind N E houses and yards in good order. 
 
 4 ROUTINE OF WORK ON A GREAT SUGAR 
 PLANTATION 
 
 Extracts of the record for typical months, in the years 1827, 1832, 1837, 
 1844, 1845, 1852, and 1853, from the Plantation Diary of the late 
 Mr. Valcour Aime, formerly proprietor of the plantation known as 
 the St. James Sugar Refinery, situated in the Parish of St. James 
 (New Orleans, 1878.) The plantation was on the bank of the Mis- 
 sissippi river about sixty miles above New Orleans. The scale of 
 operations rapidly increased. The number of slaves on the estate in 
 any given year may be roughly estimated on the basis of one slave to 
 each hogshead of sugar in the output. The printed diary was prob- 
 ably issued in a small edition and privately distributed. 
 
 1827, January. Weather rainy from the ist to the 15th. 
 February. Weather dry during the whole month; 
 through planting cane on the 12th. 
 March. Rain on the ist. fair on the 2d; most of the 
 plant cane,* and also stubbles * of Creole ° cane in new 
 land mark the row.^ White frost on the 19th, 2Rth, and 
 29th; through hoeing plant and stubble cane for the 
 first time on the 30th ; rain on the 30th. 
 
 * In the climate of Louisiana, two or possible in some cases three crops of 
 sugar cane, in successive years, will grow from one planting. The first year's 
 crop is called the plant cane; afterward the crop is said to grow from the 
 stubble. - Ed. 
 
 5 Creole, Otahity and ribbon are varieties of sugar cane.- Ed. 
 
 ^ When the green shoots appear in lines across the field, the cane is said 
 to mark the row. - Ed.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 215 
 
 April. On the ist, Otahity*^ plant cane mark the row; 
 some ribbon ° plant cane have suckered on the 9th ; 
 through hoeing stubbles on the 15th; planted corn on 
 the 17th; light white frost on the 19th; weather favor- 
 able; rain on the 22d; heavy white frost on the 28th and 
 29th ; rain on the 30th. 
 
 May. White frost on the 2d; cold enough for fire on 
 the 7th ; north wind on the loth ; weather quite warm on 
 the 13th and 14th; a heavy rain on the latter day; 
 Otahity stubbles mark the row only on the 24th. All 
 other cane have already suckered; ridged up ribbon 
 cane on the 25th. 
 
 June. A beneficial rain on the ist, being the first rain 
 since May the 14th; north wind from the 22d to the 
 23d; weather cool enough to close doors at night. Five 
 hundred and sixty five cords of wood already made. 
 July. Weather dry; no rain since June ist; rain on the 
 4th, after thirty-four days drought; rain on the 15th. 
 Through chopping wood on the 28th weather rainy. 
 August. Begun hauling wood on the 3d; rain on the 
 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, loth, nth, 12th, and 13th. Begun 
 ditching on the 15th; rain again on the i8th and 19th; 
 north wind on the 25th, and through hauling wood to 
 sugar house. 
 
 September. Begun making hay on the 5th; weather 
 quite warm; north wind on the 23d. 
 October. Through storing hay on the 2d; repaired 
 public road on the 8th and 9th ; north wind and white 
 frost on the loth; begun matlaying^ cane -weather too 
 dry; through matlaying on the i6th; violent wind on 
 the 2 ist, which blew down all large cane ; begun cutting 
 
 '' When the blades were stripped and tops cut from the standing cane, the 
 blades and tops {cane trash) lay in a mat upon the field. Hence the phrase 
 to matlay, to strip the cane in preparation for cutting and grinding it. - Ed.
 
 21 6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 cane for the mill; white frost on the 22d; begun 
 grinding. 
 
 November. During this month, weather mild and dry; 
 thin ice on the 30th. 
 
 December. On the ist, the weather again so mild, that 
 some cane sprouts are six inches long. Through grind- 
 ing on the 15th. On the 27th, cane standing are still 
 good for seed. Ice on the 28th. V. Aime's sugar crop 
 in 1826 [misprint for 1827], two hundred and fifty- 
 three hogsheads, sold from five and a half to six cents. 
 
 1833, January. One hundred and twenty arpents ^ of 
 cane planted. Resumed planting only on the 4th, the 
 ground having been too wet. Rain on the 13th. 
 Weather fair on the 19th. Begun plowing in plant cane 
 on the 22d. Rain on the 27th and 28th. 
 February. Through spading old ditches on the 5th. 
 Through plowing and scraping plant cane on the 9th 
 and chopping wood. Begun making staves on the 13th. 
 A light rain on the 14th; grading for a plantation rail- 
 road. Four hundred and fifty-one pounds of pork from 
 a hog raised here. Rain on the 19th and 20th. At least 
 60 arpents of ribbon plant cane mark the row. Very 
 heavy rain on the 23d, such as the one of the i6th May, 
 1823. Begun plowing in stubbles on the 26th. Rain 
 on the 26th and 27th. 
 
 March . Four hundred and fifty cords of wood cut, and 
 two hundred and fifty cords remaining of last year's 
 wood. Rain on the ist. Ice one-fourth of an inch thick 
 on the 2d. Ice again on the 3d. Trifling rain on the 5th. 
 Heavy rain during the night from the 5th to the 6th. 
 Rain on the 7th. Begun plowing in plant cane on the 
 
 8 The arpent is a French unit of land measure, prevalent in Louisiana. It 
 is equivalent to about five-sixths of an acre. - Ed.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 217 
 
 15th. Rain on the i6th, 17th, i8th, 19th, and 20th. All 
 ribbon plant cane except forty arpents, very nearly mark 
 the row. Otahity plant cane are coming up. Planted 
 corn in new ground on the 23d. Heavy rain on the 23d. 
 Through working plant cane for the first time on the 
 29th. Through hoeing stubbles on the 30th. Some 
 stubbles of ribbon cane mark the row. White frost on 
 the 30th. 
 
 April. Six hundred cords of wood made. Chopping 
 wood on the first. Light rain on the 2d. Through 
 plowing, in new land, on the 3d. All the ribbon plant 
 cane mark the row on the 7th. Rain on the nth. Re- 
 planting corn in missing places. Stubbles of ribbon 
 cane mark the row, but are yet thin on the row, on the 
 12th. Rain on the i6th Otahity plant cane mark the 
 row. Rain on the 19th. Through working plant cane 
 for the third time on the 24th, and through working 
 stubbles for the second time on the 27th. Rain on the 
 28th, 29th and 30th. Weeding corn, in new land, on the 
 30th. River has fallen eighteen inches. 
 May. Plowing and hoeing corn, in new land, on the 
 I St, 2d and 3d. Heavy rain on the 3d. Some ribbon 
 cane have suckered beneath ground. Rain on the 4th, 
 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and loth. Harrowing and hoeing 
 plant cane. Through working plant cane for the fourth 
 time on the 21st. Rain on the 22d. Size of cane, with 
 leaves, on the 22d; ribbon plant cane measured from 
 four feet to four and a half feet; stubbles of ribbon cane, 
 four feet; Otahity plant cane, three and a half feet. 
 Otahity stubbles hardly mark the row. Weeding corn, 
 in new land, on the 23d and 24th. "CHOLERA 
 HERE." Begun to ridge up plant cane on the 28th; 
 twenty-six hands only in the field. 
 June. Only seven hands hoeing on the 2d; lost three
 
 2i8 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 slaves of cholera; the disease is very violent. Rain on 
 the 8th. Cholera on the decrease. Rain on the 9th. 
 Sowed peas on the loth and nth. On the 15th, both 
 ribbon and Otahity plant cane are of fine size. Cutting 
 weeds and ridging up cane, in new land. Weeded a 
 portion of the corn crop on the 21st. Ridging up cane 
 on the 24th, with the plow, and with the hoe, on the 
 27th. Rain in front on the 27th. Through ridging up 
 plant cane, with the plow, on the 29th. 
 July. On the ist, some stubbles nearly screen the teams. 
 Begun hauling wood on the 2d. Rain on the 8th. 
 Thermometer 27° R., above zero, within doors, at 3 h. 
 P.M. on the 9th. Planted second crop of Charaky corn 
 on the loth. Through working stubbles of ribbon cane 
 on the 13th. Weather too dry; occasionally, a shower, 
 but none of any consequence since June. Thermometer 
 24° above zero, on the i8th at 8h. P.M. Through 
 hauling wood on the 22d (one thousand and eighty 
 cords). Bending corn on the 23d. Very light rain on 
 the 27th, 29th, 30 and 31st. 
 
 August. A heavy rain on the 4th. Rain on the 5th, 6th, 
 and 7th. On the 8th, an Otahity plant cane measured 
 four feet ten inches in joints. Rain on the 9th, loth and 
 nth. One hundred and thirty-seven water melons gave 
 forty-six gallons of juice, which, being evaporated, gave 
 only three gallons of thick syrup. On the 15th, at 9 h. 
 P.M., the thermometer 24° R. above zero, and thus 
 stood during several evenings; the heat, however, was 
 not so very great. Clearing ground on the 20th. Gath- 
 ered five hundred and five barrels of corn, and hauled 
 out lumber for the plantation railroad, on the 22d. 
 Through hauling out lumber for the plantation railroad 
 on the 31st. 
 September. Rain on the ist. Continue to clear land.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 219 
 
 Rain on the 4th and 5th, with very strong wind, which 
 blew down much cane. Rain again on the 6th and 7th. 
 Begun laying cross-ties of plantation railroad on the 
 1 1 th ; the work suspended on the 27th. Rain on the 27th 
 and 28th. Matlayed Otahity stubbles, so as to plow the 
 ground. 
 
 October. North wind on the 2d. Rain on the 5th and 
 6th. Laying cross-ties of plantation railroad on the 
 7th. North wind on the 7th. North wind on the 13th. 
 Thermometer 10^ ° R. above zero. Light rain on the 
 15th. North wind on the 17th; begun cutting cane for 
 the mill. Thermometer 5^° R. above zero, on the 
 1 8th, in the morning; and on the 19th, thermometer 5° 
 R. above zero. Begun grinding on the 20th. Very cold 
 north wind on the 21st; thermometer 2° R. above zero. 
 Weather very cold for the season, on the 22d; ther- 
 mometer, zero; the ice the thickness of one quarter of a 
 dollar; several other planters assert that the ice was of 
 the thickness of a dollar. Cane tops, generally, may 
 still be matlayed, though some are frozen. Cloudy on 
 the 25th and 26th. Cold north wind on the 28th. On 
 the 29th, thermometer y^° K. below zero. Resumed 
 grinding; only forty-two hogsheads of sugar made on 
 the 30th. 
 
 November. Stopped grinding on the ist, at midnight. 
 Resumed grinding on the 4th, in the evening; one hun- 
 dred hogsheads of sugar altogether made on the 8th. 
 Rsain on the 8th, 9th and loth. Stopped grinding, with 
 one hundred and twenty-two hogsheads of sugar made. 
 Ice on the 15th. Thin ice on the i6th. Stopped grind- 
 ing on the 17th, during the night, with one hundred 
 and seventy-two hogsheads of sugar made. Weather 
 cloudy on the i8th. Ice of the thickness of a dollar 
 on the 19th; resumed grinding at midnight. Heavy
 
 220 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 white frost on the 20th. Altogether two hundred hogs- 
 heads of sugar made on the 21st. Light, but very cold 
 rain on the 24th. Ice one-quarter of an inch thick on 
 the 25th. Thin ice, and exceedingly white frost on the 
 26th. Through grinding on the 30th, at 9 h. A.M. 
 December. Light rain before daybreak, on the ist. 
 Cane, in the neighborhood, so afifected by ice, that they 
 scarcely produce sugar, even of bad quality. Rain on 
 the 3d, 4th and 5th. A little rain on the 6th and 7th. 
 Begun planting cane on the 9th. Weather, fair. Ice 
 on the 15th and i6th. Rain all day on the 20th; sixty 
 arpents of cane planted. Ice on the 24th, 26th, and 
 27th. Rain on the 28th and 29th; ninety arpents of 
 cane planted. Rain on the 30th. V. Aime's sugar crop, 
 in 1833, two hundred and fifty-three hogsheads. 
 
 1837, September. Drought still prevailing on the 
 ist. No rain has fallen in a portion of St. Charles Par- 
 ish, since the 23d of July; cane there are very small. 
 Weather threatening rain every day, and thus inter- 
 feres with hay cutting. Plant cane here which meas- 
 ured four feet two inches on the 30th of July, measure 
 seven feet three inches on the 8th of September, showing 
 their growth to have been thirty-six inches in thirty- 
 eight days. All the wood hauled out into back pasture, 
 and one thousand cords cut for next year. Begun cut- 
 ting hay on the nth. The drought has been so great, 
 that hauling in the swamps is easy. Rain sufficient only 
 to wet hay on the 14th and 15th; stopped cutting hay. 
 Gathering corn from the i6th to the i8th. Resumed 
 hay cutting on the 19th. Rain on the 21st during night; 
 rain on the 22d, and light rain on the 23d. Spading 
 canal on the 22d and 23d. Gathering corn on the 25th. 
 Cutting hay on the 26th, but rain again interfered in the
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 221 
 
 afternoon. Rain on the 27th. Chopping drift wood. 
 Rain on the 28th. Cutting weeds on the 28th and 29th. 
 On the 30th repaired main plantation road in the fore- 
 noon, and gathered sixteen cart loads of peas in pods in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 October. Rain on the ist, 2d, & 3d, and worked mean- 
 time on the public road. Light rain on the 4th and 
 5th. Matlayed cane on the 4th and 5th; these cane be- 
 ing even then too much sprouted, kept badly. Rain, 
 with strong wind on the 6th, before day-break; wind 
 blowing from the east until 9 h. P.M., when it shifted 
 to the northeast, and from thence to the north, with ter- 
 rible force at II h. P.M.; at i h. A.M., the wind slack- 
 ended, and blew from the northwest, on the 7th. 
 The wind blew down one hundred arpents of cane, but 
 not so as to injure them much, for they yielded one and 
 a half hogsheads to the arpent. Smaller cane are lean- 
 ing, or are inclined. The rain, during the storm, over- 
 flooded the ground, and put two feet of water in some 
 cane in lower line. Weather fair, and matlaying cane 
 on the 8th. Northwest wind, and thermometer 10 R. 
 above zero on the 9th. Cutting hay on the 9th, loth and 
 nth. Weather cloudy on the nth. Hauling wood to 
 sugar house on the loth, nth, 12th, 13th, and 14th. 
 Through storing hay on the 14th, and gathered forty 
 cart loads of cow peas in pods. Weather fine on the 
 1 5th ; thermometer n ° R. above zero. Through break- 
 ing corn on the i8th, at midday, (4200 barrels), and 
 begun picking corn of plantation hands, in the after- 
 noon; their crop amounting to fifteen hundred barrels. 
 Cutting coco grass on the 22d. Matlaying cane on the 
 23d. Rain on the 23d and 24th. Northwest wind on 
 the 25th. Light white frost on the 26th; thermometer 
 3>^° R. above zero. White frost on the 27th, and
 
 Ill AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 thermometer 3° R. above zero. Thermometer 4° R. 
 above zero, on the 28th and 29th, and through putting 
 up set of kettles of Garcia's pattern. The 30th, given 
 the day to the hands. Through matlaying cane on the 
 31st, at midday, and cutting cane for the mill in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 November. Rain by intervals the whole day on the 3d. 
 Begun grinding on the 3d, in the morning. Weather 
 very fair on the 5th and 6th. Stopped for want of cane 
 to the mill on the 6th, and matlayed the tops of fifty ar- 
 pents of cane. Resumed grinding and using set of 
 kettles of Garcia's pattern. In twenty-four hours, made 
 in syrup, the equivalent of nine hogsheads of sugar, with 
 only thirteen cords of wood. During the following 
 twenty-four hours, the equivalent of nine hogsheads of 
 sugar made in syrup, with eighteen and a half cords 
 of wood, only three feet long, and cut the previous 
 year. In the next twenty-four hours, the equivalent 
 of eleven hogsheads of sugar was made in syrup, with 
 twenty-two cords of wood, also three feet long, and 
 cut the year before. A mould or form of sugar (filled) 
 before being bored, contains one hundred and twenty- 
 one pounds of matter, and thirty-six hours after hav- 
 ing been bored, will disgorge sixteen pounds of 
 molasses; and eighteen days after being bored, will 
 give forty-one pounds of molasses with eighty pounds 
 of dry sugar remaining in the mould ; therefore, a mould 
 of sugar contains eighty pounds of dry sugar and forty- 
 one pounds of molasses. . . 
 
 December. . . Through grinding on the 22d, in the 
 morning, having used nine hundred and forty cords of 
 wood, cut three feet in length, to make five hundred and 
 twenty thousand pounds of sugar, manufactured in 
 forty-nine days. But besides four hundred and fifty
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 223 
 
 cords of wood, four feet in length, were consumed by 
 the two engines ; therefore, only about two and one-third 
 cords of wood were consumed per hogshead. 
 
 1844, October. On the 4th, all the hay hauled and 
 stored. Weather unusually dry for the season. Through 
 picking corn crop of hands (twenty-seven hundred bar- 
 rels), on the 8th. Repairs on front levee completed on 
 the 9th. On the loth, nth and 12th repaired roads. 
 Cloudy on the 13th. Hauled to "English Park" 1500 
 loads of manure, in one month, with two carts ; with four 
 carts and four loaders, hauled to "English Park" one 
 thousand loads of dirt in seven days. Begun matlaying 
 on the 15th. Rain on the 17th, after fifty-eight days of 
 drought, with only one light rain on the 27th of Septem- 
 ber, which did not prevent plantation work; rain on the 
 1 8th with wind, shaking or blowing down a part of 
 canes in one hundred arpents; cold on the 19th; very 
 fair and cold, possibly white frost, on the 20th. 
 Through matlaying on the 20th. On the 21st, planta- 
 tion hands say prayer in the newly built sugar house, 
 and then give a ball. Begun cutting cane for the mill 
 on the 23d. Weather warm and threatening; rain on 
 the 26th. Begun grinding on the 27th, at ii}4 A.M., 
 and twenty-six hours afterwards there were twenty- 
 three hogsheads of sugar made. The first twenty ar- 
 pents gave only nine hogsheads, but the next thirteen 
 arpents yielded twenty-three hogsheads of sugar. 28th, 
 fair; 29th, thermometer 6° r. above zero; 30th, white 
 frost, thermometer 4^° R. above zero. 
 November. On the 2d, the weather still fair, without 
 cold. Stopped grinding on the 4th, at day-break, for 
 want of cane; (sixty-six arpents of canes yielded one 
 hundred and twenty hogsheads, notwithstanding loss of
 
 224 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 juice in changing from one set of kettles to the other) . 
 During the first run of seven days and twenty hours, one 
 hundred and thirty-two hogsheads of sugar were made, 
 with only one hundred and ninety-five cords of wood 
 three feet long, being one and a half cords to the hogs- 
 head. Weather cloudy and cool on the 4th. Resumed 
 grinding on the 5th, in the morning, but stopped awhile 
 to work on another set of kettles. (Two hundred and 
 twenty-three hogsheads of sugar made altogether from 
 one hundred and twenty-three arpents of canes) . Rain 
 on the loth and nth, and during all night on the nth, 
 with thunder; this rain is the heaviest of the whole year. 
 Stopped grinding on the nth, at 7 o'clock in the morn- 
 ing; coolers being all full, and sugar yet too warm to 
 be potted. Resumed grinding in the evening. On the 
 13th, weather getting cold, but cloudy all day; on the 
 14th, thermometer 3° R. above zero; white frost, 
 slightly touching potato vines and vegetables ; warm and 
 cloudy on the 17th, and rain during the whole night; 
 cold, sprinkling rain on the i8th. Stopped grinding on 
 the 1 8th, at midday, with three hundred and fifty-three 
 hogsheads of sugar made. About one hundred and 
 eighty arpents of canes gave three hundred and forty- 
 five hogsheads of sugar; four hundred and ninety-one 
 arpents canes yet to grind. Rain during night on the 
 20th, which lasted until the 21st, at midday. Resumed 
 grinding on the 20th, in the morning, at 10 o'clock. On 
 the 22d, weather cloudy in the morning, but fair in the 
 evening. Roads are very bad. On the 23d, thermom- 
 eter 5° R. above zero; light frost on the 24th; ther- 
 mometer 5° R. above zero; cloudy on the 26th. Canes 
 are quite green, like last year. Rain on the 27th until 
 midday. Stopped grinding on the 28th, at 5 h. P.M., 
 to clean boilers, having made on one set of kettles one
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 225 
 
 hundred and fifty-nine hogsheads in eight days and 
 seven hours, being nineteen hogsheads per day. Rain 
 during night on the 30th. Roads are almost imprac- 
 ticable. 
 
 December. Rain on the ist and 3d; Heavy rain on the 
 6th. Stopped grinding, for twenty-four hours, on the 
 6th. North w^ind on the 7th; weather very fair on the 
 8th; white frost on the 9th; thermometer 1° R. above 
 zero. Resumed grinding on the loth, after having 
 stopped eighteen hours on the 9th to repair roads. Six 
 hundred and sixty-two hogsheads sugar already made. 
 Some ice, in a kettle, did not entirely melt during the 
 day; thermometer on the loth, in the morning, zero of 
 Reaumur, and in the evening 2° R. below zero. Stop- 
 ped grinding to windrow fifty arpents of canes; this 
 work is being done quite opportunely, for the first cold 
 of i^° R. below zero, never freezes but the top part of 
 the cane. Through windrowing fifty arpents of canes 
 on the 13th, at 10 h. A. M. A sprinkle on the 13th be- 
 fore day, but weather fair from 10 h. A. M.; northwest 
 wind and white frost on the 14th; white frost on the 
 15th; the day cloudy; north wind on the i6th; on the 
 17th thermometer i^° below zero. The canes are 
 frozen to the ground. On the i8th, thermometer 2° R. 
 above zero. Eight hundred hogsheads of sugar already 
 made on the i8th, at 10 h. A. M. Two hundred and 
 thirty arpents of canes more to grind. 19th, rain; 20th, 
 fair in the evening. 21st, stopped grinding for want of 
 canes to the mill. 22d, a sprinkle at 6 h. A. M., and 
 afterwards a brisk north wind during the whole day. 
 Four hands filling up barrels of molasses; barreled 
 seven thousand one hundred and fifty gallons in one 
 hour. 23d, thermometer 1° above zero; some ice in 
 ditches. Repaired road. 24th, fair at 5 h. P. M. Nine
 
 22 6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 hundred hogsheads of sugar made. 26th, warm; but 
 wind soon blows from the north; 27th, very fair; ther- 
 mometer 3° R. above zero; 28th, thermometer 1° R. 
 above zero; on the 30th and 31st weather warm. 
 
 1845, January, ist, stopped grinding at 6 h. A.M. 
 with one thousand and twenty-three hogsheads of sugar 
 made in sixty-five days, less the time taken up to clean 
 machinery, to repair roads and to windrow canes, etc. ; 
 the sugar house having been in operation only fifty- 
 seven days; thus, during the whole period, eighteen 
 hogsheads of sugar were daily made on one set of kettles 
 at a time, the plant cane, though cut two joints below 
 the adherent leaves, still measured six feet to the mill, 
 and yielded one and a half hogsheads of fine sugar to 
 the arpent, twenty days after the killing frost; in 1840, 
 the same thing occurring twenty-two days after the 
 freese. Resumed grinding on the 2d; through grinding 
 on the loth, making a crop of one thousand one hun- 
 dred and fifty-two hogsheads of sugar. (Notwithstand- 
 ing the drought of sixty- five days in the spring of 1844, 
 and the later drought of fifty-eight days, from August 
 19th to October 17th, 1844, the canes yielded nearly two 
 hogsheads to the arpent, on an average.) Six hundred 
 and twenty arpents of canes having given one thousand 
 one hundred and fifty-two hogsheads. On the 15th, be- 
 gun to open furrows with fifteen plows. On the 15th and 
 i6th, hauled dirt with four carts into "English Park." 
 Rain on the 17th; on the i8th the heaviest rain since No- 
 vember I ith ; cloudy on the 19th ; fair on the 20th. Left 
 for the island of Cuba on the 26th. Half a crop made on 
 the island, owing to excessive drought of last year and 
 to the hurricane of October 4th. 
 
 1852, June, ist and 2d, weeded peas. Worked cen-
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 227 
 
 trifugal machine, on the 2d and subsequent days, and 
 obtained as follows: twelve thousand pounds of sac- 
 charine matter, the value or equivalent of one hundred 
 moulds of sugar, passed through the centrifugals, gave 
 four thousand seven hundred and fifty-four pounds of 
 dry sugar, sold at six and one-quarter cents; the same 
 quantity, if worked in moulds, would have given six 
 thousand pounds of sugar, scrapings and points in- 
 cluded; in open kettles, the result would have been seven 
 thousand pounds sugar and five thousand pounds of 
 molasses ; thus the only advantage of centrifugals, is the 
 rapidity with which sugar is made marketable. 
 Worked the stubbles on the 3d, for the fifth time, and 
 through plowing and harrowing them, on the 5th. Rain 
 on the 6th, stopping hoe work in canes. Hoed peas on 
 the 7th, until midday, and through hoeing stubbles, for 
 the fifth time. (Two hundred and sixty-nine pounds 
 of sugar, first produce (large grains) taken from the 
 heater and worked in centrifugals, gave one hundred 
 and fifteen pounds of sugar, worth six and one-quarter 
 cents, and the same sugar worked in moulds, gave one 
 hundred and thirty-four pounds of sugar, including 
 points and scrapings; thus the moulds gave fifty per 
 cent, of sugar, while the centrifugals gave only forty- 
 three per cent.) . . . 
 
 July, ist, chopping wood, also weeding peas and bend- 
 ing corn with gang of women. River so low on the 3d, 
 that fifty feet from the wharf, water is only five feet 
 deep. On the 5th, unloading coal boat of four thousand 
 six hundred and twenty-nine barrels of coal; the dis- 
 tance from coal boat to coal pile on shore being one hun- 
 dred and twenty feet; the work is slow; through dis- 
 charging coal on the 9th. Weeding balance of peas on 
 the loth. Bending the standing corn on the 12th. 13th,
 
 22 8 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 rained a little for a moment. Weeding stubbles of old 
 land, the 12th, 14th, 15th and i6th. Pumping water 
 from the river, every other day, into sugar house pond. 
 A sugar cane from Mr. Urquhart's place, below the 
 city, with twelve red joints, measuring five feet six 
 inches; here, in 1840, a sample cane measured seven 
 feet four inches, on the 31st of July. Rain on the 20th 
 and 2ist. Through hoeing stubbles, in old ground, on 
 the 24th. A good rain on the 26th. Through cleaning 
 ditches on the 28th. A stubble cane, in new land, meas- 
 ures six feet. Cutting weeds on the 29th, 30th, and 
 31st. Through boiling- water sugar on the 31st. 
 August. 2d, made a new plantation road. On the 3d, 
 cut and carted away pissabed from the pastures. Cut- 
 ting weeds in the corn crop of plantation hands on the 
 7th. Begun hauling wood to sugar house. Weather 
 too dry; heavy shower on the 9th, in the woods, which 
 stopped ox-carts; rain again on the loth in the rear of 
 plantation. 13th, resumed hauling wood. 17th, rain, 
 which stops hauling; light rain on the 19th; 20th, a 
 good rain. Cleaning main sugar house pond. 21st, a 
 partial rain. A garfish caught in the river, weighing 
 one hundred and forty-seven pounds. Through making 
 powdered sugar. Cleaning one of the sugar house 
 ponds on the 25th ; wind north ; the same weather as last 
 year on the 30th of August; on the 26th, wind north 
 again, weather too dry. 28th, one thousand cords of 
 wood at the sugar house 28th and 30th, the gang of 
 women breaking corn. 30th, rain, the heaviest since a 
 long while. 3 ist, rain, but with no addition of water to 
 canal, which is dug eigthy-six arpents back to the plan- 
 tation. A rattle-snake killed, measuring six feet long. 
 September. 3d, ox-carts hauling wood from the forest. 
 On the 6th, stock has to be watered at the river.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 229 
 
 Through digging main canal; lengthening it seventeen 
 arpents on the 8th. Gathering peas the 9th and loth. 
 Begun cutting hay on the nth, with the gang of women. 
 1 2th, through hauling wood from f orrest. North wind ; 
 thermometer 17° R. above zero, on the 12th; northwest 
 wind on the 13th ; thermometer 13° R. above zero. One 
 hundred hands cutting hay. Thermometer 133^° R. on 
 the 14th, and foggy until 7 h. P.M., with cloudy 
 weather in the evening; 15th, cloudy. Gathering corn 
 and hauling hay on the 15th, i6th, and 17th. Sixteen 
 hands can store in thirty-six cart loads of hay from 1 1 
 h. A.M. until night; the carts are larger than in 1845; 
 17th, cloudy. 1 8th, hauled hay; some loads remaining 
 in the field on account of rain; 19th, rain more or less, 
 the whole day; 20th, rain; 21st, fair. 22d, making hay, 
 though the weather is threatening. On the 23d, gather- 
 ing corn crop of plantation hands. 25th resumed hay 
 making. 27th, weather cloudy and cool; 28th, fair, 
 thermometer 15° R. above zero. 29th, through making 
 hay. 30th, gathering corn of plantation hands and haul- 
 ing hay. 
 
 1853, July. 2d, heavy rain in the morning; 3d, rain in 
 the afternoon; 4th, heavy rain, at 2 h. A.M., until 8 h. 
 A.M. Chopping wood. The gang of women cutting 
 weeds. 5th, heavy rain ; rain on the 6th, 7th, and 8th ; 
 9th, heavy rain. Applied guano along side of nine rows 
 of stubbles. loth, weather fair; nth, heavy rain; 12th, 
 rain much in the morning; 13th, rain. 14th, cutting 
 weeds in pastures, with the women, and the men chop- 
 ping wood. A heavy shower at sunset; rain on the 15th 
 and 1 6th; no rain on the 17th and i8th. All hands at 
 the hoe in the cane, for the last time. A heavy rain, in 
 rear of plantation, on the 19th. Through working cane
 
 230 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 on the 20th. A light rain on that day. 21st, the men at 
 work in the woods ; the women at work in ditches and 
 canal. Light rain on the 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th. Same 
 kind of work going on. Heavy rain on the 25th and 
 26th ; rain at 2 o'clock in the morning, of the 27th ; water 
 overflowing roads in the fields ; the heaviest rain since a 
 long while. All the laborers at work unloading coal 
 boats and lake bricks, on the 28th. The men chopping 
 in the woods, on the 29th ; the women bending corn and 
 repairing roads; cleaning ditches. A stubble cane 
 found measuring six feet six inches. 29th, heavy rain; 
 rain again on the 30th and 31st. 
 
 August. Heavy rains on the ist and 2d. The women 
 working to roads in the field. 3d, light rain; weather 
 fair on the 4th and 5th. Hoeing canes with all the hands, 
 on the 5th ; hoeing stubbles on the 6th. Rain on the 7th 
 in the afternoon; 8th, rain in rear of plantation, all the 
 choppers in the woods, and women at work in canals. 
 9th, fair. The men still chopping wood, and the women 
 working to roads. Heavy rain, with strong wind, on 
 the loth; fair on the nth, 12th and 13th; heavy 
 rain on the 14th, 15th, and i6th; fair on the 17th; on 
 the i8th, rain in rear of plantation. 19th, the women 
 employed discharging coal boat; the men working the 
 roads for hauling wood. Still chopping on the 20th; 
 the women unloading coal boat. Heavy rain on the 
 2ist, in the afternoon; weather fair the 22d and 23d. 
 Hauling wood on the 24th and 25th. The women 
 cutting weeds in corn of plantation hands. On the 30th, 
 gather corn, with the women. . .
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 231 
 
 5 COTTON ROUTINE 
 
 Extracts from the diary of Leven Covington, whose plantation lay in 
 Adams County, Miss., within a day's wagon drive from Natchez, 
 1829-1830. MS. in the Mississippi State Department of History and 
 Archives, Jackson. The diary extends from 1829 to 1834, omitting, 
 however, each year the period from July to February. 
 
 Saturday, 28th March, 1829. Ploughs commenced 
 in new ground by Mackeys & finished on the South side 
 of the Bayou at night. Hoe hands finished rolling logs 
 & burning brush, at an hour by sun, David putting new 
 beam in a plough broke the other day.- 
 
 Sunday, 29th. Left home after breakfast rode to 
 Jeff Montgomeries,-Digned at Mr. Kings -Com- 
 menced to rain at 2 o'clock. Showery the balance of the 
 evening. Came home in a shower - 
 
 Monday, 30th. Rain all day. 3 men drawing the 
 Well, some platting Shucks, & some Shelling Corn- 
 Women Spinning- Altered Coult (Fiddler) to day- 
 
 Tuesday, 31st. Rained hard all night last night too 
 weet to plough, all hands pulling stalks, till dinner then 
 made sheep' pasture fence -Altered & marked 17 
 Calves & 26 Lambs to day - 
 
 Wednesday, ist April, 1829. Six Ploughs in Poplar 
 tree cut of No. 2 - Commenced planting cotton in 
 Groces field after breakfast. Covering with a harrow 
 and a roler- Women and children cleaning up before 
 the Ploughs in No. 2 Abraham & Moses hall [haul] 
 rails in sheep pasture fence - David making another 
 roler -Jack & Jerry finishing last Quarter -P. K. 
 Montgomery staid with me to night on his way to 
 Natchez - 
 
 Thursday, 2nd. Six Ploughs in long cut by the old 
 road - Finished planting Groces field at an hour by Sun, 
 & commenced in Sheep Pasture- Women cleaning up
 
 232 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 before Ploughs in No. 2. Moses & Abram still hailing 
 for fence across sheep pasture -Jack & David making 
 new invented Cleaver for opening lists for sowing cot- 
 ton. 
 
 Friday, 3rd. Six Ploughs still in cut by the old road - 
 Cleaver opening, & harrow covering Cotton seed in 
 Sheep pasture - Women put up fence on the line by 
 Mackeys down to the large hollow - Moses & Abraham 
 finished hailing for pasture fence -& hailed two 
 loads to horse lot at Barn. 
 
 Saturday, 4th. Finished planting Sheep pasture in 
 Cotton at 10 o'clock A.M.- Stephen & Ben then com- 
 menced opening for corn in circle cut of No. 3 - Women 
 planting after them, planted all the soked Corn & then 
 finished putting up, & stakeing Horse pen - Ploughs 
 still in cut by the old Road. Stopped at 4 P.M. by rain, 
 and commenced Shelling corn - Dr. Walton sent for 
 medicine for Sick Horse. 
 
 Sunday, 5th. To Salem meeting - Digned at Mack- 
 eys, and got home at sunset - 
 
 Monday, 6th. 7 Ploughs in long cut by old road till 
 10 o'clock- then commenced small cut by the Ditch in 
 same field & nearly finished it at night - Women & three 
 men finished fence on the line by Mackeys and mended 
 the water gap - team hailing rails as they ware put up 
 on the fence - 
 
 Tuesday, 7th. 7 Ploughs finished cut by the ditch & 
 long cut by the old Road (except a small part of each 
 too wet to Plough) at 11 A.M. and commenced on the 
 bottom cut of No. 2 - Women, & three men cleaning up 
 before the ploughs,- Team hailing rails to finish fence 
 arround Deadn's. 
 
 Wednesday, 8th. Wind very high from the South & 
 quite clowdy; rain commenced at breakfast, a very hard
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 223 
 
 shower & considerable wind from the West at half past 
 9 A.M. Stopped raining at 1 1 and cleared off beauti- 
 fully at 12. Plough boys rolled logs in Potato patch and 
 cotton ground of No. i and 2 & commenced in slip of 
 new ground in No. 3 -Women finished Sheep pasture 
 fence- William came up from Natchez for a horse for 
 cousin Dick. 
 
 Thursday, 9th. The ground too wet to plough in 
 No. 2. All hands pulling stalks in upper cut on the old 
 road of No. i till breakfast, then started 3 Ploughs in 
 same cut and 3 in No. 3 to finish small piece left by the 
 pond. Finished that & then commenced ridging for 
 Potatoes - Started Cleaver to open, and a harrow cov- 
 ering Cotton in the upper cuts of No. 2 -Two women 
 sowing seed the balance pulling stalks, & making fence 
 across wry patch - 
 
 Friday, loth. Commenced planting corn in No. 3. 
 Six Ploughs opening before the hoes - Stephen, Ben & 
 Moses, opening & harrowing Cotton in long cut of No. 
 2 - Mare Fanny Foulded. 
 
 Saturday, nth. Finished all of No. 3 that was dry 
 enough replanted the middle, & small cut next the road 
 of No. 4, & planted circle cut in the same - Ploughs fin- 
 ished opening that & the piece in Sheep Pasture at 
 dinner & commenced listing for cotton again, in bot- 
 tom cut of No. 2-1 met board of Road Commissioners 
 in Natchez & got home at dark Cousin Dick returned 
 from N. Orleans - Messrs. Farnsworth & Rucker here. 
 
 Sunday, 12. Mr. F. and myself attended Preaching 
 at Christs Church -I digned at Col. Woods -& staid 
 all night at J as. Woods - 
 
 Monday, 13th. Came home from Mr. Woods, home 
 to breakfast - Ploughs in bottom cut of No. 2 till break- 
 fast, then commenced in the deadning by Mackeys,
 
 234 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 North side of branch - Hoe hands planted corn in 
 Sheep Pasture the second time (destroyed by the hogs) 
 & then commenced to burn brush and hill the new potato 
 patch - Commenced to rain at half past 2 & rained 
 moderately till night, not hard enough to stop work- 
 Sent Jim to Natchez for cotton seed - 
 
 Friday, ist. May, 1829. Ploughs in branch cut of No. 
 2 - Hoes finished old field part of No. 4 & commenced 
 in circle cut by the Brick Kiln Left Mr. Shields' at 10 
 o'clock digned at Jeff Montgomeries attended Writing 
 School & got home at night - 
 
 Saturday, 2nd. Ploughs finished branch cut of No. 
 2 at 4 P.M. & started in bottom cut of No. i. Hoes re- 
 planted part of upper cut of No. 3 & Corn in Sheep pas- 
 ture - Started 2 ploughs throwing off from cotton in 
 Groces field - Mr. John Newman digned here today. 
 
 Sunday, 3rd. Preaching at Salem in the morning 
 H. Dunbar & Rucker digned with me - Rode with Dun- 
 bar nearly to Fauvers on his way home & returned with 
 Caleb Knight & home. 
 
 Monday, 4th. Rained commenced in the night with 
 a great deal of thunder, & lightning, & continued till 
 breakfast. Men shelling Corn -Women Spinning till 
 dinner then finished pulling stalks in No. i and com- 
 menced to plant upper cut on old Road, in No. i. Run 
 the Mill till Dinner. 
 
 Tuesday, 5th. Rain commenced before breakfast & 
 continued (at intervals) all day -Men shelling corn, 
 cutting potatoe roots & thrashing Pease -Women Spin- 
 ning- Grinding all day. 
 
 Wednesday, 6th. Ploughs finished bottom cut of 
 No. I & nearly to old ditch, in new part of the same - 
 commenced planting again in No. i after breakfast-
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 235 
 
 & commenced Scraping Cotton in Groces field - ground 
 very wet - cotton grassy - 
 
 Thursday, 7th. Ploughs finished new part of No. i 
 and commenced in bottom cut of No. 2 left on account 
 of the water -Hoes still in Groces field, two ploughs 
 throwing off before them - Planting middle cut of 
 No. I. 
 
 Friday, 8th. Ploughs in bottom cut of No. 2 - Hoes 
 scrapeing cotton in Sheep pasture commenced after 
 breakfast, finished scrapeing, & replanting Groces field 
 at breakfast- Still planting middle cut of No. i -Jack 
 & David hailed timber for fence across Coles creek - 
 Sprinkled of rain at 4 P.M. Cleared off by eight. 
 
 Saturday, 9th. Ploughs finished bottom cut of No. 
 2 & nearly finished small cut by the old Rice patch hoes 
 finished scrapeing in Sheep pasture & planted small 
 piece of new ground in No. 4 with corn - Two Ploughs 
 throwing of from cotton in No. 2 - Cleaver & harrow 
 planting corn in hollow back of Jerrys house -Jack 
 & David placed and staked two logs across Coles creek 
 for a fence - Baithed in the creek this evening. 
 
 Sunday, loth. Caleb King & myself digned at Mr. 
 Sam Dunbars - 1 staid all night at Mr. Turpins -Anna 
 Mare foulded. 
 
 Monday, nth. Ploughs finished No. 2 & commenced 
 at 12 o'clock in cut below the Gin of No. i - Hoes fin- 
 ished circle part of long cut of No. 2 & commenced in 
 Poplar tree cut -Planting of left side of road to Gin- 
 Spent the day in the board of Road Commissioners, 
 got to Washington at dark & staid all night. 
 
 Tuesday, 12th. Ploughs still in cut below the Gin - 
 Hoes finished all the first planting in No. 2 at 5 P.M.- 
 (Gulf Seed) & commenced replanting corn in No. 3- 
 Two ploughs commenced throwing off in new field at
 
 CLS^ AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Mackeys (Warren Seed) finished planting on the left 
 of the road & commenced on the right after dinner, 
 dropping seed given me by Mr. Hall - Came home to 
 breakfast from Washington - Dr. Walton started for 
 the purchase via Warren County. 
 
 Wednesday, 13th. Ploughs in Appletree cut of No. 
 I. Hoes finished replanting No. 3 & commenced 
 Scrapeing New^ ground by Mackeys at 10 o'clock. Two 
 ploughs throwing off before the hoes - Planting in 
 branch cut of No. 2. 
 
 Thursday, 14th. Ploughs in appletree cut of No. i. 
 Hoes in new ground till 12 o'clock then stopped by the 
 rain -Planted Potatoes by the Barn, in the evening - 
 Started after dinner to Shields Wedding - 
 
 Friday, 15th. Ploughs finished Appletree cut at 
 dinner & commenced in the Tasker field - Hoes in new 
 ground till stopped by rain at 3 P.M.-AU hands shell- 
 ing Corn - Staid at P. Harrison's all night on my way 
 from the wedding- Phillips finished pecking Mill- 
 Creek rose over my fence without injuring it - 
 
 Saturday i6th. Ploughs finished small piece by the 
 Fodder house in No. i at dinner, & returned to Tasker 
 field - Hoe hands making fence between the upper field 
 & Sheep pasture. Chopping briers, & setting up corn in 
 Sheep pasture - Six men makeing upper fence across 
 the creek- Ground till dinner- Rain commenced at 12 
 o'clock. Came home to breakfast from Harrisons - 
 Planting in bottom No. i. 
 
 Sunday, 17th. Rucker digned with me & started to 
 Natchez after dinner - I rode to Mr. Halls saw his crop 
 & returned at sunset in a shower of rain - 
 
 Monday, i8th. Ploughs in field across the Spring 
 branch. Hoe hands fencing along the creek at the same 
 place till dinner then moved the rails along the old
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 237 
 
 road, & commenced scraping in long cut of No. 2 (Sum 
 Seed two rows above willow stump) about two hours 
 by sun - Rain at 3 P.M. not enough to stop work - Fin- 
 ished planting bottom cut of No. 2 at 5 P.M. & com- 
 menced in new part of No. i. 
 
 Tuesday, 19th. Ploughs still in upper field across 
 spring branch - Hoes still scraping long cut of No. 2 
 till Dinner, then scraped part of upper cut by old Road 
 of No. I, considerable showers of rain at dinner -D. 
 Chambers arrived at night.- 
 
 Wednesday, 20th. Ploughs finished upper field at 
 dinner, started two in the orchard to plough for Pease 
 & four in No. 4- Hoes in New ground by Mackeys- 
 Showery all the fore part of the day - On settlement with 
 Chambers deducted from rent proceeds of Cotton 
 $419.08 & half of Bagging & Cordage - Rode to Wash- 
 ington with Chambers after dinner -Edm'd & Clem 
 arrived in the evening - Planting in Appletree cut of 
 No. I.- 
 Thursday, 2 1 St. Ploughs as yesterday - Hoes fin- 
 ished Scraping & replanting deadning at dinner, & com- 
 menced sidleing ditch cut of No. 2 - Rain all day 
 Showery - Thrashed Pease with Plough boys in the 
 evening- Edm'd. & self started to Wedding at Isaac 
 Dunbars at 5 P.M. & stopped by rain - Planting in cut 
 below the Gin of No. i. 
 
 Friday, 22nd. Ploughs in No. 4 throwing ofT from 
 Corn. Hoes sidleing cotton in No. 2 - Rain at 3 P.M.- 
 Edm'd and I went to Washington in the evening - 
 
 Saturday, 23rd. Ploughs finished No. 4 at night - 
 Two throwing of in bottom cut of No. 2. Hoes started 
 in the same at eleven A.M.- In Natchez all day at- 
 tended board of Road Commissioners & staid in Wash- 
 ington all night - Finished planting Taskers F.
 
 238 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Sunday, 24th. Came home to Dinner. Rode with 
 Edm'd to Hoggatts ford & returned by Halls -Judge 
 Ellick came home with me & spent the night - A light 
 shower of rain in the evening - 
 
 Monday, 25th. Six ploughs in No. 3 two throwing 
 of before the hoes, finished first planting in bottom cut 
 & started in bottom part of long cut at 5 P.M.- Started 
 one plough moulding first scraper Cotton after dinner - 
 
 Tuesday, 26th. Two ploughs moulding in old Sheep 
 pasture and two started after breakfast in upper cut of 
 No. 2 - Five Ploughs in No. 3 - Hoes in long cut of 
 No. 2, nearly finished (Sum Seed) Clem and Jack mak- 
 ing Coal Kiln - Dr. Walton & I. Montgomery. 
 
 Wednesday, 27th. Six Ploughs in No. 3-4. Mould- 
 ing Cotton - 2 finished Sheep pasture & commenced in 
 Groces Field. Hoes finished a few rows in long cut 
 Poplar Tree cut & ditch cut at 5 P.M. & commenced 
 scraping Potatoes - Considerable Thunder this evening 
 & a black clowd at the South, no rain - 
 
 Thursday, 28th. Stopped the Plough in No. 3 & 
 started the hoes in the same at dinner -Two Ploughs 
 breaking middles in Popular tree cut of No. 2 after 
 dinner & two listing old Rice patch, two still moulding 
 in Groces field - finished scraping potatoes at dinner - 
 stopped by a shower of rain at 4 P.M.- Thrashed pease, 
 Shelled corn & ground the balance of the day- 
 
 Friday, 29th. Finished moulding Gulf Seed cotton 
 in No. 2, at breakfast & started to moulding in the dead- 
 ning. Two still in Groces field - Hoes finished circle 
 cut and part of upper cut of No. 3 at breakfast, & com- 
 menced at 2 O'clock & continued till 5 -Thrashed 
 Pease, laid up pasture fence below the Gin, & moved 
 cotton Seed out of the Gin - 
 
 Saturday, 30th. All hands transplanting corn in No.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 239 
 
 4 till breakfast, then started 4 Ploughs throwing off 
 from corn in old Sheep pasture, finished that & broke 
 up middles in cotton part of same - Hoes finished trans- 
 planting and commenced after the ploughs to scrape 
 corn at 12 o'clock, finished and scraped small piece of 
 cotton the second time & stopped an hour by sun - Con- 
 siderable thunder & a sprinkle of Rain at half past 
 3 PM.- 
 
 Sunday, 3 ist. To Union Chappie to hear Dr. Cooper 
 preach and an Indian give his experience- Digned at 
 Jeff Montgomeries to see Caleb King in the evening & 
 home at night - 
 
 Monday, ist. June, 1829 Three Ploughs throv^^ing 
 off from corn in No. 3 -Two finished Groces field & 
 joined the others in the deadning - Hoes finished bottom 
 cut & started in middle cut of No. 3. A very black 
 cloud & considerable thunder from the East passed 
 around with only a light sprinkle of rain at 5 P.M. 
 
 Tuesday, 2nd. Excessive rain last night -Three 
 ploughs finished breaking middles in Sheep pasture & 
 started in Groces field at an hour by sun two throwing 
 off before the hoes in upper cut (along the old road) of 
 No. I & finished at night -started two cultivators in 
 long cut of No. 2. 
 
 Wednesday, 3rd. Three ploughs still in Groces field. 
 Three throwing ofif before the hoes - Cultivators still in 
 long cut of No. 2 -Hoes scraped middle cut, & new 
 ground part of No. i to the end of large pond comeing 
 to the old road - First scraped cotton quite grassy - 
 
 Thursday, 4th. Five ploughs in Groces field. Three 
 throwing off in bottoms of No. i - One cultivator fin- 
 ished long cut & started in bottoms cut of No. 2 - Hoes 
 finished new ground part of No. i at dinner, & right 
 hand side of road to Quarter at night-
 
 240 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Friday, 5th. Ploughs finished Groces field at break- 
 fast and started in the deadning- Hoes in branch cut of 
 No. 2 finished and scraped a few rows on the left of 
 the road to Quarter -T. Newman & self attended fu- 
 neral of Miss King & returned to dinner. 
 
 Saturday, 6th. Five Ploughs in deadning. Two 
 throwing off from Cotton in bottom cut of No. 2 - Hoes 
 sidled Cotton on left of the road to Quarter & scraped 
 to large pond in bottom cut of No. 2. Rain commenced 
 at 2 o'clock with considerable wind, & continued show- 
 ery till night. 
 
 Sunday, 7th. Rode to Washington with T. Newman 
 & returned at night - Rain all the morning & until 
 2 P.M. 
 
 Monday, 8th. 5 Ploughs in Deadning. Two throw- 
 ing off in bottom cut of No. 2 till dinner, then in middle 
 cut of No. 3. Moses & Richard finished replanting 
 the cut below the Gin & commenced moulding in long 
 cut of No. 2 at 4 P.M.- Hoes finished bottom cut of No. 
 2, at 3 P.M., hoed over point of corn between the 
 Bridges, & started in upper cut of No. 3. Mornings 
 very cool, weather fair. 
 
 Tuesday, 9th. Ploughs finished deadning at Din- 
 ner & started in old field corn, four moulding cotton in 
 No. 2. Hoes in middle cut of No. 3 - Started David to 
 Natchez after dinner, and went to Washington at night. 
 
 Wednesday, loth. Ploughs finished old field & 
 started in Circle cut of No. 4 an hour by sun, four 
 moulding in bottom cut of No. 2. Clem & Jack making 
 & Sharpening cultivators - Loaded David & started out 
 of Natchez at 10 O'clock -Came by Mr. Turpins & 
 Uncle Sandays house an hour by sun- 
 
 Thursday, nth. Five Ploughs in No. 4, four mould- 
 ing cotton till dinner then started three to throwing off
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 241 
 
 in bottom cut of No. i. Hoes scraped left side of road 
 to Gin & started after the ploughing in No. i. 
 
 Friday, 12th. Five Ploughs in middle cut of No. 4, 
 four throwing off from cotton in the bottom, & Apple- 
 tree cuts of No. I - Hoes scraped bottom & Appletree 
 cuts except a few rows replanted in the first & a few 
 short rows to finish in the latter- Weather very warm, 
 considerable lightning at night. E. 
 
 Saturday, 13th. Four Ploughs in corn in old Sheep 
 pasture five finished middle cut of No. 4 & started in 
 the cut next the road- Hoes finished Appletree cut of 
 No. I & hoed young corn in No. 4 -Rain at half past 
 three P.M.- Stopped at half past 5. Rucker & myself 
 rode over to see Caleb King, sick - 
 
 Sunday, 14th. Digned at Mr. Kings and attended 
 the funeral of Major Montgomery at i o'clock. Two 
 considerable showers of rain this evening & smart wind. 
 
 Monday, 15th. All the Ploughs breaking the mid- 
 dles in hollow back of Jerrys old house - Hoe hands 
 thinned corn in old field and No. 4 till breakfast, then 
 commenced second hoeing in Poplar tree cut of No. 2 - 
 Ground very wet in the morning - cotton very fine ; knee 
 high & well branched & /orm^ J -Weather fine, a few 
 clowds, but a hot sun all day. 
 
 Tuesday, i6th. All the Ploughs in Corn, five in No. 
 4 & three in old Sheep pasture - Hoes finished all the 
 snodgrass seed in No. 2 at sunset, & started in Sheep 
 pasture, 
 
 Wednesday, 17th. Ploughs finished corn in No. 4 
 & started in No. 3 at breakfast, those in the hills finished 
 at dinner and commenced moulding cotton in No. i - 
 Hoes finished cotton in Sheep pasture & a set of rows in 
 groces field - considerable thunder & appearance of 
 rain at night to the East, passed around with light 
 sprinkle Rode from Washington after din.
 
 242 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Thursday, i8th. Five Ploughs in bottom cut of No. 
 3, four moulding in middle cut of No. i - Hoes fin- 
 ished groces field except a few short rows -Weather 
 very fine - 
 
 Thursday, i8th. February, 1830. Started one Plough 
 in Wry lot at 12 o'clock- Seven men choping & mail- 
 ing rails for pasture - Women at the bottom of field No. 
 I fencing- Cass & I started to Mr. Turpins after Din- 
 ner. 
 
 Friday, 19th. In Natchez all day -Plough in or- 
 chard 4 men choping on thicket at the upper part of field 
 No. 2 -Women stakeing fence arround No. i-Jim 
 hailing rails on pasture fence - Rain & considerable 
 wind commenced about 1 1 o'clock at night. 
 
 Saturday, 20th. Digned in Washington on the 
 way home, from Natchez- Weather showery till 11 
 o'clock- Plough in the orchard Men at the press - 
 Women pulling stalks on the left of Road to Gin - 
 
 Sunday, 21st. Digned at home - Rode to Mr. Halls 
 in the evening to borrow a yoke of oxen, no body at 
 home. 
 
 Monday, 22nd. Started 2 Ploughs in the orchard - 
 four men mailing, two at the Press, two clearing in up- 
 per part of field No. 2 -Team hailing rails at the bot- 
 tom of No. 2. 
 
 Tuesday 23rd. Ploughs finished orchard at Dinner 
 & started in upper part of Corn field No. i Men as yes- 
 terday Women pulling stalks in Branch cut of No. 2- 
 Team brought a load of fodder from Mrs. Winstons- 
 Rain all day. 
 
 Wednesday, 24th. Caleb King, Rucker & Alden &c 
 passed in the rain to Smiths Wedding- Showery all 
 day. Men at the press -Women piling brush in new 
 ground.
 
 PLANTATION ROUTINE 243 
 
 Thursday, 25th. Caleb, Rucker & Alden took break- 
 fast on their way from the wedding, & wated till eleven 
 o'clock for the creek to fall - Men at the press till 3 
 P.M. then chopping in clearing- Women piling brush. 
 
 Friday 26. Four Men mailing rails for Hog pas- 
 ture, balance cleaning up in Deadning by Mackeys- 
 Women puling stalks in long cut of No. 2 till Dinner, 
 then in the mackey field till night- Started ploughs 
 again in upper part of field No. i ground still quite 
 wet- 
 
 Saturday, 27th. Men & women making fence from 
 the mouth of Branch to the line of division on the creek. 
 Doctor Walton digned & staid all night with us - Cass 
 and I rode out after dinner, & met mother, and Mr. W. 
 Winston, at Mr. Mecuens-Two ploughs still follow- 
 ing upper part of No. i. 
 
 Sunday, 28th. Ben & Dr. Walton left after break- 
 fast Ben for Mr. Tuckers, Dr. W. to see a patient at 
 Hoggatts Quarter. Mother & Mr. Winston started 
 home after Dinner. Cass & I rode a part of the way & 
 called at Mr. McCuens on our return - Cassandra had 
 considerable fever when we got home - Took medicine 
 & was quite sick all night - 
 
 March ist, Monday. Started two more ploughs in 
 field No. I. Four men mailing. Nick and the women 
 fencing at the bottom of No. i till dinner, then chop- 
 ping briers, and sprouts, at the bottom of the same field. 
 Team hailing coal till dinner, then hailing rails in hog 
 pasture. Thunder and lightning and excessive hard 
 rain commenced at 9 P.M. 
 
 Tuesday, 2nd March. All hands pulling stalks in 
 long cut of No. 2 till breakfast; - then started the 
 ploughs in upper cut of No. i, 4 men mailing -W^omen 
 cleaning up in the same field -Team hailing rails 
 arround hog pasture - Clowdy & Cool all day.
 
 244 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Thursday, 4th. Heavy rain all day. Commenced 
 at 4 A.M. Wind S.E. Shelled, & ground allowance 
 for next week. Assorted, & nubbed Corn for planting - 
 Cleaned up corn crib - Clem & Jo in the shop making 
 Ploughs - 
 
 Friday, 5th. All hands puling Stalks till 3 P.M. 
 finished field No. 2, then roling logs & cleaning up in 
 bottom part of No. i. Weather clowdy, & misty about 
 I o'clock - Ground very wet with yesterday & last 
 night's rain - 
 
 Saturday, 6th. Men belting trees in new ground, 
 in field No. 2 Women cutting briers in the same - All 
 stopped at 4 P.M.- Cass & I started for Sandy Creek 
 at 10 A.M. As soon as we left home Mr. & Mrs. Wal- 
 ton came. 
 
 Sunday, 7th. From Gen'l. Winstons after breakfast, 
 digned at Mt. Wellcome & home in the evening -Jo 
 Winston with us. 
 
 Monday, 8th. Five Ploughs in No. i, finished up- 
 per, and commenced in bottom cut after dinner - Four 
 men mailing- Women making a ditch on the N side 
 of same field - Team hailing rails for pasture - weather 
 clear, & fine - . . .
 
 III. TYPES OF PLANTATION 
 
 I VIRGINIA TIDE WATER 
 
 (a) Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), Feb. 5, 1767. Advertisement 
 
 To BE SOLD ON REASONABLE TERMS 
 
 Three thousand acres of land, in King William 
 county, two thousand of which lies on the river Mattap- 
 ony, about eight miles above West Point, and about 
 four miles from Clairborne's ferry; there are two hand- 
 some seats on the said two thousand acres of land, the 
 one on which the subscriber lives has a very fine large 
 and genteel brick house, two story high, with four 
 rooms above and four below, with a fireplace to each 
 room, a large passage, four fine cellars, and cellar pass- 
 age, the work, both brick and wood, as well done as any 
 in this colony, all convenient out-houses, a well accus- 
 tomed mill, a large apple orchard of Hughes's and 
 white apples, about fifty or sixty acres of very good 
 marsh, a large garden newly paled in, the situation and 
 prospect very pleasant, and great plenty of fish and 
 wild fowl. The other is also a fine and agreeable situ- 
 ation, with a good dwelling-house and out-houses, with 
 peach and apple orchards. These lands are very good 
 for tobacco, Indian corn, wheat, oats, &c. has several 
 fine places for meadows, and is in general exceeding 
 level and well timbered, and in very good order for 
 cropping, with plenty of tobacco houses, barns, Negro 
 quarters, &c. The other thousand acres of land lies on 
 the same river (Mattapony) about Uvo or three miles 
 above West Point, is extremely level and well timbered,
 
 246 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 and has belonging to it one hundred and fifty or sixty 
 acres of very fine marsh, so firm, dry, and hard, that 
 carriages of great burthen go on it, and is of the greatest 
 advantage to stocks of cattle, hogs, &c. where numbers 
 may be raised with little trouble and expense, and a 
 ready market for them. This land, as well as the other, 
 is exceeding good, and produces fine tobacco, corn, 
 wheat, oats, &c. has several places for meadow, great 
 plenty of fish and fowl, is in good order for cropping, 
 and has tobacco houses, quarters, and other convenient 
 houses. Any person inclinable to purchase may be 
 shown these lands, and know the terms, by applying to 
 
 Thomas Moore. 
 N.B. Large stocks of cattle, hogs, &c. with several 
 blooded mares and plow horses, may be bought with or 
 without the land.- T. M. 
 
 (b) Virginia Gazette, October 6, 1774. 
 
 TO BE RENTED FROM YEAR TO YEAR, OR FOR A TERM 
 OF YEARS 
 
 Belvoir, the beautiful Seat of the Honourable George 
 William Fairfax, Esq; lying upon Potowmack River 
 in Fairfax County, about fourteen Miles below Alex- 
 andria. The Mansion House is of Brick, two Stories 
 high, with four convenient Rooms and a large Passage 
 on the lower Floor, five Rooms and a Passage on the 
 second, and a Servants Hall and Cellars below, con- 
 venient Offices, Stables, and Coach-House adjoining, 
 as also a large and well furnished Garden, stored with a 
 great Variety of valuable Fruits, in good Order. Ap- 
 pertaining to the Tract on which these Houses stand, 
 and which contains near 2000 Acres (surrounded in a 
 Manner by navigable Water) are several valuable Fish- 
 eries, and a good Deal of cleared Land in different 
 Parts, which may be let altogether, or separately, as
 
 1^/7-^71, 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 2 Plantation Equipment— Northern Neck of Virginia 
 
 Overseer's report on live-stock, buildings, equipment, and slaves belonging to 
 James Mercer's four plantations. M S. in private possession
 
 "I np I I I 1 1 I I II II ; 
 
 — ■ ] 1 1 M : 1 
 
 
 ■^ ^-^^/^rr- i.„*^r7't^, c^t^^a,^.^^ ^C4.^:^ t^uL^i, //►^.^^ ^^^jv^
 
 v^ 
 
 
 I 1 1 i 1 1 1 ] m -I I IJ I J ^ i^tnTtrrffi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 77'-'' 
 
 "/''"■T 
 
 
 . -4C 
 
 J 
 
 /'^
 
 TYPES OF PLANTATION 251 
 
 shall be found most convenient. The Terms may be 
 known of Colonel Washington, who lives near the 
 Premises, or of me in Berkley County. 
 
 Francis Willis, Junior. 
 
 3 A RICE ESTATE ON THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST 
 
 Charleston City Gazette, Jan. 17, 1825. Advertisement 
 
 Will be sold at Public Auction, at the Court House, 
 in the town of Wilmington, N. C. on the first day of De- 
 cember next- 
 
 All that Plantation, lying in the county of Bruns- 
 wick, State of North-Carolina, known by the name 
 of Orton, late the residence of Gov. Benjamin Smith, 
 containing 4975 acres, more or less. Of this tract 
 between 400 and 500 acres is swamp land, of a strong 
 and fertile soil, which, it is believed, will pro- 
 duce at least 1000 lbs. of Cotton, or 4 tierces of Rice, to 
 the acre, and is more capable of being well drained than 
 any on the river, the fall of the tide being at least 45^ 
 feet. Orton is a valuable and beautiful Plantation, situ- 
 ate on the Cape-Fear river, about 16 miles below Wil- 
 mington, which affords a good market for all kinds of 
 produce, and about 14 miles above Smithville, a place 
 in high repute for its salubrity and pleasantness as a 
 summer retreat. Included in the premises is a very 
 superior and never failing Mill Stream, with an excel- 
 lent Dam, wanting only flood gates - the Rice Machine, 
 Mill and Gin having been recently destroyed by fire. 
 The Pond may be used at all times as a reservoir of 
 water to flow the low lands, thus rendering Orton one 
 of the most valuable Rice Plantations in the country, 
 
 A liberal credit will be given, the particulars of which 
 will be made known on the day of sale, or sooner, if ap- 
 plication be made to the subscriber. The premises can
 
 252 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 be viewed at any time, and possession will be delivered 
 immediately after the sale. 
 
 W. Anderson, Cashier of the Bank of Cape Fear. 
 Wilmington, August 28, 1824. 
 
 4 A SEA-ISLAND COTTON ESTATE 
 
 Charleston City Gazette, Jan. 17, 1825. Advertisement. 
 
 For Sale: That Valuable Plantation called the 
 Point Plantation upon Wondoo River, about i6 miles 
 only from the city with a good landing at the House. 
 This tract contains by a late survey 1120 acres, all well 
 wooded - about 300 acres clear, and some of it under 
 fence, of excellent cotton and provision land. This tract 
 would be to an industrious purchaser very valuable. 
 Upon the premises there is a good dwelling house of six 
 rooms, a good kitchen. Overseer's house, cotton house, 
 corn house, and fodder house, a new carriage house and 
 stable, also a mule stable, and ox house, and dairy all in 
 good order, also an excellent well of water in the yard, 
 a good garden with a number of choice fruit trees - the 
 terms will be accommodating to an approved purchaser, 
 and possession given immediately. 
 
 Apply to Ogier & Carter, Broad street. 
 
 N.B. There are negro houses to accommodate 50 
 or 60 negroes. 
 
 5 THE GEORGIA UPLANDS 
 
 Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, July 12, 1800. Advertisement. 
 
 For Sale : Plantation. That well known plantation 
 formerly owned and occupied by Major David Cres- 
 well, lying six miles below the town of Washington, 
 and 44 miles above the city of Augusta - containing 
 1075 acres of land. It has on it a large two story dwell- 
 ing house, kitchen, barns, stables a house for distillery
 
 TYPES OF PLANTATION 253 
 
 and cotton machine, with such advantages as render it 
 a desirable object, for any one who wishes to go exten- 
 sively into the farming or planting business. It has on it 
 one of the finest peach orchards in the state, consisting 
 of about five thousand bearing trees. Perhaps no place 
 in the upper country is possessed of greater advantages, 
 in point of health, society, goodness of soil and improve- 
 ments. 
 
 Any person wishing to become a purchaser, may 
 know the terms by applying to the proprietor at Au- 
 gusta. Benjamin Sims. 
 
 6 A RED river ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 Red River Republican (Alexandria, La.), Jan. 6, 1849. 
 
 Sugar lands and negroes for sale on red river, 
 above the town of alexandria 
 
 The proprietor of several thousand arpents of land, 
 situated as above, (being in a body), is desirous to dis- 
 pose of 45 acclimated negroes, together with any num- 
 ber of arpents of land not less than one thousand, which 
 shall include all the cleared land, about 400 arpents, 
 now in the culture of cotton and corn, with about 10 ar- 
 pents of sugar cane for seed, and all the improvements, 
 viz : A spacious frame Gin House, Grist Mill, &c. &c., 
 a frame dwelling, Negro quarters. Corn Crib, Cistern 
 House, Smoke House, Black Smith Shop, (and tools) 
 Stables, Fodder House, Cotton Houses, and Sheds, and 
 about fifty thousand Bricks. Also, 30 head of Horses 
 and Mules ; Wagons and plantation implements, a good 
 stock of cattle and hogs, and a bountiful supply of corn 
 and fodder. 
 
 Among the negroes there are two first rate house serv- 
 ants, a man and woman ; one carpenter, one rough black- 
 smith, and a driver not to be surpassed by any in the
 
 254 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 State. The balance will average with any set of hands 
 for good working and faithful subjects. 
 
 The land is well situated, and admitted to be equal, if 
 not superior, to any in the State. 
 
 The owner is determined to sell in consequence of ill 
 health. 
 
 The terms can be made to suit a purchaser, who can 
 command about ten thousand dollars in money, or good 
 property situated in the city of New Orleans, will be 
 received in part payment or for the whole. 
 
 In the event the property is not sold by the first of Jan- 
 uary next, the owner will go on to pitch a crop of Cot- 
 ton, Corn and Cane, and the plantation will be still in 
 market with the growing crop. 
 
 Possession can be given the first of January. For 
 further particulars address A, D., Republican Office, 
 Alexandria, La. 
 
 7 THE SHENANDOAH REGIME 
 
 (a) Extract from the diary of Lucian Minor, on a trip from Virginia 
 to the Southwest, in 1823, Atlantic Monthly, vol. xxvi, 167. 
 
 24th November. 1823 . . . Most of my ride, yes- 
 terday and to-day, was through the great valley. The 
 Dutch inhabiting it are said to have crept down gradu- 
 ally from their settlement, in Pennsylvania; and the 
 land, though generally rich, being too far from market 
 to ofifer seducing attraction to any but the children of 
 sober industry, these plain and steady people had few 
 competitors for the spots that best suited their interests 
 and their peculiar taste. It is curious to see how uni- 
 formly they choose for the site of their dwellings the 
 very lowest part of the valley: usually but a few feet 
 above the creeping brook or the rushing torrent, to 
 which their meadows serve as margin. Their habita- 
 tions are surpassingly neat in outward appearance ; the
 
 TYPES OF PLANTATION 255 
 
 greater part, even to the two-storied buildings, are of 
 logs, chinked with stones, then crammed smoothly, and 
 the mortar whitewashed. Such is the house where I 
 now am. It is larger and more roomy than our house. 
 My landlord is a Mr. Havens (recommended to me 
 by Dr. Johnson), a most ingenious and even scientific 
 mechanic. He has shown me an improved loom, for 
 which he has a patent; and a corn-shelling machine, 
 which has circulated extensively in Virginia, able to 
 shell one hundred ears in a minute. I am much taken 
 with a very simple machine for paring apples, by which 
 fifty may be pared in a minute. I could make one, me- 
 thinks, with a little more skill in handling the needful 
 tools. . . 
 
 (b) Winchester (Va.) Gazette, Jan. 9, 1799. Advertisement showing 
 the equipment of a self-sufficing farmer. 
 
 The sub/criber de/igning to remove to the We/tern 
 Country, gives this public notice, to all per/ons who 
 have claims again/t him, or again/t the e/tate of Ed- 
 ward Hoge de/cea/ed, or again/t the Admini/tratrix 
 thereof, to bring forward their accounts properly at- 
 te/ted, before the fir/t of March next en/uing, in order 
 that they may be /ettled. He likewi/e reque/ts all tho/e 
 who /tand indebted to him, to make payment by that 
 time. He will al/o di/po/e of, at private /ale, his Stock, 
 con/i/ting of Cattle, Sheep, Hogs, Farming Uten/ils, 
 Hou/ehold Furniture, two Stills with a complete /et of 
 Tubs, two Looms, four Spinning Wheels, with /undry 
 articles too tedious to mention. He will al/o lea/e the 
 Plantation he now lives on, which may be divided into 
 two parts. A /ober and /teady family, that would board 
 one or two per/ons in part payment of the rent, would 
 be preferred. For further particulars, apply to the 
 sub/criber. WILLIAM MARQUES.
 
 2S6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 8 POOR HUSBANDRY IN EAST TENNESSEE 
 
 Extract from the diary of Lucian Minor, Atlantic Monthly, vol. xxvi, 
 172. Item dated Knoxville, Dec. i, 1823. 
 
 There is a good deal of very fertile land between the 
 Boat- Yard and Knoxville, but the want of a ready vent 
 for its produce (it can be no other radical cause) has 
 generated a system of miserable husbandry, more waste- 
 ful and injudicious even than that prevalent in Old Vir- 
 ginia and 'that's a bold word.' For example, the tops 
 are not cut from the corn. The blade fodder only is 
 pulled, and that not always. A great deal of corn is yet 
 ungathered in the fields, and as to cutting down the 
 stalks it is never thought of. Nor is manuring for any 
 field-crop ever, or more than by one farmer in a hun- 
 dred, practised. . . The road abounds with houses 
 of entertainment, that look neat and even genteel : most 
 of them are said to be as comfortable as need be. The 
 cheapness of their bills is wonderful. For supper, lodg- 
 ing, breakfast and just as much corn or oats and hay 
 and fodder as our horses can destroy (usually half a 
 bushel of grain and a rackful of long food), we are 
 charged 5/3 apiece! To me, indeed, who am traveling 
 on Tennessee money bought at twenty per cent discount, 
 it is about sixty-nine cents ! And this is my whole daily 
 expense, except gratuities to hostlers. 
 
 9 A VAST SUGAR ESTATE 
 
 Russell, W. H. My Diary North and South (Boston, 1863), 103. De- 
 scribing the estate of Mr. Burnside, opposite Donaldsonville, La., 
 about eighty miles above New Orleans. This was one of the largest 
 units of plantation industry on record. 
 
 . . . A quarter of an hour brought us to the levee 
 on the other side. I ascended the bank, and across the 
 road, directly in front appeared a carriage gateway and
 
 TYPES OF PLANTATION 257 
 
 wickets of wood, painted white, in a line of park palings 
 of the same material, which extended up and down the 
 road far as the eye could see, and guarded wide-spread 
 fields of maize and sugar-cane. An avenue lined with 
 trees, with branches close set, drooping and over arch- 
 ing a walk paved with red brick, led to the house, the 
 porch of which was visible at the extremity of the lawn, 
 with clustering flowers, rose, jasmine, and creepers, 
 clinging to the pillars supporting the veranda. The 
 view from the belvedere on the roof was one of the most 
 striking of its kind in the world. 
 
 If an English agriculturist could see six thousand 
 acres of the finest land in one field, unbroken by hedges 
 or boundary, and covered with the most magnificent 
 crops of tasselling Indian corn and sprouting sugar- 
 cane, as level as a billiard table, he would surely doubt 
 his senses. But here is literally such a sight -six thou- 
 sand acres, better tilled than the finest patch in all the 
 Lothians, green as Meath pastures, which can be turned 
 up for a hundred years to come without requiring ma- 
 nure, of depth practically unlimited, and yielding an 
 average profit of what is sold off it of at least £20 an 
 acre, at the old prices and usual yield of sugar. Rising 
 up in the midst of the verdure are the white lines of the 
 negro cottages and the plantation offices and sugar 
 houses, which look like large public edifices in the dis- 
 tance. My host was not ostentatiously proud in telling 
 me that, in the year 1857, he had purchased this estate 
 for £300,000 and an adjacent property, of 8000 acres 
 for £150,000, and that he had left Belfast in early youth, 
 poor and unfriended, to seek his fortune, and indeed 
 scarcely knowing what fortune meant in the New 
 World. In fact, he had invested in these purchases the 
 greater part, but not all, of the profits arising from the
 
 258 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 business in New Orleans, which he inherited from his 
 master; of which there still remained a solid nucleus in 
 the shape of a great woollen magazine and country 
 house. He is not yet fifty years of age, and his confi- 
 dence in the great future of sugar induced him to em- 
 bark this enormous fortune in an estate which the block- 
 ade has stricken with paralysis. 
 
 I cannot doubt, however, that he regrets he did not 
 invest his money in a certain great estate in the North 
 of Ireland, which he had nearly decided on buying; 
 and had he done so, he would now be in the position to 
 which his unaffected good sense, modesty, kindliness 
 and benevolence, always adding the rental, entitle him. 
 Six thousand acres on this one estate all covered with 
 sugar-cane, and 16,000 [probably an error. 1600 would 
 be near the normal] acres more of Indian corn, to feed 
 the slaves ;- these were great possessions, but not less 
 than 18,000 acres still remained, covered with brake and 
 forest and swamp, to be reclaimed and turned into gold.
 
 IV. STAPLES 
 
 I RICE 
 
 Allston, R. F. W.* Essay on Sea Coast Crops (Charleston, 1854). Printed 
 also in DeBow's Reinenv, vol. xvi, 589-615 (June, 1854). 
 
 Rice, for which we are indebted to the Island of Mad- 
 agascar, was introduced into Carolina and America at 
 once, towards the close of the seventeenth century. A 
 few grains were sown in the garden of Landgrave 
 Smith, the site of which is now entirely covered by 
 houses and modern improvements in the City of Charles- 
 ton. These few grains produced many ears, which be- 
 ing disseminated for seed, succeeded in adaptation to 
 the climate; and the low country of South Carolina 
 since, has become the centre of the rice-growing re- 
 gion. . . 
 
 We begin preparation for a new crop by (cleaning 
 out the ditches every third year; the drains are cleaned 
 out every year, (after plowing) plowing the land as 
 soon after harvest as the fields can be gleaned, and the 
 scattered rice left on the surface can be sprouted. The 
 stubble is turned under by running a deep furrough, 
 say eight inches.^*' This may be continued until the 
 end of January. The sod should have the benefit of 
 the entire winter frosts if possible, the influence of 
 which disintegrates and prepares them duly for the 
 leveling. 
 
 ^ The author was a planter on the South Carolina Coast- Ed. 
 
 ^^ Both plowing and harrowing are performed ordinarily, by oxen,- two 
 yoke being required if we go deeper than six to eight inches; and two yoke 
 get on badly in the swamp. The Tuscany breed furnishes the best oxen for 
 our climate. - Grig.
 
 26o AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 In March, or when about preparing to plant, the har- 
 rows will be made to pass over the plowed ground. The 
 hoe follows to cut up and break the remaining clods and 
 level the surface. The more the soil is comminuted, 
 and the surface brought to a common level the better. 
 The trenchers then come in with hoes made for the pur- 
 pose, and trace out with great accuracy the drills in 
 which to sow the seed, fourteen, thirteen or twelve 
 inches apart from center to center. They will average 
 (some drawing stake-rows, and others filling up the 
 pabbels) three quarters of an acre to the hand, in a day's 
 work. 
 
 The field now in high tilth, and resembling somewhat 
 a garden spot, is ready for the seed. The sowers, with 
 great care, yet with wonderful facility and precision, 
 string the seed in the drills, putting two and a half, or 
 two and a quarter bushels to the acre. The labor of 
 sowing depends so much upon the state of the weather, 
 whether windy, or moist or otherwise, it is better not to 
 require any given task. Generally each woman will 
 accomplish two or three tasks ^ ^ and do it well - it should 
 never be done otherwise ; for the seed cannot be recov- 
 ered if too thick; nor if too thin, can the sowing be re- 
 peated without needless waste and increased irregu- 
 larity. 
 
 The best hands are chosen to sow Rice. In fine April 
 weather it is pleasing to behold the steady, graceful 
 progress of a good sower. The sowing done, water is 
 forthwith admitted, (two tides are better than one,) and 
 the field remains covered until the sprout becomes green 
 and begins to fork. The water must then be withdrawn, 
 
 ^^ The task in the Rice Region of South Carolina is (150.2 feet), a half acre. 
 This is the unit of land measurement among the negroes, and -with practical 
 planters. The acre, which is a rectangle (300x150 feet) made by two square 
 half acres, contains 45,000 square feet. - Grig.
 
 STAPLES a6i 
 
 else the plants will be forced to the surface by any slight 
 agitation, and float away from their position. 
 
 In tv^^enty days after, or thereabouts, the Rice is hoed 
 and flowed deep, the water over-topping the plant for 
 two or three days, in order to destroy the young grass 
 just springing up among the plants, and also the insects 
 that may have lodged upon the blades, or which may 
 have been generated among the stumps or roots or stub- 
 ble. At the end of two or three days, the water is 
 slacked down to about half the height of the plant, now 
 somewhat stretched. At this depth it is held until the 
 plants grow strong enough to stand erect, and will admit 
 the laborers to walk between the trenches and pull out 
 the long grass which shows itself, and which will now 
 yield to very slight effort. If any rushes appear they 
 will now be plucked up by the roots, and borne out to the 
 banks. 
 
 Two days after this weeding the long water will grad- 
 ually be drawn off. A succeeding tide will be taken in, 
 and let off immediately, in order to wash out the 
 ditches. Two men, furnished each with a long handled 
 rake of curved iron teeth, are put to rake from the 
 ditches all the water growth which impedes the drain- 
 ing, placing it on the side of the bank. In eight days 
 (the land by that time should be dry) the smaller hoes, 
 (The hoe now used has been reduced, latterly, to four 
 inches in breadth) are used, and the soil is stirred as 
 deep as it can be with them. The plant just recovering 
 from the effects of long water, and taking a dry growth, 
 is putting forth new green blades and fresh roots, which, 
 not long enough yet to be interfered with by the deep 
 hoeing, very soon yield to the grateful influence of the 
 air admitted, shoot vigorously into the loosened earth, 
 and nourish a "good stalk."
 
 262 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 In the course of fifteen or eighteen days, the field is 
 hoed again and weeded. This last hoeing is also done 
 with the small hoes, but very lightly to avoid disturbing 
 the roots, which are now extended nearly midway be- 
 tween the trenches. 
 
 As the plant is now beginning to joint, the laborers 
 will step about with care, for if one be broken at the 
 joint, it cannot be restored. A day or two after this 
 third hoeing, the water is put on again, as deep as the 
 last long-flow, and is gradually increased in depth after 
 the rice heads have fairly shot out. 
 
 This is called the lay-by flow. Up to the time of this 
 flow, is about ninety days for Rice sown the first week 
 in April. After this to the period of maturity is from 
 sixty to ninety days, during which the water is often 
 changed, and kept fresh, but is never entirely with- 
 drawn, until the grain be ripe for the harvest. Mean- 
 time, should any grass have escaped the previous hoe- 
 ings and weedings, it will show its crest before the Rice 
 matures and be plucked up by the roots. All white rice 
 will be stripped off by hand. 
 
 Harvest. And now the grain is ripe for the sickle. 
 The time for harvest is come. Gladsome, bounteous 
 harvest! A season, it is true, of laborious exertion, but 
 a season also of cheerful emulation, of rustic joyous fes- 
 tivity. The Rice is cut a day before you will say it is 
 fully ripe. The water is drawn off over night. Soon 
 after the rising of a bright autumn sun, the reapers are 
 seen amid the thick hanging grain, shoulder high, mow- 
 ing it down with the old fashioned sickle, dealing brisk 
 and dexterous, but noiseless strokes. Before the dew is 
 all gone, the Rice is laid prostrate, even and orderly 
 across the porous stubble. 
 
 The next day, when quite dry of dew, it is tied up in
 
 STAPLES 263 
 
 sheaves, and borne away to the threshing yard, where it 
 is well stacked before the night dew falls heavy. - This 
 last heavy, but gleeful labor completes the field culture 
 of the Rice plant. 
 
 When the stack has undergone its curing heat, and 
 become cool again, the Rice is threshed out by one of 
 Emmons' Patent Machines and sent to the pounding 
 mill to be cleaned. The mill performs ingeniously 
 enough the finishing process, thus: By steam power 
 the rough rice is taken out of the vessel which freights 
 it, up to the attic of the building- thence through the 
 sand screen to a pair of (five feet wide) heavy stones, 
 which grind of]f the husk - thence into large wooden 
 mortars, in which it is pounded by large iron-shod 
 pestles, weighing 120 to 350 pounds, for the space of 
 some two hours, more or less. 
 
 The Rice now pounded, is once more elevated into 
 the attic, whence it descends through a rolling screen, to 
 separate whole grains from the broken, and flour from 
 both; and also through wind fans, to a vertical brush- 
 ing screen, moving rapidly, which polishes the flinty 
 grain, and delivers it fully prepared, into the barrel or 
 tierce, which is to convey it to the market. 
 
 The barrel is made by coopers attached to the mill, 
 each one dresses his stufif and makes three barrels a day. 
 He is paid twenty five cents for each barrel made over 
 his number. When the stuff is dressed previously, five 
 barrels, and even more may be made. . . 
 
 The profits of a Rice plantation of good size and 
 locality are about eight per cent, per annum, independ- 
 ent of the privileges and perquisites of the plantation 
 residence. . . 
 
 Now, as to the labor, by means of which these crops 
 are raised - these important results, both commercial
 
 264 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 and national, are obtained, the produce of which pays 
 for three-fourths of all imports into the country 
 ($260.000.000) . Our laborers are descendants of the Af- 
 rican bondsmen given to our ancestors by the mother 
 country at the same time that Indigo and Rice and Cot- 
 ton were sent to them to cultivate. They are well fed and 
 clothed, well sheltered and cared for in sickness and dur- 
 ing the infirmities and helplessness of old age. They are 
 for the most part healthy, and cheerful, and when well 
 trained are very efficient laborers. 
 
 The negroes have provided for them all the neces- 
 saries of life in sufficient abundance. And they enjoy 
 the privilege of procuring many comforts and indul- 
 gencies. 
 
 In every Christian neighborhood, the means are af- 
 forded of Missionary instruction in their duty to God 
 and to man. On most well regulated plantations the 
 young negroes are taught specially; and to all, the way 
 of salvation is preached. In short, the educated master, 
 is the negro's best friend upon earth. But it is not 
 enough in all cases, that the preaching of the Gospel is 
 provided for our Negroes; they must be induced to seek 
 an interest in it -they must be won to obedience to the 
 divine law - to love the truth. Obviously, the strongest 
 inducement is example on our own part; next, a just, 
 consistent systematic administration of domestic govern- 
 ment. Nothing sooner attracts the confidence of the 
 negro, and commands his respect, than the illustration, 
 in a system of management of justice, tempered by kind- 
 ness. But enough -let us do our present duty, kind 
 Providence will smile upon our efforts. 
 
 In proportion as we shall have performed well our 
 mission, so may we with trust and hope, bequeath our in- 
 heritence to posterity; and so may each of us, when pros-
 
 STAPLES 265 
 
 trate under the hand of time, and hourly expecting the 
 summons of the last messenger on earth, with humble 
 confidence look up toward the bar of our common 
 Judge. 
 
 2 INDIGO: ACCOUNT OF ITS INTRODUCTION AS A 
 STAPLE IN SOUTH CAROLINA 
 
 Narration by Mrs. Eliza Lucas Pinckney, in a letter to her son, dated 
 1785. MS. in the Charleston Library. 
 
 You wish me to inform you what I recollect of the 
 introducing and culture of indigo in this country. You 
 have heard me say I was very early fond of the vege- 
 table world, my father was pleased with it and encour- 
 aged it, he told me the turn I had for those amusements 
 might produce something of real public utility. If I 
 could bring to perfection the plants of other countries 
 which he would procure me : Accordingly when he went 
 to the West Indies he sent me a variety of seeds, among 
 them the Indigo. I was ignorant both of the proper 
 season for sowing it, and the soil best adapted to it. To 
 the best of my recollection I first try'd it in March 1741 
 or 1742. It was destroyed (I think by a frost). The 
 next time in April and it was cut down by a worm : I 
 persevered to a third planting and succeeded, and when 
 I informed my father that it bore seed and the seed 
 ripened, he sent a man from the Island of Monserat by 
 the name of Cromwell who had been accustomed to 
 making Indigo there, and gave him high wages. He 
 made some brick vats on my father's plantation, on 
 Wappo Creek and there made the first Indigo ; it was 
 very indiflferent and he made a great mistery of it, said 
 he regretted coming as he should ruin his own country 
 by it, for my father had engaged him to let me see the 
 whole process, I observed him as carefully as I could,
 
 2 66 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 and informed Mr. Deveaux an old gentleman a neigh- 
 bor of ours of the little knowledge I had gained and 
 gave him notice when the Indigo was to be beat; he saw 
 and afterward improved upon it, notwithstanding the 
 churlishness of Cromwell, who wished to deceive him, 
 and throw in so large a quantity of lime water as to spoil 
 the color. In the War 1744 I marked, and my father 
 made Mr. Pinckney a present of all the Indigo then 
 upon the ground as the fruit of my industry. 
 
 The whole was saved for seed, and your father gave 
 part of it away in small quantities to a great number of 
 people that year, the rest he planted the next year at 
 Ashipo for seed, which he sold as did some of the gen- 
 tlemen to whom he had given it the year before ; by this 
 means there soon became plenty in the country. Your 
 father gained all the information he could from the 
 French prisoners brought in here, and used every other 
 means of information of the people at large. 
 
 The next year Mr. Cattle sent me a present of a 
 couple of large plants of the wild indigo which he had 
 just discovered. Experiments were afterward made 
 upon this sort which proved to be good indigo, but it 
 did not produce so large a quantity as the cultivated 
 sort. 
 
 3 THE INTRODUCTION OF SEA-ISLAND COTTON 
 
 The Athenian (Athens, Ga.), June 17, 1828. Letter from Thomas 
 Spalding, reprinted from the Savannah Georgian. 
 
 To the Editors of the Georgian, 
 
 Gentlemen : There was some months past a notifica- 
 tion in your paper (copied from the Charleston Cou- 
 rier) requesting a communication upon the subject of 
 the introduction of cotton in Georgia and Carolina. 
 
 It has been intimated to me that possibly this notifi-
 
 STAPLES 267 
 
 cation has originated in some one desirous of informa- 
 tion, in order that it might enter into some more general 
 work; and as I am at present perhaps the only person 
 alive that recollects distinctly the introduction of the sea 
 island cotton, I have addressed this letter to you. 
 
 It is known to many that cotton was cultivated for 
 domestic purposes from Virginia to Georgia, long an- 
 terior to the Revolutionary War. Jefferson speaks of it 
 in his Notes on Virginia. Bartram speaks of it in his 
 travels as growing in Georgia. And I have understood 
 that twenty-two acres were cultivated by Col. Delegall 
 upon a small island near Savannah before the Revolu- 
 tion; but this was the green seed or short staple cotton. 
 Two species of the same family then existed in this coun- 
 try. The real green seed, and a low cotton resembling 
 it in blossom, both being of a pale yellow approaching 
 to white ; one with the seed covered with fuzz, the other 
 with fuzz only upon the end of the seed. 
 
 To explore the first introduction of the short staple 
 in this country would now in all human probability be 
 impossible : but we may very well suppose it was by one 
 of the southern Proprietary Governments; and possibly 
 from Turkey, the trade of which country with England 
 was then of much higher consideration than it has sub- 
 sequently become. 
 
 Nor would it have escaped these proprietors, many of 
 whom were enlightened men, that the climate of Asia 
 Minor, where cotton grew abundantly, was analogous to 
 the climate of the provinces south of Virginia. 
 
 Just about the commencement of the Revolutionary 
 War, Sir Richard Awkright had invented the Spinning 
 Jenny, and cotton ginning became a matter of deep in- 
 terest in England. Cotton rose much in price, its vari- 
 ous qualities attracted notice, and the world was
 
 268 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 searched for the finer kinds. The Island of Bourbon 
 was alone found to produce them, and yet the Bourbon 
 cotton greatly resembled in its growth our green seed 
 cotton ; although it cannot be its parent plant, for all at- 
 tempts to naturalize it in Georgia (which were many 
 and repeated) have failed. It gave blossom, but was 
 cut off by the frost in the fruit, nor would it ratoon or 
 grow from the root in next year : in which too it resem- 
 bles the green seed cotton of our country. This is all 
 that I am able to say and perhaps all that is necessary to 
 be said of the short staple cotton. 
 
 The Sea Island Cotton was introduced directly from 
 the Bahama Islands into Georgia. 
 
 The Revolutionary War that closed in 1783 had been 
 a war not less of feeling and of opinion than of interest 
 and had torn asunder many of the relations of life, 
 whether of blood or of friendship. England offered 
 to the unhappy settlers of this country who had followed 
 her standard a home but in two of her provinces. To 
 the provincials of the north she offered Nova Scotia. 
 To the provincials of the south she offered the Bahama 
 Islands. Many of the former inhabitants of the Caro- 
 linas and of Georgia passed over from Florida to the 
 Bahamas with their slaves, but what could they cul- 
 tivate? 
 
 The rocky and arid lands of those Islands could not 
 grow sugar-cane. Coffee would grow, but produced no 
 fruit. There was one plant that would grow and that 
 bore abundantly, it was Cotton. The seed, as I have 
 been informed by respectable gentlemen from the Ba- 
 hamas, was in the first instance produced from a small 
 island in the West Indies, celebrated for its Cotton, 
 called Anguilla. It was therefore long after its intro- 
 duction into this country called Anguilla seed.
 
 STAPLES 269 
 
 Cotton, as I have already stated, had taken a new 
 value, by the introduction of the spinning jenny into 
 England. The quality of the Bahama cotton was then 
 considered among the best grown. New life and hope 
 were imparted to a colony and a people with whom even 
 hope itself had been almost extinct. This first success, 
 as is natural to the human mind under whatsoever in- 
 fluence it may act, recalled the memory of the friends 
 they had left behind them. The winter of '86 brought 
 several parcels of cotton seed from the Bahamas to 
 Georgia. Among them (in distinct remembrance upon 
 my mind) was a parcel to the late Governor Tattnall of 
 Georgia, from a near relation of his, then surveyor 
 general of the Bahamas; and another parcel at the same 
 time was transmitted by Col. Roger Kelsal, of Exuma 
 (who was among the first if not the very first successful 
 grower of cotton) to my father Mr. James Spalding, 
 then residing on St. Simon's Island, Georgia, who had 
 been connected in business with Col. Kelsal before the 
 revolution. I have heard that Governor Tattnall, then 
 a young man, gave the seed to Mr. Nichol Turnbull, 
 lately deceased, who cultivated it from that period suc- 
 cessfully. 
 
 I know my father planted his cotton in the spring of 
 1787 upon the banks of a small rice field on St. Simon's 
 Island. The land was rich and warm ; the cotton grew 
 large and blossomed, but did not open its fruit. It how- 
 ever ratooned or grew from its roots the following year. 
 The difficulty was now over. The cotton adapted itself 
 to the climate and every successive year from 178 1 saw 
 the long staple cotton extending itself along the shores 
 of Georgia, where an enlightened population engaged 
 in the cultivation of indigo, readily adopted it. 
 
 All the varieties of the long staple, or at least the 
 germ of those varieties, came from that seed.
 
 270 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Differences of soil developed them, and differences of 
 local situations are developing them every day. 
 
 The same cotton seed planted on one field will give 
 quite a black and naked seed; while the same seed 
 planted upon another field, different in soil and situa- 
 tion, will be prone to run into large cotton, with long 
 bolls or pods and with seed tufted at the ends with fuzz. 
 
 I should have great doubts if there is any real differ- 
 ence in these apparent varieties of the long staple cot- 
 ton. But if there is, all who observe must know that 
 plants when they have once intermingled their varie- 
 ties, will require attention for a long series of years to 
 disentangle them. 
 
 Subsequently to 1787, as the cultivation of the cotton 
 extended and became profitable, every variety of the 
 cotton that could be gleaned from the four quarters of 
 the world have been tried, but none of them but one has 
 resulted in anything useful. 
 
 Mr. James Hamilton, who formerly resided in 
 Charleston and now resides in Philadelphia, was inde- 
 fatigable in procuring seed which he transmitted to his 
 friend Mr. Couper, of St. Simons. 
 
 Mr. Couper planted some acres of Bourbon cotton; it 
 grew and blossomed, but did not ripen its fruit, and per- 
 ished in the winter. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton sent a cotton plant from Siam, it grew 
 large, was of a rich purple color, both in foliage and in 
 blossom, but perished also without ripening its fruit. 
 
 The Nankin cotton was introduced at an early pe- 
 riod, the same that Mr. Secretary Crawford introduced 
 the seed of some years back. It was abundant in prod- 
 uce, the seed fuzzy and the wool of a dirty yellow color, 
 which would not bring the price even of the other short 
 staple cotton. But I knew it to produce three hundred
 
 STAPLES 271 
 
 weight to the acre, on Jekyl Island, Georgia. The kid- 
 ney seed cotton, that produces the seed all clustered to- 
 gether with a long strong staple extending from one side 
 of the seeds (and which I believe to be the Brazilian or 
 Pernambuco cotton) was tried and was the only new 
 species on which there could have been any hesitancy; 
 but this too was given up because not as valuable and 
 not as productive. 
 
 I have given the names of gentlemen because I had 
 no other means of establishing facts. I am respectfully 
 yours, etc., 
 Sapelo Island, April, 1828. THOMAS Spalding. 
 
 4 sea-island cotton methods 
 
 (a) Allston, R. F. W. Essay on Sea Coast Crops (Charleston, 1854). 
 Printed also in DeBow's Revieit}, vol. xvi, 589-615 (June, 1854). 
 
 . . . The soil best adapted to the production of 
 fine Cotton [i.e. sea-island cotton] is a light yellow 
 sandy soil. It bears well the admixture of salt and 
 marsh mud with the compost applied to it, and yields, 
 if fairly dealt by, a fine, long and even staple. 
 
 The better practice is to prepare the land by listing in 
 the remaining growth as soon as the last year's crop has 
 been picked - even before the cotton has been cleaned 
 for market. The alleys are then broken up with the 
 plow. In the spring, the earth, well manured, is drawn 
 up with the hoe, making a bed upon the autumn listing, 
 and the seed is sown in dibbles, a peck to the acre or 
 more, according to the strength of the soil, &c.^^ After 
 the seeds germinate, the alleys are again broken up with 
 the plow, and soon the process of thinning begins. With 
 
 12 In order to ensure the production of fine Cotton, the seed must be care- 
 fully selected, and well attended to. Owen's Selection has, at present, a high 
 reputation. Mr. Geo. C. Owens has given name to the seed, as Mr. Kinsey 
 Burton did to his in 1826-30. -Grig.
 
 272 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the three first hoeings, the plants are gradually thinned 
 out to the stand of a single stalk, eighteen, twenty or 
 twenty four inches, or more, from its neighbour. The 
 ground must be kept clean throughout. The quantity 
 or rate of planting, when the hoe is altogether used, does 
 not exceed three acres to the hand ; and the task is one- 
 fourth of an acre. (105 x 105 feet). If the plow and 
 the scraper be used together with the hoe, much more 
 may be accomplished, the hoe drawing up to the plants 
 the earth loosened by the plow, the task may be three- 
 fourths of an acre. Where the plow is used freely, 
 seven acres to the hand may be tended, as in Florida, 
 and perhaps on Santee. But, on this scale, the manur- 
 ing must be neglected, or only partially done. In Geor- 
 gia, my informant who uses the plow and scraper, 
 plants five acres to the hand, in order to keep his land in 
 good heart by manuring. For the same reason a very 
 successful planter on Edisto tends but five acres to the 
 hand. He uses the plow freely, manures well, and 
 makes a good interest. 
 
 The effects of the autumnal gales, so unavoidable, are 
 sometimes disastrous to the ungathered and ripening 
 crop. 
 
 Among the diseases to which Long Cotton is subject 
 blight, rust and blue may arise from some defect in the 
 soil, which doubtless, may be removed, or partially 
 remedied, by proper dressing, at the proper season, to- 
 gether with thorough draining. For caterpillar and the 
 bug there is no certain remedy but propitious seasons - 
 unless, indeed, it is to be found in a judicious rotation of 
 crops, exposed to winter frost. When about to be at- 
 tacked, however, defend your plants by all the means 
 within your reach. Destroy the enemy in embryo, as 
 the energetic planter, last alluded to, has shown can be 
 done.
 
 STAPLES 273 
 
 Preparation for Market: It requires from fifty to 
 sixty days to prepare a bale of fine Cotton for market. 
 
 ist. The seed-cotton must be sorted for the gin; i.e., 
 the dead leaves, and everything extraneous is picked out, 
 say sixty pounds to the hand. 
 
 2nd. It is then passed through the roller gin, which 
 relieves it of the seed. The common foot gin or treadle, 
 propelling two rollers, is the machine commonly used 
 for separating the fibre from the seed, cleaning on an 
 average twenty-five pounds a day. The McCarthy, or 
 Florida Gin, with one roller, is now attracting much at- 
 tention; and the planters are putting them up as fast as 
 they can procure them. A gin costing one hundred dol- 
 lars, propelled by a good horse or mule, or better still 
 by steam, will clean from 150 lbs. to 200 lbs. a day. 
 
 3rd. The cotton is "moted" as it comes from the gin, 
 namely; all particles of broken seed, and every speck 
 which may have escaped detection in the "sorting" are 
 carefully removed. Thirty pounds to the hand are 
 moted after the foot gin, sixty pounds after the use of 
 McCarthy's patent, or in such proportion. 
 
 4th. It is then packed by hand in the old fashioned 
 round bales, containing each 320 lbs. to 400 lbs. of clean 
 merchantable cotton. 
 
 The finest Cotton is exceedingly delicate in vegetation, 
 and requires careful handling throughout. It can be 
 produced therefore [only] in small quantities; and then, 
 unless everything be propitious, it does not pay too well. 
 The cost of producing a bag of ordinary Sea Island Cot- 
 ton is about $75 (This has reference to Cottons pro- 
 duced by the hoe culture without the plow) - that of 
 the finest twice as much. 
 
 Prices: In 1851, in Charleston Market, fine cottons 
 were sold at 60^ per lb., - a single bag commanded 70^.
 
 274 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 In 1852, fine cottons sold at 80^ per lb., only a bale or 
 two brought more (85^), 
 
 Ordinary Sea Island Cottons commanded in Charles- 
 ton, 
 
 In March 1851, 30 cents per lb. 
 
 " " 1852, 30 cents per lb. 
 
 " " 1853, 43 and 45 cents per lb. 
 
 The planters are few who make the finest Cottons, 
 some eight or ten perhaps in Carolina, planting a small 
 portion of their lands in the choicest seed, which has to 
 be selected with great care from year to year. 
 
 These Cottons are taken by England and France, 
 chiefly, through the ports of Liverpool and Havre. 
 England receiving the larger proportion, re-exports a 
 part of her supply to the Continent (Switzerland and 
 elsewhere), where it is manufactured into exquisite 
 laces and muslins. A few hundred bags of Sea Island 
 Cotton are manufactured in the United States, chiefly 
 in making spool cotton. A pound of Sea Island Cotton 
 may be spun so fine as to produce a thread of incredible 
 length. Yet Prof. Mitchell, of the Cincinnati Observa- 
 tory, stated that no thread, of any kind, which he could 
 procure, was equal in fineness, lightness and elasticity to 
 that of the spider's web. 
 
 The cottons that will command from 45 to 68 cents 
 per lb. made with the proper use of the plow, and 
 cleaned by the improved machinery, yield a very hand- 
 some interest upon the capital invested, say not less than 
 from ten to twelve per cent. Fourteen per cent was 
 realized last year by more than one planter. . . 
 
 (b) Extract from Whitemarsh B. Seabrook's Memoir on Cotton 
 (Charleston, 1844), 23, 24. 
 
 The method of cultivation was very various and with- 
 out method, until about the year 1802, when it assumed
 
 STAPLES 275 
 
 a regular form in this State and Georgia. Then the 
 crop was worked four times - the latest hoeing being 
 from the middle to the last of July. The hoeings now 
 are more frequent, from five to seven being usually 
 given, and are begun earlier and finished sooner. The 
 point appears to be conceded that, when the plant puts 
 out fruit freely, which may be expected early in July, 
 out-door labor should cease, especially if the season be 
 wet. 
 
 It has been already remarked, that the plough was 
 practically unknown to the first growers of long-staple 
 cotton. This is still true, although a half century has 
 elapsed. The ridge-system; the levelness of the ground, 
 requiring therefore numerous drains; the small quan- 
 tity of land, from 3^ to 4 acres, cultivated to the hand,^^ 
 which, from its lightness, is so easily and so much better 
 attended with the hoe; and the impossibility of gather- 
 ing the cotton as rapidly as the field may demand, if, 
 with ploughs, the tillage embraced a larger number of 
 acres, - all seem to render the aid of this great agricul- 
 tural implement utterly useless in the culture of the 
 crop. In the breaking up of the soil, however, and as 
 an assistant in forming the ridge, the plough is univer- 
 sally employed, except on the Sea- Islands, where only 
 by a few planters, is its value in the latter operation, 
 fully acknowledged. 
 
 The task in listing was formerly half an acre; in ridg- 
 ing, three-eighths of an acre; and in hoeing half an acre. 
 The present tasks are less, except in hoeing, which is the 
 sam.^. 
 
 18 A larger quantity per hand could not probably be manured.- Grig.
 
 276 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 5 UPLAND COTTON METHODS 
 
 Turner, J. A. The Cotton Planter's Manual (New York, 1857), 15-20. 
 Extracts from an " Essay on the Treatment and Cultivation of Cot- 
 ton " by Jas. M. Chambers, read before the Southern Central Agri- 
 cuhural Association of Georgia. 
 
 In this age of improvement, with scrapers and culti- 
 vators, and all the endless variety of labor-saving 
 ploughs, and amid the advocates of hard-culture and 
 soft-culture, and high-ways and by-ways, for making 
 the crop, "who shall resolve the doubt when all pre- 
 tend to know?" and who shall decide, with such differ- 
 ences among doctors, who is right? and who can pre- 
 tend to say what number of acres to a hand will con- 
 stitute a crop with such varied modes of culture? I 
 shall proceed upon the supposition that a plentiful sup- 
 ply of provisions are to be made on the farm, and then 
 set down as a good cotton crop, ten acres to the hand. 
 Under favorable circumstances a little more may be cul- 
 tivated, and on some lands less. Upon this basis I pro- 
 ceed. As soon as the young cotton is up to a good stand, 
 and the third and fourth leaves begin to appear, the op- 
 eration may commence. In lands which are smooth and 
 soft, I incline to the opinion, that the hoes should pre- 
 cede the ploughs, chopping into bunches, passing very 
 rapidly on, and let a careful ploughman follow, on each 
 side of the drill, throwing a little light dirt into the 
 spaces made by the hoe, and a little also about the roots 
 of the cotton, covering and leaving covered, all small 
 grass which may have sprung up. This is, indeed, the 
 merit claimed for the operation, and after the hoes 
 have passed, the ploughs come on and effectually cover 
 and destroy the coat of young grass then up. This is 
 known to practical planters to be the crop of grass which 
 escapes the hoe, and does mischief to the cotton. But
 
 STAPLES 277 
 
 when the land is so rough as to endanger the covering 
 of the cotton with the plough, the operation must be 
 reversed, and the hoes follow the ploughs. As all that 
 is now proposed to be done is a very rapid superficial 
 working, reducing the crop to bunches, soon to pass over 
 and return again for a more careful operation. This 
 should be done as soon as possible, as will be indicated 
 by the necessities of the case. The grass and the weeds 
 must be kept down, and the stand of cotton reduced. 
 At this first working, unless in lands already very soft, 
 I should advise the siding to be close, and be done with 
 some plough which would break and loosen the earth 
 deep about the roots of the young plant. Others may 
 theorize as they choose, but with a plant sending out a 
 tap root, upon which it so much relies, and striking so 
 deep into the earth, as that of cotton, I shall insist upon 
 its accommodation, by providing a soft, deep, mellow 
 bed, into which these roots may easily penetrate. In 
 the second working the ploughs should in all cases go 
 before the hoes, and in all lands at all tenacious or hard 
 let the work be deep and close again, and the middles of 
 the row also be well broken up at this time. Now the 
 hoes have an important and delicate duty to perform. 
 The cotton is to be reduced nearly to a stand, though it 
 is now rather early to be fully reduced. It is perhaps 
 best to leave two stalks where one is intended to grow. 
 The young stalk is very tender, and easily injured by 
 bruises and skins from rough and careless work, and it 
 is much better to aid a little sometimes with the hand 
 thinning, than to spoil a good stand by bruises with the 
 hoe. The cut-worm and the louse are charged with 
 many sins which ought to be put down to the account of 
 the careless working at this critical stage of the crop. 
 The distance to be given I have before stated, and in the
 
 278 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 first operation of bunching this ought to be looked to, 
 and the spaces regulated accordingly. At this second 
 passing over, the hoes must return a little soft dirt to the 
 foot of the stalk, leaving it clean and supported. If this 
 work is well done, the weed will grow on, without any 
 necessity for further attention for some twenty days or 
 three weeks, when the plough should return again. At 
 this time, some plough should be used next the cotton 
 which will tumble the soft earth about the root, covering 
 the small young grass which may have sprung up since 
 the last working, but the ploughing should be less close, 
 and shallower than at the former working. The hoes 
 have much to do in the culture of this crop, and must be 
 prepared to devote pretty much all of their time to it, 
 constantly passing over, and perfecting that which can- 
 not be done with the ploughs, by thinning out surplus 
 stalks, cleaning away remaining bunches of grass, stir- 
 ring about the roots of the plant, and if need be, adding 
 a little earth to them. It is difficult in a treatise of this 
 sort to say how often, and in what manner, this crop 
 shall always be worked, when the character of the sea- 
 sons, and the difference in the land, must have necessar- 
 ily have so much to do in settling this question. The 
 general rule must be, to keep the earth loose and well 
 stirred ; the early workings to be deep and close ; and as 
 the crop comes on and the fruit begins to appear, let 
 these workings be less close, and shallower, keeping the 
 soil soft and clean. It is of great importance to work 
 this crop late, and it should not cease until the branches 
 lock or the cotton begins to open. I do not consider 
 that it is necessary to pile the earth in large quantities 
 about the roots of the cotton, but think the tendency of 
 all the workings should be to increase the quantity. 
 The selection of seed is an interest not to be disre-
 
 STAPLES 279 
 
 garded. We have been humbugged a great deal by 
 dealers and speculators in this article, yet we would 
 greatly err to conclude that no improvement could be 
 made. We should, however, save ourselves from this 
 sort of imposition, and improve our own seed, by going 
 into the field and picking each year, from some of the 
 best formed and best bearing stalks, and thus keep up 
 the improvement. Great benefits may often be derived 
 by changes of seed in the same neighborhood, from dif- 
 ferences of soil, and occasional changes from a distant 
 and different climate may be made to great advantage. 
 
 The picking of cotton should commence just as soon 
 as the hands can be at all profitably employed - say as 
 soon as forty or fifty pounds to the hand can be gathered. 
 It is of great importance, not only to the success of the 
 work, but to the complexion and character of the staple, 
 to keep well up with this work, so that as far as possible 
 it may be saved without exposure to rain. The embar- 
 rassments to picking, when once behind, and a storm 
 or heavy rain shall intervene, mingling it with the leaf, 
 and tangling in the burr, are just as great, as to get be- 
 hind it in the cultivation of the crop, when much addi- 
 tional labor will be required to accomplish the same 
 object. . . 
 
 The packing should be in square bales; and, without 
 reference to freight, or any of these mere incidental in- 
 fluences, I think the weight of the bale should be fixed 
 at about four hundred, or four hundred and twenty-five 
 pounds; to be in two breadths of wide bagging, pressed 
 until the side seams are well closed, or a little lapped, 
 and then secured with six good ropes, the heads neatly 
 sewed in, so that when complete and turned out of the 
 press, no cotton should be seen exposed. These pack- 
 ages should be nearly square, for the greater beauty of
 
 28o AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 the bales, but still more, for the greater convenience with 
 which they may be handled and shipped, saving the ne- 
 cessity for tearing the bags, and giving a better guaranty 
 that they will reach a distant market in good order. 
 
 The crop is now made and ready for market, and as 
 I have gone through with the labor of making, I hope 
 I may be pardoned for manifesting a little interest as 
 to its disposal, and therefore venture to ofifer a little 
 advice on that subject. Create no liens on this crop, or 
 necessity for selling. Never spend the money which it 
 is to produce until it is sold. You are then free to choose 
 your own market, and time of selling; and as cotton is a 
 controlling article, it will greatly regulate the value of 
 all property to be purchased, except the redemption 
 of an outstanding promise. 
 
 I might have said something about the topping of 
 cotton, but all I could have done, would have been to 
 put it down as a contingent operation and doubtful in 
 its effects upon the crop, I might also have descanted 
 largely in the enumeration and description of insects 
 and diseases peculiar to cotton, suggested some remedy, 
 and swelled my essay, by a flourish in the dark, upon 
 topics about which little is known ; but I have felt that 
 it be most in accordance with my plan, and certainly 
 most with my feelings, to candidly confess my inability, 
 and include these all under the head of Providential 
 contingencies, to which the crop is liable, and against 
 which we may war and contend, but which will, after 
 all, prove an overmatch for the energy, skill, or wisdom 
 of man.
 
 STAPLES 281 
 
 6 SUGAR METHODS IN JAMAICA 
 
 Lewis, M. G. Journal of a West Indian Proprietor (London, 1834), 
 86-89. 
 
 Jan. II, 1815. I saw the whole process of sugar- 
 making this morning. The ripe canes are brought in 
 bundles to the mill, where the cleanest of the women are 
 appointed, one to put them into the machines for grind- 
 ing them, and another to draw them out after the juice 
 has been extracted, when she throws them into an open- 
 ing in the floor close to her; another band of negroes 
 collects them below, when, under the name of trash, 
 they are carried away to serve for fuel. The juice, 
 which is itself at first of a pale ash colour, gushes out in 
 great streams, quite white with foam, and passes through 
 a wooden gutter into the boiling-house, where it is re- 
 ceived into the siphon or "cock copper," where fire is 
 applied to it, and it is slaked with lime, in order to make 
 it granulate. The feculent part of it rises to the top, 
 while the purer and more fluid flows through another 
 gutter into the second copper. When but little but the 
 impure scum on the surface remains to be drawn off, the 
 first gutter communicating with the copper is stopped, 
 and the grosser parts are obliged to find course through 
 another gutter, which conveys them to the distillery, 
 where being mixed with molasses, or treacle, they are 
 manufactured into rum. From the second copper they 
 are transmitted into the first, and thence into two others, 
 and in these four latter basins the scum is removed with 
 skimmers pierced with holes, till it becomes sufficiently 
 free from impurities to be skipped off, that is, to be 
 again ladled out of the coppers and spread into the 
 coolers, where it is left to granulate. The sugar is then 
 formed, and is removed into the curing-house^ where it 
 is put into hogsheads, and left to settle for a certain
 
 282 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 time, during which those parts which are too poor and 
 liquid to granulate, drip from the casks into vessels 
 placed beneath them: these drippings are the molasses, 
 which being carried into the distillery, and mixed with 
 the coarser scum formerly mentioned, form the mixture 
 from which the spirituous liquor of sugar is afterwards 
 produced by fermentation: when but once distilled, it 
 is called "low wine ;" and it is not till after it has gone 
 through a second distillation, that it acquires the name 
 of rum. The "trash" used for fuel consists of the empty 
 canes, that which is employed for fodder and for 
 thatching is furnished by the superabundant cane-tops; 
 after so many have been set apart as are required for 
 planting. After these original plants have been cut, 
 their roots throw up suckers, which in time become 
 canes, and are called ratoons: they are far inferior in 
 juice to the planted canes ; but then, on the other hand, 
 they require much less weeding, and spare the negroes 
 the only laborious part of the business of sugar-making, 
 the digging holes for the plants ; therefore, although an 
 acre of ratoons will produce but one hogshead of sugar, 
 while an acre of plants will produce two, the superiority 
 of the ratooned piece is very great, inasmuch as the 
 saving of time and labour will enable the proprietor 
 to cultivate five acres of ratoons in the same time with 
 one of plants. Unluckily, after three crops, or five at 
 the utmost, in general the ratoons are totally exhausted, 
 and you are obliged to have recourse to fresh plants. 
 
 7 UNCERTAINTY OF RETURNS IN TOBACCO 
 
 Letter of Benedict Leonard Calvert, Annapolis, Md., Oct. 26, 1729, to 
 Charles Lord Baltimore, published in the Maryland Historical So- 
 ciety's Fund Publication, no. 34, 70. 
 
 In Virginia and Maryland Tobacco is our Staple, is 
 our All, and Indeed leaves no room for anything Else;
 
 STAPLES 283 
 
 It requires the Attendance of all our hands, and Exacts 
 their utmost labour, the whole year round; it requires 
 us to abhor Communitys or townships, since a Planter 
 cannot Carry on his Affairs, without Considerable El- 
 bow room, within his plantation. When All is done, 
 and our Tobacco sent home, it is perchance the most un- 
 certain Commodity that Comes to Markett; and the 
 management of it there is of such a nature and method, 
 that it seems to be of all other, most lyable and Subject 
 to frauds, in prejudice to the poor Planters. Tobacco 
 Merchants, who deal in Consignments, get great Es- 
 tates, run no risque, and Labour only with the pen; 
 the Planter can scarce get a living. Runs all the 
 risques attendant upon trade, both as to his negroes and 
 Tobacco, and must work in variety of Labour. I write 
 not this in malicious Envy to the Merchts, nor do I wish 
 them less success in business; but I heartily wish the 
 Planters Lay was better. When our Tobacco then is 
 sold at home, whatever is the product of it returns not 
 to us in Money, but is either converted into Apparell, 
 Tools or other Conveniences of life, or Else remains 
 there, as it were Dead to us; for where the Staple of a 
 Countrey, upon forreign Sale, yields no returns of 
 money, to Circulate in such a Country, the want of such 
 Circulation must leave it almost Inanimate. 
 
 8 THE TYRANNY OF KING COTTON 
 
 (a) Georgia Courier (Augusta), Oct. 11, 1827, A traveller's impres- 
 sions. 
 
 A Plague 0' this Cotton 
 
 A traveller from Charleston to St. Louis on the Mis- 
 souri, in a letter to a friend in the former city, thus 
 describes the manner in which he was bored with the 
 eternal sight and sound of this staple produce of the 
 country :
 
 284 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 When I took my last walk along the wharves in 
 Charleston, and saw them piled up with mountains of 
 Cotton, and all your stores, ships, steam and canal boats, 
 crammed with and groaning under, the weight of Cot- 
 ton, I returned to the Planters' Hotel, where I found 
 the four daily papers, as well as the conversation of the 
 boarders, teeming with Cotton! Cotton!! Cotton!!! 
 Thinks I to myself 'I'll soon change this scene of cotton.' 
 But, alas! How easily deceived is short-sighted man! 
 Well, I got into my gig and wormed my way up through 
 Queen, Meeting, King, and St. Philip's-streets, dodging 
 from side to side, to steer clear of the cotton waggons, 
 and came to the New Bridge Ferry.- Here I crossed 
 over in the Horse-boat, with several empty cotton wag- 
 gons, and found a number on the other side, loaded 
 with cotton, going to town. From this I continued on, 
 meeting with little else than cotton fields, cotton gins, 
 cotton waggons - but 'the wide, the unbounded prospect 
 lay before me!' I arrived in Augusta; and when I saw 
 cotton waggons in Broad-street, I whistled! but said 
 nothing!!! But this was not all; there was more than a 
 dozen tow boats in the river, with more than a thou- 
 sand bales of cotton on each; and several steam boats 
 with still more. And you must know, that they have 
 cotton warehouses there covering whole squares, all 
 full of cotton; and some of the knowing ones told me, 
 that there were then in the place from 40,000 to 50,000 
 bales. And Hamburg (as a negro said) was worser, 
 according to its size; for it puzzled me to tell which 
 was the largest, the piles of cotton or the houses. I 
 now left Augusta; and overtook hordes of cotton 
 planters from North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
 Georgia, with large gangs of negroes, bound to Ala- 
 bama, Mississippi and Louisiana; 'where the cotton
 
 STAPLES 285 
 
 land is not worn out.' Besides these, I overtook a num- 
 ber of empty cotton waggons, returning home, and a 
 great many loaded with cotton going to Augusta. Two 
 of these waggons meeting one day, directly opposite me, 
 the following dialogue took place between the drivers - 
 What's cotton in Augusta?' says the one with a load.- 
 'Cottonl' says the other. The enquirer supposing him- 
 self not to be understood, repeats 'What's cotton in Au- 
 gusta?' 'Its cotton,' says the other. 'I know that,' says 
 the first, 'but what is it?' - 'Why,' says the other, 'I tell 
 you its cotton! cotton is cotton! in Augusta, and every 
 where else, that ever I heard of.' 'I know that as well 
 as you,' says the first, 'but what does cotton bring in Au- 
 gusta?' 'Why, it brings nothing there, but everybody 
 brings cotton.' 'Look here,' says the first waggoner, 
 with an oath, 'you had better leave the State; for I'll be 
 
 d d if you don't know too much for Georgia.' 
 
 I continued my journey passing cotton fields; till I 
 arrived at Holt's Ferry, on the Oconee, where I saw 
 three large pole boats loaded with bales of cotton, 
 twelve tier in height. From thence I went to Milledge- 
 ville, where I found the prevailing topic of the place, 
 'what an infernal shame it was, that such a quantity of 
 virgin cotton land should be suffered to remain in the 
 possession of the infernal Creek Indians.' From Mill- 
 edgeville, I went to Macon, which they say is sur- 
 rounded with most excellent cotton land; but the town 
 it is supposed, will grow much faster when it becomes 
 the seat of Government, and has more banks. From 
 thence, I moved on to the westward, crossing Flint 
 River, and from thence to the Chattahoochie found cot- 
 ton land speculators thicker than locusts in Egypt. But 
 from Line Creek to Montgomery (14 miles) the land 
 is nearly level; the fields of one plantation joining by
 
 286 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 a fence those of another; and all extending back from 
 the road farther than you can distinctly see; and the 
 cotton pretty even, and about as high as the fences, and 
 has the appearance (as Riley says of Zahara) of a com- 
 plete horison of cotton. They have, almost all of them, 
 over-planted; and had not more than one-half their cot- 
 ton picked in ; each plantation has a cotton gin. I next 
 came to Montgomery, which I found over stocked with 
 cotton, and no boats to take it away. From Montgomery 
 I went to Blakely, and on my way, saw many cotton 
 plantations, and met, and over-took, nearly one hundred 
 cotton waggons, traveling over a road so bad, that a State 
 Prisoner could hardly walk through it to make his es- 
 cape. And although people say that Blakely is done 
 over, there was not a little cotton in it. From there I 
 crossed over to Mobile, in a small steam boat loaded up 
 to the top of the smoke-j)ipe with cotton. This place is 
 a receptacle monstrous for the article. Look which way 
 you will you see it; and see it moving; keel boats, steam 
 boats, ships, brigs, schooners, wharves, stores, and press- 
 houses, all appeared to be full; and I believe that in the 
 three days that I was there, boarding with about one 
 hundred cotton factors, cotton merchants, and cotton 
 planters, I must have heard the word cotton pronounced 
 more than 3000 times. 
 
 From Mobile I went to New Orleans in a schooner, 
 and she was stuffed full of cotton. I arrived at New 
 Orleans on the 8th of February, on the night on which 
 Miss Kelly was to make her first appearance there; and 
 I went to the Theatre. I was directed to go up a cer- 
 tain street in the upper Faubourg and turn into the first 
 conspicuous brick building, lighted up on the right. 
 I did so; and lo and behold! I found myself in a steam 
 cotton-press house, where they work, watch and watch
 
 STAPLES 287 
 
 by candle-light, screwing cotton. After an examina- 
 tion, however, I went to the play: and after that was 
 out, I enquired the way to a licensed Pharo Bank, and 
 was told that I would find one at the Louisiana Coffee- 
 house, just below the cotton-press, opposite to a cotton 
 ware-house. I don't know how many hundred thousand 
 bales of cotton there were in New Orleans; but I was 
 there only six days, in which time there arrived upwards 
 of 20,000 bales,- and when we dropped out into the 
 stream in a steam-boat, to ascend the river, the levee 
 for a mile up and down, opposite the shipping, where 
 they were walking bales on end, looked as if it was 
 alive. A Kentuckian who was on board, swore the 
 cotton had rose upon the town : 'don't you see' says he, 
 'the bales marching up the levy.' Coming up the river, 
 I saw many cotton plantations, and many boats at Baton 
 Rouge, Bayou Sarah, and other intermediate places, 
 loading with cotton. And in passing the mouth of Red 
 River, we took on board five more passengers, who live 
 near Natchitoches. They say that they cannot get boats 
 enough in the river to bring the cotton down that is 
 made there, that they make the best cotton they ever 
 saw; that they have the best cotton lands of all the cot- 
 ton countries; and that if they continue to settle up 
 there as fast for the next five years, as they have for the 
 last, they will be able to inundate the world with cot- 
 ton! I At the mouth of Arkansas River, we took on 
 board about hfty negroes and two overseers, who had 
 made a very excellent crop of cotton in the Territory, 
 but found it too unhealthy a place to remain, and were 
 going back to North Alabama. From New Orleans to 
 the mouth of Tennessee River, we passed about thirty 
 steam-boats, and more than half of them laden with 
 cotton ; also about twenty flat boats a day, for ten days,
 
 288 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 and about half of them were loaded with cotton. When 
 we got up to the Muscle Shoals there was more cotton 
 in waiting than would fill a dozen steam-boats. I went 
 by land from Florence and Tuscumbia, to Huntsville. 
 There is a vast deal of cotton made about the Shoals, 
 in North Alabama; and they go all for quantity, and 
 not for quality. Ginned cotton was selling there for 
 about six cents; and most of the lesser planters have 
 sold theirs, in the seed, at one and a half. After leaving 
 Huntsville, I passed to Nashville ; and on my way, saw 
 an abundance of cotton and cotton fields. The Tennes- 
 seans think that no other State is of any account but 
 their own; Kentuck, they say, would be, if it could 
 grow cotton ; but, as it is, it is good for nothing. They 
 calculate on 40 or 50,000 bales of cotton going from 
 Nashville this season; that is, if they can get boats to 
 carry it all. 
 
 From Nashville, I descended the Cumberland river 
 in a steam-boat, between two keelboats, the Cherokee 
 and Tecumseh, (poor Indian names, that have rang 
 from Nickajack to Michilimackinac! now doomed to 
 bear the burthen of the whites!) all three piled up with 
 cotton; and after getting below the Shoals, to Clarks- 
 ville, they stopped and took in 30 bales more. I left this 
 boat at Smithfield, at the mouth of Cumberland, where, 
 there was another large steam boat loaded with cotton 
 for New Orleans. After seeing, hearing, and dream- 
 ing of nothing but cotton for seventy days and seventy 
 nights, I began to anticipate relief. For on the route I 
 took, whether by night or by day or by stage or by steam 
 boat, wake up when or where you would, you were sure 
 to hear a dissertation on cotton. One night, in Mobile 
 I was waked up about two o'clock, by two merchant's 
 clerks, who slept in the same room, and were just going
 
 STAPLES 289 
 
 to bed. They were talking of Lottery Tickets ; and says 
 one to the other, 'If you were to draw the 50,000 dollars 
 Prize, what would you do with it?' 'Do with it?' says 
 the other, 'why I would take 25,000 dollars of it and 
 build a large fire proof brick store; and with the other 
 25,000 dollars I would fill it with cotton at 8^ cents, the 
 present prices, and keep it till it rose to 17, and then I 
 would sell.' But this is only one item of a thousand. On 
 the 1 6th of March, there came along a steam boat from 
 Louisville, bound to St. Louis, and I took my passage in 
 her. She had not a bale of cotton on board, nor did I 
 hear it named more than twice in 36 hours. We ran 
 down the Ohio to its mouth, thence up the Mississippi, 
 and I had a pretty tolerable night's sleep; though I 
 dreamed of cotton. . . 
 
 (b) Georgia Courier (Augusta), June 21, 1827. Editorial. 
 
 We see in the Southern papers, propositions to ex- 
 clude Northern manufacturers, and Western Pork, 
 Beef, etc., and to manufacture and wear our own Cloth, 
 and eat pork and beef, etc., of our own raising. The ob- 
 ject to be obtained by these suggestions all must approve, 
 whatever they may think of the spirit which urges their 
 adoption at this particular moment. That we have 
 cultivated cotton, cotton, cotton, and bought every thing 
 else, has long enough been our opprobium. It is time 
 we should be roused by some means or other to see, that 
 such a course of conduct will inevitably terminate in our 
 ultimate poverty and ruin. Let us manufacture, be- 
 cause it is our best policy. Let us go more on provision 
 crops and less on cotton, because we have had every 
 thing about us poor and impoverished long enough - 
 This we can do without manifesting any ill-nature to 
 any of the members of the same great family, all whose 
 earnings go to swell the general prosperity and happi-
 
 290 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ness. Much of our chagrin and ill-nature on this sub- 
 ject may be justly, because truly, ascribed to a sense of 
 shame, which we of the Southern States feel, that we 
 have been so long behind our Northern neighbors in the 
 production of every thing that substantially administers 
 to the elegance or the comforts of life. It has been our 
 own fault -not theirs. If we have followed a ruinous 
 policy, and bought all the articles of subsistence instead 
 of raising them, who is to blame ? For what have we not 
 looked to our Northern friends? From them we get not 
 only our clothes, carriages, saddles, hats, shoes, flour, 
 potatoes, but even our onions and horn buttons. The 
 latter we wear on our under garments, as if ashamed 
 to acknowledge that we owed the manufacture of such a 
 trifling article to others. Let us change our policy, but 
 without that spirit and those expressions which leave a 
 festering sore in the hearts of those who should be 
 brothers. Let our farmers make and wear their Home- 
 spun - raise in greater plenty corn and wheat, which 
 will enable them to raise their own hogs, cattle and 
 horses, and let those who have capital and enterprise, 
 manufacture on a more extensive scale. There is nothing 
 to prevent us from doing it. We have good land, unlim- 
 ited water-powers, capital in plenty, and a patriotism 
 which is running over in some places. If the Tariff 
 drives us to this, we say, let the name be sacred in all 
 future generations. 
 
 (c) Report from the Wateree Agricultural Society, in the South Caro- 
 lina uplands, 1843, printed in Edmund Ruffin's Report of the Agri- 
 cultural Survey of South Carolina (Columbia, 1843), Appendix, 40. 
 
 For many years, while our chief marketable product, 
 cotton, bore a high price, many of us were in the habit 
 of raising that almost exclusively, and depending upon 
 supplies of bread and meat from abroad, which the cot-
 
 STAPLES 291 
 
 ton crop had to pay for - as well as for the animal power 
 necessary on the plantation; a most pernicious practice, 
 which has impoverished the State by millions, and been 
 the ruin of many planters. It is believed that stern 
 necessity has forced the planter to abandon this system 
 measurably. It is unusual for any one in this neighbor- 
 hood to purchase either meat or bread; and we are rap- 
 idly becoming raisers of our own animal power on the 
 plantations. 
 
 It is believed that we are as successful as any body of 
 planters in the State, on the same character of lands, 
 in the mode of our culture. Certainly we have pressed 
 too far the old, and seemingly well established doctrine; 
 to wear out the land by cropping without manure, and 
 then open new lands. But this system is also giving way 
 to the sober light of experience ; which teaches, that one 
 acre well manured and taken care of, will produce more 
 in the average of years, than two acres even of fresh 
 land, not manured. 
 
 (d) Federal Union (Milledgeville, Ga.), June 13, 1843. Editorial. 
 
 Better Times - Our readers have, unquestionably, 
 been tired of seeing statements of the abundance of 
 money in the market, and at the same time experiencing 
 unexampled pressure from the want of it - of interest 
 reduced to the lowest point ever witnessed, and at the 
 same time property worthless. We have read and heard 
 that money, like water, would find its level, but for four 
 years it has more resembled ice thrown into enormous 
 masses, and fixed by the eternal frosts of the poles. 
 
 But we have the satisfaction of announcing the symp- 
 toms of a change to better times. The stream of money, 
 so long stagnant, has moved, and, like other matter in 
 motion, will not rest till checked by opposing causes. 
 The stock market, which seems to have been systemat-
 
 igi AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 ically thrust down, has the honor of first ofifering suf- 
 ficient inducements to the holders of money. They have 
 gone into it largely, and the holders of these stocks who 
 have been prostrate under the burthen for years, are re- 
 lieved. This beginning of relief will soon be felt in 
 other departments of business. Other property will feel 
 the impulse, and the debtor class, who have disdained 
 to take shelter under the bankrupt act, will begin to find 
 purchasers for that property which they have held to 
 such disadvantage. Hope! that anchor of the soul, torn 
 loose, till morals have been crushed and honor but a 
 name, will find again its place of rest. Times will be 
 better. How soon and to what extent, we know not, but 
 we are well assured the time will not be long. Over- 
 production in the cotton region may protract the day 
 with us ; but stupidity has its limits, and cotton which 
 cannot be spun, will not be made. We may go on till 
 the ware-houses of Europe are full, and our own sea- 
 ports walled in with cotton ; but there will be an end to 
 this folly. Men will not labor for nothing. There is a 
 point beyond which the consumption of cotton cannot 
 go. It requires three hundred consumers for one pro- 
 ducer of this article. - It will soon be seen lying unsold 
 in the barns of our planters. They will then learn wis- 
 dom. They will cease to send to the ends of the earth 
 for things as easily raised at home.
 
 V. PLANTATION SUPPLIES AND FAC- 
 TORAGE 
 
 I A GEORGIA PLANTER BUYS NEGRO CLOTHES IN 
 
 LONDON 
 
 Letter of James Habersham, Savannah, Ga., March 9, 1764, to William 
 Knox, London. MS. copy in the possession of the Georgia Historical 
 Society, Savannah. Printed in the Georgia Historical Society's Col- 
 lections, vol. vi, 15-17. 
 
 Savannah in Georgia the 9th of March 1764- 
 D"" Sir: I dont write because I am indebted to you a 
 letter, as I think the Ballance on that account is in my 
 Favour -My last to you was dated the 20*^ of Jan"^^ pr 
 Capt Quince from that Port, when I acquainted you 
 with y"" concerns here, which remain in Statu quo, except 
 that M^ Martin has paid me £70 in part of y^ last y" 
 rent, and when I can spare y'^ money and get Bills I will 
 remit it to you - This will be handed to you by a worthy 
 Lady, whose Company and Presence must make you, 
 because she does every one that is favoured with it, 
 happy, and in order to give you an opportunity of see- 
 ing her often, I will charge you with a Commission, in 
 the Execution of which you will be under the agreeable 
 necessity of consulting her, without being deemed an 
 Intruder, and I hope I shall receive y' thanks in y"" next 
 for this Piece of Friendship - But Andrew, you must 
 understand that the Governor, M^ Harris, and myself 
 are desirous if it can conveniently be done, to cloth[e] 
 our Negroes a little better than common, and we sup- 
 pose we may do that, and save the trouble of getting 
 their cloths made here, by having them made up in
 
 294 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 London. You have two letters enclosed, which I have 
 sent open for your Perusal which when you have read 
 please to put a wafer on them, and cause them to be de- 
 livered - You will see that H & H wrote to M' Nickle- 
 son & Co for a little Iron ware for the sole use of our 
 respective Plantations, and also to M^ Harris for our 
 Negroe Cloth [e]s; as we suppose He can supply us as 
 well and as cheap as any other Person in London, but if 
 not, you may engage where our Intentions will be best 
 executed, and M"" Nickleson and Co will be answerable 
 for them - If M' Harris can do them, He will charge 
 them to H & H, whereby we shall save a commission 
 of . . . pet, besides perhaps putting something in his 
 way- We want 120 Mens Jackets and Breeches and 80 
 womens gowns or habits of which at least 5^ for middle 
 sized one fourth for the larger and the remaining fourth 
 for the smaller sizes men & women -You know that 
 5 yds of Plains usually makes a mans jacket & Breeches 
 or a womans gown, and the cost of the best bought here 
 with making is about 10^ and for this sum I suppose 
 they may be had in London of Cloth at least stronger 
 and more durable and consequently warmer and more 
 comfortable - You see we dont purpose saving or rather 
 that is not our motive tho' the more saved the better, 
 as the charges landed here will at least come at 10 or 
 12 pet M" Gillivray has imported Sailor Pea Jackets 
 and I believe Breeches made of the same Cloth for his 
 Men and the former cost in London 7^ and the latter 3/6 
 but this cloth must be too heavy and clumsy for womens 
 wear - However something of the kind may answer for 
 men. If I remember, the West Country Barge Men 
 have their Jackets made of a very strong, cheap cloth, 
 I believe called Foul Weather and the Color being 
 Drab or something like it I should think would suit our
 
 PLANTATION SUPPLIES 295 
 
 dusty Barns, as well as their dusty flour sacks. Upon 
 the whole there is no directing from this Distance - In 
 London you may have anything the Nation may furnish, 
 and we must leave the choice of the Cloth, both for the 
 men and women to you and the worthy Bearer, whose 
 Judgement in this matter, let me tell you I should prefer 
 to yours, for tho' I have called you a planter, I am free 
 to say, you are but a learner- . . . Perhaps you 
 may do well to give a Pot of Porter extraordinary p"" 
 suit to have them sewe'd strong. You will please also 
 get them as soon as possible as they should be here in 
 August or at the farthest in all September, when the 
 Nights and mornings begin to be cold, and you know 
 we have sometimes some very sharp days the beginning 
 of October, when the Negroes unless fresh supplyed, 
 are usually in rags. But I have said enough on this sub- 
 ject, and you will learn better what is passing here from 
 the Bearer, than I can relate, which concludes me D*" 
 Sir Y^ aff"*" F'^'^ and Servant - 
 
 P.S. I had forgotten to mention that a young lady who 
 will accompany this hopes to have a finger in the pye 
 and expects at least to be consulted about the choice of 
 the Buttons, which will not be disagreeable to you - If 
 I receive no contrary orders, I shall endeavor to procure 
 a bill, when the Silk is drawn for, for at least £260 to 
 send you -I find M' Beskuake bought M' M'^Gil- 
 livray Cloth[e]s of Mr. Jesser who I think lives near 
 Billings gate, and were charged as Under. 
 Mens Jackets. 7® 
 Boys Ditto 5/ 
 Mens Breeches 3/6 
 
 Boys Ditto 2/3 But I suppose were called Boys for 
 lads from 15-17 which will agreeably do for some small 
 men. Since writing the foregoing, I am told, what are
 
 296 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 called Short Gowns or wrappers with petticoats are best 
 for women, but in this the Bearer will direct you - 1 
 know not how much you will be indebted to us for mak- 
 ing you so much wiser, than perhaps you wou'd other- 
 wise ever have been, had not this incident fallen in y*" 
 way- 
 
 2 AN INVOICE OF PLANTATION, HOUSEHOLD, AND 
 PERSONAL SUPPLIES 
 
 Invoice of goods ordered of his London factors, July, 1767. MS. copy 
 in Washington's handwriting in the Library of Congress, George 
 Washington Papers, vol. xvii, lo-ii. 
 
 Invoice of Goods to be sent by Robert Gary, Esqr. 
 & Co. [London], for the uses of George Washington - 
 Potomack River -Virginia - viz. 
 
 6 Strong and Secret pad- 
 locks - middle size. 
 
 I Steel Slay -proper for 
 weaving Sale Cloth No. 3. 
 
 I pr. Weavers pickers. 
 
 1 pr. Ditto Shears. 
 
 4 pr. Clothiers Cards. 
 6 pr. Coarse Wool Do. 
 4 frying panns-viz-2 large 
 -I middle size-& i very small. 
 
 2 Iron Skillets - i to hold 2 
 Quarts - the other 3 Quarts 
 
 1 Hunting Horn 
 12 pr. Dog Couples 
 
 2 best knitting Needles sorted 
 -not to be made of Brass. 
 
 6 pr. best Sheep Shears 
 2 best trap Cocks -common 
 size. 
 
 4 best Carpenters broad Axes 
 4 Ditto Ditto Adzes. 
 6 Do. Do. Claw Hammers 
 
 6 Do. Do. large & Strg. 
 Compasses 
 
 6 two feet Rules - 
 6 knots of Chalk line 
 I Sett of Iron Scures for 
 Cooking 
 
 I Larding Pin for Do. 
 I Glaziers best Diamond n. 
 y. point Md. 
 
 M. common brass Nails 
 
 Sett, of pinking Irons 
 
 Tap borer 
 
 large Funnels 
 
 Quart Tinn Canns 
 
 small CofFee Pot of Black 
 
 6 
 I 
 I 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 Tinn 
 
 2 Chocolate Do. of Do. i 
 large & other Small. 
 
 I Dozn. Tinn Sheets 
 
 200 Needles proper for 
 Works & Stitch 
 
 100 fathom of Deep-Sea Line
 
 PLANTATION SUPPLIES 
 
 297 
 
 6 cords of Drum Line. 
 70 Yds Russia Sheets, a 1/6. 
 white 
 
 2 pc. Russia Drab, or Drill 
 200 Ells of Rolls a 4d. 
 I piece of Buckram - 
 
 1 dozn. fine Cambk. Pockt. 
 Handks. of the Chinese sorte at 
 abt. 3/6. 
 
 2 best 8 4. flanders Bed Ticks 
 with Boulsters & Pillows 
 
 2 large Mattrasses 
 
 6 lb. best Green Tea 
 
 3 lb. Do. Hyson Do. 
 
 3 lb. best flour of Mustard 
 25 lb. Jordan Almonds 
 
 10 loaves dble refind Sugar 
 10 Do. single - Do. 
 I Jarr best new Raisons. 
 I Do. Do. Do. Currn. 
 1-2 Gallon fine Sallid Oyl 
 
 4 Quart bottles of Capers 
 4 Do. Do. best french 
 
 Olives 
 
 50 lb. best white Bisquet 
 3 dble Gloucester Cheeses - 
 
 ab. 60 lb. 
 
 I Cheshire Do. ab. 40 
 
 1 Groce best bottled Porter 
 
 2 best Launets in one case 
 
 6 Common Do. each in sepe. 
 
 25 lb. Antimony 
 
 10 lb. flour of Sulpher 
 
 2 Oz. Honey Water 
 
 3 Quarts Spirit of Turpentine 
 
 2 lb. best Jesuits Bark pow- 
 dered 
 
 3 Oz. of Rhubarb Do. & put 
 into a bottle 
 
 I pint Spirit of Hartshorn 
 6 Oz. Do. of Lavender 
 6 Do. Do. Nitre 
 
 1 lb. Blistering Plaister 
 
 4 Oz. Tincture of Castor 
 8 Do. Balsam Capivi 
 1-4 Lb. Termer ick 
 
 2 lb. french Indigo (or Span- 
 ish if better for dying) 
 
 6 lb. of Braziel for Do. 
 10 . worth of gold leaf 
 10 lb. finest green paint gd. 
 in Oil 
 
 3 fine painters Brushes 
 
 3 dozn. pr. plaid Hose No. 3 
 3 dozn. pr. Do. Do. No. 4 
 
 2 best white Woolen Cirsin- 
 gles 
 
 3 Cruppers for Mens Saddles 
 
 1 ps. best Sattin Ribbon for 
 the Hair 
 
 1-4 lb Cloth coloured Sewg. 
 Silk 
 
 2 oz. Black Do. Do. 
 
 2 lb. whited brown thread 
 
 4 Oz. 6d. Do. 4 Oz. 8d. Do. 
 4 Oz. 1 2d. Do. 4 Oz. 2/. Do. 
 
 3 Oz. bleu Coventry thread I 
 Oz. very g. 
 
 6 pieces of Bobbin 6 Do. beg- 
 gars Tap. 
 
 1-2 Groce Cottn. Laces 12 
 Do. Stay Taps. 
 
 3 Quire large Elephant Paper 
 6 dozn. Packs Harry Cards 
 I handsome Pocket Book 
 (pretty large) 
 
 The 7 th. Volume of Museum 
 Rusticum
 
 298 
 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 6 pr. Womans fine Cotton 
 Hose 
 
 6 pr. Do. Do. Thread Do 
 
 6 pr. Mens large Spun Silk 
 Do. 3 to be ribd. & not to exd. 
 5/ pr. pr. 
 
 6 pr. Do. Do. W thread Do. 
 
 2 pr. Stitchd. Topd. buck 
 Gloves for a large hand (Mens) 
 
 I pr. Stoutest Buck Breeches 
 of Susanne Coleman . . . 
 4 Mens Custor Hatts-a 5/. 
 I Do. best Beaver 
 12 groce best Corks 
 25 lb. best Battle powder 
 25 lb. Do. EF .-Ditto 
 150 lb. drop Shott. No. 2 
 150 lb. large Bristol blere 
 25 lb. very small Mould Shott 
 6 blew & white Stone Cham- 
 ber Potts 
 
 3 pint stone Mugs 
 
 6 Qut. Do. Do. 3 Pottle 
 
 Do. Do. 
 
 100 Squares best Window 
 
 Glass 1 1 by 9 
 15 lb. Putty 
 20 lb. of the best kind of 
 
 Turnep Seed 
 
 1-2 Bushel of Rape Seed- 
 I dozn. Hair Sifters - 
 [The following] of Mr. Didsy. 
 
 pr. Letter. 
 
 I pr. dble. Campaign Boots 
 I pr. Do. Do. Shoes 
 I pr. strg. Calfskin Slippers 
 6 pr. Bla: Callima. pumps 
 
 20th. July 1767. 
 
 I Great Coat &c. pr. Lettr. 
 to Mr. Lawrence 
 
 [The following] to be bought 
 of Mr. Shelbury. 
 
 I Handsome Minioset Cap 
 Propr. to wear with a Sacque & 
 Coat by a Person abt. 35 yr. of 
 Age - Not to be a fly Cap nor to 
 exceed a Guinea 
 
 I Do. propr. to wear with a 
 Night Gown by Do. & to cost 
 only 15/. 
 
 4 yds. fine Mint. Lace a 6/. 
 for an Apn. 
 
 4 dble. Muslin Hand. n. bor- 
 ders a 4/. 
 
 I Black Barcela. Handkerchf. 
 
 12 yds Fashe. trimg. for a 
 White' Silk 
 
 6 Skeleton wires 
 
 12 ps. fine french Tape 
 
 1 ps. fine Kenting a 50/. 
 
 2 ps. Hanover Lace a 3d. 
 8 yds. blew 3d. Ribbon 
 
 8 Do. Green 3d. Do.- 8 Do. 
 Lay lock Do. . 
 
 2 Trunks exactly of ye. fol- 
 lowing Dimns. One of them two 
 feet 6 inchs. long - i foot wide — 
 & 10 inchs. deep -The other to 
 be two feet 6 Inches long- 18 
 inchs. wide - & of the same depth 
 - Both to be made of Sealskin or 
 Strong Leather, to have strg. 
 Locks, be well secured with 
 Straps, trap Plates, & Nails & G 
 W marked in the middle -to 
 have Oil Cloth Covers.- 
 
 Go. Washington.
 
 PLANTATION SUPPLIES 299 
 
 3 FLOUR, CODFISH AND VEGETABLES FROM THE 
 
 NORTH 
 
 Baton Rouge (La.) Gazette, Oct 21, 1826. Clipping from a Natchez 
 newspaper. 
 
 Apples and Irish potatoes are good things. We have 
 had good things in Natchez for the last week -Cod 
 fish and potatoes, with drawn butter and eggs ; and ap- 
 ples raw, and apple-dumplings, and apple-pies, and 
 baked apples, and roast potatoes, and potatoes boiled, 
 and hash with potatoes in it, . . . besides fresh 
 flour, and sundry other fresh articles, for which we are 
 annually indebted to the father of rivers, and one of his 
 elder boys ; all these things have presented themselves 
 to our delightful palates within the last few days. - It is 
 unnecessary to say that the Mississippi has risen, and is 
 still rising; and it will not influence Dame Fortune or 
 her daughter Miss F. Whether we wish high or wish 
 low. - Sufficient for the day are the good things thereof. 
 
 4 CAUSE OF THE HIGH RATES OF PLANTERS' 
 SUPPLIES 
 
 "Diary of Edward Hooker 1805-1808" [South Carolina], in American 
 Historical Association's Report for 1896, 859. 
 
 Saturday, Nov. i6th. . . Inquiring the reason 
 why European goods are sold so much higher in this 
 state than at the Northward, I was informed that the 
 Merchants of Carolina are less punctual, and more fre- 
 quently bankrupts - that the planters have money only 
 once a year, viz. after selling their crops, - and of course 
 the merchants trust a great deal. . .
 
 300 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 5 DEARTH OF SHOPS INCONVENIENT 
 
 "Extracts from the Dairy of Col. Landon Carter," in William and Mary 
 College Quarterly, vol. xiii, 47 and 158, and vol. xiv, 42-43 and 183. 
 
 March 24, 1770. I can borrow no candles at Bever- 
 ley's &, if Thompson's purchase from Norfolk don't 
 come up soon, we must be contented to sit in the dark, 
 which I get by lending candles myself. Mr. Carter, of 
 Corotoman, had two boxes containing better than 5 
 gross. Mr. Parker had some dozen, but these are gen- 
 tlemen who only think of favors when they want 
 them. . . 
 
 January 26, 1771. Yesterday sent Sam on foot to 
 Rippon Hall, and so to Town to get subscription Papers 
 printed for the establishing a Store to accommodate the 
 planter with goods above 50 [per] cent than he has yet 
 bought them at. . . 
 
 May 2, 1774. Billy Beale gone with my cart to fetch 
 my goods from Lewis' at Monday's Point. In this af- 
 fair Major Mottison, as they call him, has shewed him- 
 self just such another hypocritical fellow as his brother 
 William ; promising services, and even boasting of them, 
 but so far from performing as even to do injuries in their 
 stead. This monster was over solicitous to send these 
 goods to my own Landing, tho' I only desired him to 
 land where he pleased and let me know when. And in- 
 stead of doing one thing that he promised, he has landed 
 them as far as they could be landed from me without 
 sending out of the ship's way, and never so much as send- 
 ing me word when or where they were landed ; and after 
 five or six weeks I by accident have heard where they 
 were, and I suppose they may have been Pillaged. Ras- 
 cals indeed!
 
 PLANTATION SUPPLIES 301 
 
 6 COMPLAINTS AGAINST FACTORS, FOREIGN AND 
 
 LOCAL 
 
 (a) Letter of George Washington, August, 1770, to his London fac- 
 tors. MS. copy in George Washington's handwriting in the Library 
 of Congress, George Washington Papers, vol. xvii, 48-49. 
 
 August 1770. 
 To - Robert Gary Esqr. & Co., Mercht. in London. 
 Gentn: This Letter accompanies my Invoices for 
 Potomack and York Rivers as also Mr. & Miss. Custis's 
 - Agreeable to the several Orders therein containd you 
 will please to dispatch the Goods & by the first Ships 
 bound to the respective Rivers -Those for Potomack 
 will come I hope by a more careful hand than the last 
 did as I neither receivd the Goods nor Letters by 
 Captn. Saunderson till the middle of June nor coud ever 
 discover in what Ship - by what Captn. - or to what 
 part of the Country they came (the duplicate by Peter- 
 son giving no insight into any of these matters but left 
 me in full belief that the Ship was lost as such a length 
 of time had elapsd between the date of your Letter and 
 the receipt of it) - In short I do not know to this hour 
 how the Goods came to this River as it was by Accident 
 I heard they were stored at Boyds hole about 60 Miles 
 from this place and was obligd to send for them at my 
 own expence which will often happen if they are sent 
 into any other River than the one they are destind to, 
 but why this shoud have been the case in the Instance 
 before us I am at a loss to guess as there were two Ships 
 Saild from London to Potomack after Johnstown did; 
 and a little before or nearly the time of the date of your 
 letter by Saunderson, to wit, Grig in the service of 
 MoUeson and Walker belonging to Debert's, Lee, & 
 Sayre. 
 When I opened the Packages a piece of Duf!ield
 
 302 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 chargd £4. 13s was found eaten to a honey comb (by 
 Moth) -Whether this was the effect of long lying or 
 carelessness of the Woolen Draper I shall not undertake 
 to determine but certain it is, that I shall not be able to 
 get a single Garment out of the whole piece - By Mer- 
 chants more accustomd to ye importation of Goods than 
 I am, I have been told that it must have been packd 
 up in the order I receivd it, as there is no such thing 
 as Moths eating in a close Parcel - If this really was the 
 case, it is a species of Dealing which does not reflect 
 much honr. upon the reputation of Messr. Mauduit 
 Wright & Co. 
 
 By Captn. Peterson I have Shipd you 32 hhds. of 
 Mr. Custis's Tobo. and all mine consisting of 17 more, 
 the Sales of which I hope and flatter myself will be 
 equal to other Tobacco's made in the same Neighbour- 
 hood ; but which give me leave to add, has not been the 
 case hitherto notwithstanding you seem to think that 
 I cannot be otherwise than pleased with the last Acct. 
 you rendered. 
 
 That II i-2d. a lb. is such a price as a Planter (in a 
 tolerable good year) may afford to make Tobacco for, I 
 shall not deny; but it does not follow as a consequence 
 that I should be satisfied therewith in behalf of myself 
 & Ward when a Succession of short Crops have given a 
 Universal start to Tobo. and when I know (if the verac- 
 ity of some Gentlemen with whom I conversed at Wil- 
 liamsburg when I was down there last is to be credited) 
 that other Crops made in York & James City Counties 
 not six miles from Mr. Custis's Plantation & mine have 
 sold at i2d. & 12 1-2 p. lb; and the common transfer 
 Tobo. a large proportion of which we pay towards the 
 support of a Minister in York County, when prizd and 
 Shipd to London fetchd i2d so, and what reason can be
 
 PLANTATION SUPPLIES 303 
 
 assignd then for my being pleasd with i id & 11 1-2 
 (averaging about £12 a hhd.) when the commonest 
 Arronoko Tobo. fetchd this in evry Port in Great 
 Britain I know not; as it is by someone presumable, that 
 the Tobacco which Mr. Valentine now makes, & Stems 
 a fourth or a third of in order to make it good, shoud be 
 of Inferior quality to the general run of purchasd To- 
 baco., or worse than that which he himself has applied 
 to the payment of the Minister's Salery; to do which, 
 and to answer all other Publick Claims it is well known 
 that the most indifferent of our (Inspected) Tobo. is 
 always appropriated- Upon the whole, the repeated 
 disappointments which I meat with has reduced me to 
 a delemma which I am not very well reconcild to - To 
 decline a Correspondance either altogether or in part 
 which has subsisted for so many years is by no means 
 my Inclination; and to persevere in a Consignment 
 which seems to lend to the prejudice of myself and 
 Ward, not only in the Sales of our Tobacco, but the pur- 
 chase of Goods, is hardly to be expected. 
 
 That my Goods are for the most part exceedingly dear 
 bought and the directions which are given for the choice 
 of Particular Articles not always attended to, I have no 
 scruples in declaring -The first is no otherwise to be 
 proved than by a comparison of the prices & quality - 
 The second is to be evincd by numberless instances, two 
 of which I shall give as the most recent and Important - 
 Having occasion for Window Glass for a House I was 
 building I sent for my quantity 9 by 11; and got it in 
 8 by 10 -this was a considerable disappointment, & no 
 small disadvantage to me, but not equal to the one that 
 followd upon the Heels of it: I mean the Chariot, which 
 I begd might be made of well seasond materials, and 
 by a masterly Workman ; instead of which, it was made
 
 304 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 of wood so exceedingly Green that the Pannels slipd out 
 of the mouldings before it was two months in use - Split 
 from one end to the other - and became so open at the 
 joints, tho every possible care was taken of it, that I ex- 
 pect very little further Service from it with all the 
 Repairs I can bestow. 
 
 Besides this we frequently have slight goods & some- 
 times old & unsaleable articles put of upon us, and at 
 such advanced Prices that one would be Inclind to think 
 the Tradesmen did not expect to be paid in part for 
 them ; for it is a fact incontestably true that Linnens & 
 other Articles that have their prices proportiond to 
 their respective qualities, are to be bought in the Factors 
 Stores here almost as cheap as we Import them, after the 
 Merchant has laid on a sufficient advance for his profit - 
 Disagreeable it is to me to mention these things to you, 
 but when it is considered that my own dealings are con- 
 find wholly, & my Wards principally to your House, it 
 is not to be wondered at that I shoud be dissatisfied with 
 ill bought Goods, or a more indifft. price for Tobo. than 
 is given to my Neighbours. 
 
 I am very glad that by meeting with Colo. Stewart 
 you have got quit of the troublesome Doctr. McLean - 
 the Nett sum of £302 I shoud have been very well con- 
 tent to have received, as I lent this money to that Gen- 
 tleman to be returnd or not, as it suited his convenience; 
 never expecting or desiring a farthing of Interest for 
 the use of it. 
 
 You will perceive in looking over the several Invoices 
 that some of the Goods there required, are upon con- 
 dition that the Act of Parliament Imposing a Duty upon 
 Tea, Paper &c. for the purpose of raising a Revenue 
 in America is totally repeald ; & I beg the favour of you 
 to be governd strictly thereby, as it will not be in my
 
 PLANTATION SUPPLIES 305 
 
 power to receive any Articles contrary to our Non-Im- 
 portation Agreement to which I have Subscribe!, & shall 
 Religiously adhere to, if it was, as I coud wish it to be, 
 ten times as strict. I am Gentn. Yr. Most Hble. Servt. 
 Mount Vernon, Augt. 20th. 1770. Go. Washington. 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of George Mason, from his estate, Gunston 
 Hall, on the Potomac River, May 22, 1792, to his son John at Norfolk, 
 Va. Rowland, K. M. Life of George Mason (New York, 1892), 
 vol. ii, 357-358- 
 
 . . . As I shall forward this letter by the first post, 
 I am in hopes it will find you in Norfolk, and shall 
 therefore trouble you with the execution of a piece of 
 business there, which though at first a trifle, is by the un- 
 expected delay I have met with in it, now become an 
 object of considerable importance to me. I wanted a 
 few, a hundred feet of cypress scantling for the columns, 
 rails, ballusters &c of the piazzas and steps to your 
 brother Thomson's house. None of this scantling being 
 large, it might, I dare say at any time have been pro- 
 cured in a fortnight, if attention had been paid to it. 
 About this time twelve month or sooner, I wrote to Mr. 
 John Brent and enclosed him an exact bill of this scant- 
 ling and at the same time a memorandum of a large 
 quantity of shingles I wanted, and desiring to know if 
 they could be got at Norfolk so as to be landed here in 
 the course of last summer or fall. I limited the price of 
 the shingles, but as the quantity of cypress scantling was 
 small I limited no price to that, but desired Mr. Brent 
 to have it got as soon as he could, and sent up by the first 
 vessel to Potomac river, to be landed about five or six 
 miles below Alexandria, just at the upper end of Gen- 
 eral Washington's estate, and a very little below the 
 large Pocorson, that runs from the mouth of Great 
 Hunting Creek two or three miles down the river. Mr. 
 Brent wrote me that the shingles could not be procured
 
 3o6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 at the price I had limited, but that I might depend upon 
 the scantling's being immediately got and sent up by the 
 first vessel, at all events in the course of the summer 
 (viz. : last summer) . It not coming, I have wrote re- 
 peatedly to Mr. Brent, twice this spring per post, but 
 have had no answer. The captain of the packet from 
 Alexandria to Norfolk was desired to speak to Mr. 
 Brent about it. Mr. Brent told him the scantling was 
 got, but had not been brought to Norfolk but that it 
 should be at Norfolk, ready for the packet when she 
 came down the next trip. The next trip the same excuse 
 was made and the same promise repeated. In short I 
 find Mr. Brent so careless and inattentive a man that no 
 dependence or confidence can be placed in him. When 
 the packet was at Alexandria some time ago your 
 brother Thomson gave the captain a bill of this scant- 
 ling, and desired the captain if when he went next to 
 Norfolk Mr. Brent had not the scantling then ready for 
 him to depend no longer upon him, but to have the 
 scantling got and brought to Norfolk himself and bring 
 it up with him. The packet went from Alexandria a 
 few days ago, and is now, I suppose, at Norfolk, where 
 perhaps she may continue some time. I have lately got 
 all the shingles, which with all the weather boarding 
 are ready to put up. The house will be raised next week, 
 and I am in danger of having the building stopped, 
 and half a dozen workmen upon my hands, doing 
 nothing, for want of this small quantity of cypress scant- 
 ling, without which the piazzas can't be raised. What 
 I have therefore to beg of you is to inquire immediately 
 of Mr. Brent and the captain of the packet, and if 
 neither of them have already had the scantling got that 
 you will endeavor to have it got with all possible expedi- 
 tion, and sent up by the packet now there, or if this can't
 
 PLANTATION SUPPLIES 307 
 
 be done, by the packet next trip, or by any other vessel 
 which may happen to be coming to Alexandria soon. 
 
 7 AN EFFICIENT FACTOR AND BROKER IN 
 CHARLESTON 
 
 Advertisement of his business by Abraham Seixas, in the South Carolina 
 State Gazette, Sept. 6, 1784. Reprinted by B. A. Elzas. The Jews 
 of South Carolina, 129, 130. 
 
 ABRAHAM SEIXAS, 
 All so gracious. 
 Once again does offer 
 His service pure 
 For to secure 
 Money in the coffer. 
 
 He has for sale 
 
 Some negroes, male. 
 
 Will suit full well grooms, 
 
 He has likewise 
 
 Some of their wives 
 
 Can make clean, dirty rooms. 
 
 For planting too, 
 
 He has a few 
 
 To sell, all for the cash. 
 
 Of various price. 
 
 To work the rice. 
 
 Or bring them to the lash. 
 
 The young ones true. 
 
 If that will do. 
 
 May some be had of him 
 
 To learn your trade 
 
 They may be made. 
 
 Or bring them to your trim.
 
 3o8 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 The boatmen great, 
 
 Will you elate 
 
 They are so brisk and free; 
 
 What e'er you say, 
 
 They will obey, 
 
 If you buy them of me. 
 
 He also can 
 
 Suit any man 
 
 With land all o'er the state; 
 
 A bargain sure, 
 
 they may procure 
 
 If they dont stay too late. 
 
 For papers he 
 
 Will sure agree, 
 
 Bond, note or publick debt; 
 
 To sell the same 
 
 If with good name 
 
 And buyer can be met. 
 
 To such of those 
 
 As will dispose 
 
 He begs to them to tell; 
 
 By note or Phiz, 
 
 What e'er it is 
 
 That they have got to sell. 
 
 He surely will 
 
 Try all his skill 
 
 To sell, for more or less, 
 
 The articles 
 
 Of beaux and belles, 
 
 That they to him address.
 
 VI. PLANTATION VICISSITUDES 
 
 I LOSSES BY DISEASE AND ACCIDENTS AMONG THE 
 
 SLAVES 
 
 (a) Journal and Letters of Eliza Lucas (Wormsloe, 1850), 16. Ex- 
 tract from a letter of March 15, 1760, from a plantation near Charles- 
 ton. 
 
 . . . A great cloud seems at present to hang over 
 this province we are continually insulted by the Indians 
 in our back settlements and a violent kind of small pox 
 rages in Ch" Town that almost puts a stop to all busi- 
 ness sev^ of those I have to transact business with are 
 fled into the country but by the Divine Grace I hope a 
 month or two will change the prospect, we expect 
 shortly troops from General Amherst w"*" I trust will 
 be able to manage these savage enemies and y^ small 
 pox as it does not spread in y^ Country must soon be 
 over for want of subjects I am now at Belmont to keep 
 my people out of the way of y^ violent distemper for 
 the poor blacks have died very fast even by inoculation 
 but the people in Ch" Town were inoculation mad I 
 think I may well call it and rushed into it with such 
 precipitation y* I think it impossible they could have 
 had either a proper preparation or attendance had there 
 been lo Docf^' in town to i - the Doct" could not help 
 it the people would not be said nay. . . 
 
 (b) Letter of Jonas Smith, overseer on a plantation in central Georgia, 
 Aug. 25, 1852, to his employer. Col. J. B. Lamar, Macon, Ga. MSS. 
 of this and the three following in the possession of Mrs. A. S. Erwin, 
 Athens, Ga. 
 
 Yours of the 17th came duly to hand Bringing nuse 
 that you had bin Sick & was yet unwell the Efifects of
 
 3IO AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 comin to Sumpter So late In the Season I Suppose. I 
 hav bin Sick Since you left hear myself twice about too 
 weeks but was only confined on the bed for 4 days I am 
 up at presant but not much acount The Negrowes on 
 this place Is verry Sickly & hav bin all the while since 
 you Left us & the d [is] eases Is growin wors all the while 
 as well as the attacks more numorous 18 on the Sick list 
 today 16 of that nombr Field hands too out of the croud 
 Bilious fever & very Bad caises the Ballance chils & 
 Fevers. Those that are out some of them unwell & un- 
 able to doo much all of them has Bin Sick & some of 
 them has Bin sick twice & Several of them down the 
 third time I hav so much Rain that It Is a hard mater 
 to get one of them well As Soon as one Gets out It 
 Rains on him or he Is In a large due or in a mud hole & 
 Back he comes again this Is the way I'm getting on & I 
 call this Rather Bad luck At least Getting on Slowley 
 I hav used 2^ Gallons caster oile & ^ Gallon Sprts 
 turpentine & 4 ounces quinine up to the presant I am 
 doin the best I can with them Barron has Bin hear 15 
 Times. . . yours Truly, JONAS SMITH. 
 
 P.S. Since I commenced Riting 4 hands hav come 
 to the house with fever makes 20 field hands down. I 
 nearly hav a chill my Self. 
 
 (c) Same to same. Oct. 5, 1852. 
 
 Dear Sir : I a Gain Rite & will Inform you that we are 
 all on the Land of the Living & all up & Hailing corn at 
 presant Except 3 hands are sick some we want to Get 
 done Geathering corn this week & the crop of corn will 
 not be a Large one but enough to doo on I Recon I hav 
 not Picked much cotton since I Rote last But think that 
 I hav open at this time 75 Bales & am doing my best to 
 Get to picking The cotton Is most all open that we shall 
 make this year Some of my hogs are fine & others not
 
 PLANTATION VICISSITUDES 311 
 
 so fat they hav a plenty & If they dont faten It will be 
 ther fault. 
 
 I am behind with my work But If all stay at home & 
 reap well we will come on slowley after a while 
 
 Levi Is out yet I hav not heard from him Lewis 
 wants to Go they hate to work Badly I am your obdnt 
 Servent 
 
 P.S. If you See any man about Macon that wold 
 hire to Go on ther plantation & Gave a Good price & a 
 heathy place Tell them that I am in the field unless all 
 these things I will doe nothing. 
 
 (d) Same to same. Oct. i8, 1852. 
 
 Dear Sir : I Shall Rite Short as my head Ackes Badly 
 we hav fine weather at presant I Finished Geathering 
 corn on the 9th of this month & hav bin Geathering cot- 
 ton since that time Since I Rote you last We hav had 
 12 field hands sick & hav six at presant & perhaps To- 
 morrow we may hav 10 or we may hav Three on the sick 
 list as Some come In others Go out & under such mis- 
 fortunes we hav to Labour we hav had so much sick- 
 ness that the Negrowes have become weak & feble & Is 
 Subject to chills avery change of weather I hav out 48 
 or 50 Bales & hav but Little Else to Doe now but pick 
 & am d[o]ing my Best & that Is but little But I hope 
 to Get along beter after a litle as the weather Gets 
 cooler. I have 300 acres of cotton that Is perfectly 
 white & I think on the 300 acres that ther must be 20 
 Bales on the Ground Blowed out by a Storm on the 9th 
 of this month the Blow was Great I cannot pick so 
 much since the Storm as I cold hav done provided the 
 Storm had not come My crop of cotton Is beter than 
 I thought once It cold Ever bee 
 
 Some people Say my crop Is Good for 175 Bales But 
 I must think that Rather High prahaps 150 will be
 
 312 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 about the nomber There Is Rite Smart of the article 
 about hear & If It Rains In Six weaks we Shall Loose a 
 Great Deal of that which Is on the Ground 
 
 How wold It doo to Send for help If I had lo or 
 12 Good hands as we hav had Such Despert Luck In 
 the way of Sicness 
 
 I can Geather the crop But not In time 150 or 60 Is 
 as much as I Ever Saived By Christmas & cannot Save 
 any more I hav Lost as much as 4 weaks with 20 hands 
 this fall or I Shold hav had out 80 or 90 Bales by this 
 time 
 
 If Mr Buckner cold Spare Some hands I cold Im- 
 ploye them profitable But you are the best Judge of 
 these things. 
 
 (e) Letter of Stancil Barwick, overseer on a plantation near Americus, 
 Ga., July 15, 1855, to his employer, Col, J. B. Lamar, Macon, Ga. 
 
 Dear Sir: I received your letter on yesterday ev'ng 
 was vary sorry to hear that you had heard that I was 
 treating your Negroes so cruely. Now sir I do say to 
 you in truth that the report is false thear is no truth in 
 it. No man nor set of men has ever seen me mistreat one 
 of the Negroes on the Place. Now as regards the wimin 
 loosing children, treaty lost one it is true. I never heard 
 of her being in that way until she lost it. She was at the 
 house all the time, I never made her do any work at all. 
 She said to me in the last month that she did not know 
 she was in that way her self untill she lost the child. As 
 regards Louisine she was in the field it is true but she 
 was workt as she please. I never said a word to her in 
 any way at all untill she com to me in the field and said 
 she was sick. I told her to go home. She started an on 
 the way she miscarried. She was about five months 
 gone. This is the true statement of case. Now sir a pon 
 my word an honnor I have tride to carry out your wishes
 
 PLANTATION VICISSITUDES 313 
 
 as near as I possibly could doo. Ever since I have been 
 on the place I have not been to three neighbours houses 
 since I have been hear I com hear to attend to my Busi- 
 niss I have done it faithfully the reports that have been 
 sent must have been carried from this Place by Negroes 
 the fact is I have made the Negro men work an made 
 them go strait that is what is the matter an is the reason 
 why that my Place is talk of the settlement. I have 
 found among the Negro men two or three hard cases an 
 I have had to deal rite Ruff but not cruly at all. Among 
 them Abram has been as triflin as any man on the place. 
 Now sir what I have wrote you is truth an it cant be dis- 
 puted by no man on earth. 
 
 N.B. As regards my crop of corn I think I will 
 make a plenty to doo the Place next year my cotton is 
 injured by the wate weather an lice the weed is large 
 enough but nothing on it. I will [be] done working 
 it a week or ten days from this time. 
 
 (f ) Letter of Stephen Newman,, overseer of Thorn Island Plantation, 
 Screven County, Ga., Feb. 28, 1837, to his employer, Miss Mary 
 Telfair, Savannah. MSS. of this and the two following in the pos- 
 session of the Georgia Historical Society, trustee for the Telfair 
 Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah. 
 
 Since riting to Mrs Haig on the -22 -of this inst 
 I have received your letter of the 24 - inst - and your 
 direction to remove York and his daughter was imme- 
 diately complide with. I am Sorry to say that your 
 woman, Eave, is very sick with the pluracy- 1 have but 
 little hopes of her recovery - however the Doct say if she 
 lives - 2 - days longer he will have a hope of her recov- 
 ery - 1 would recommend you to have all the Negroes 
 removed to the Mills [another plantation owned by 
 Miss Telfair in the adjacent county of Burke] where it 
 is more healthy -with the Stock &c-and the land is 
 more adapted to the culture of Corn and Cotton, for if
 
 314 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 you will examine the Journal of the years work you will 
 see from the great loss of time from Sickness and the 
 deaths of so many fine Negroes that there can be but 
 very little profit made at the Thornisland plantation - 
 if the Negroes all worked at the Mills the profits would 
 be greater and the expense less. We have had a spell of 
 very cold bad wet weather and the greater part of the 
 plantation inundated with water - which, I think, is the 
 cause of its being so very Sickly your umble sert 
 
 Stephen Newman. 
 I have kept the houses all repaired and well washed 
 out with lime - the Spring of Water where they all use 
 out of is in fine condition with every thing else to pro- 
 mote health - But to prevent Sickness and Death I can- 
 not - but truly sorry for the loss - Doct Bailey in our 
 neighbourhood has lost six with the same complaint and 
 I have lost one and have four under the nurse. 
 
 (g) Extract from a letter of Elisha Cain, overseer on Retreat Planta- 
 tion, Jefferson County, Ga., Jan. i6, 1830, to his employer, Alexander 
 Telfair, Savannah. 
 
 I have generly attended the sick on this Plantation 
 with as good success as I could expect and have been so 
 fortunate as to keep clear of the Doctors bills this two 
 years but your Negros have a disease now a mong them 
 that I am fully at a Loss to know what I had best to do. 
 Two of them are down with the venereal disease, Die 
 and Sary. Doctor Jenkins has been attending Die four 
 weeks and very Little alteration as I can Learn. It is 
 very hard to get the truth but from what I can learn 
 Sary got it from Friday. I have got Mr. B rough ton 
 now to Doctor them that are yet to take it as I have been 
 informed he is a ver}^ good hand. 
 
 [At the foot of the letter is the following note, writ- 
 ten in a contemporary hand, with an illegible signature, 
 probably by Alexander Telfair]
 
 PLANTATION VICISSITUDES 315 
 
 Friday is the House Servant sent to Retreat every 
 summer. ITiave all the servants examined before they 
 leave Savannah. 
 
 (h) Letter of J. N. Bethea, overseer of Retreat Plantation, Jefferson 
 County, Ga., May i, 1859, to his employer, W. B. Hodgson, Savan- 
 nah. 
 
 Mrs. Baily came up this evening to see Coteler. She 
 says that she thinks that Coteler can be cured and she 
 is willing to try her which she would not do if she did 
 not think the woman could be cured. She wants Coteler 
 at her house where she can give her constant attention. 
 She thinks that good nursing is very essential in her 
 case. She also wishes to feed her with such nourishment 
 as she thinks will suit her case thinks that such as we 
 feed with too heavy a diet. She speaks of curing cases 
 which she thought equally as bad but probably not of 
 such long standing. She thinks $20 too little for curing 
 the woman, of course she will charge something for 
 feeding her. I tride to draw out of her what she would 
 charge for her nourishments, as she termes it, but she 
 said that she had not thought of that matter and could 
 not make any charge then. She will not take hold in the 
 way your propose (no cure no pay) but says she is will- 
 ing to do her best on her and then be paid for what she 
 has done. The boy who goes with her would carry his 
 provisions and be at no expe[n]ce. (Coteler's Boy who 
 would go to wait on his mother) . 
 
 (i) Federal Union (Milledgeville, Ga.), Sept. 17, 1834. News item. 
 
 Cholera in Savannah. - Letters from Savannah by 
 last evening's mail, state on the seventh instant, that 
 there was an amelioration of the disease on Major 
 Wightman's plantation. The following is an extract of 
 a letter from the overseer to the agent in this city: - "I 
 am sorry to state that the Cholera rages, but not so vio-
 
 3i6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 lent as at first - many of the cases are very moderate and 
 easily subdued - a few are violent as at first - one woman 
 died last night, after four hours sickness. It is unneces- 
 sary to move the negroes to the pine land, as one old man 
 who stayed there was attacked, went out of the house 
 and was found at his last gasp in three or four hours 
 afterwards - but I have distributed the negroes about in 
 the church, barns, mills etc. and have taken every meas- 
 ure to prevent them from taking the disease, Between 
 that and the plantation there has been no communica- 
 tion except myself going to see them, and an old fellow 
 who carries milk to the children. The man who died 
 had not been at the plantation for three months. 
 
 The reports of the negroes having eaten rotten corn, 
 putrid meat, etc. are all without foundation, as they are 
 well fed with sound provisions, and are supplied with 
 good water. A committee of physicians from Savan- 
 nah, have visited the plantation, and expressed their sat- 
 isfaction at the appearance of the provisions. 
 
 The total number of cases amounts to fifty-three, out 
 of which eighteen have died. 
 
 (j) Federal Union, Sept. 14, 1834. Clipping from the Charleston 
 Courier. News item dated Savannah, Sept, 9. 
 
 The Cholera has spread in every direction. Of the 
 sufferers, Mr. Merchant is in proportion to the num- 
 ber of hands, the greatest. On Mr. J. P. Williamson's 
 Swamp plantation, three were taken on Sunday, and all 
 died. He has abandoned his crops at Clifton, and 
 moved to his pine lands, leaving six at Clifton too ill to 
 be removed. It is now at Barclay's Gordon's, Potter's, 
 Young's and in fact on almost every plantation on the 
 River as low down as Mr. Petigru's. A letter says, the 
 state of things at Mr. Merchant's is awful indeed. The 
 person in charge is complaining that he cannot attend
 
 PLANTATION VICISSITUDES 317 
 
 to all the sick. In nearly every case that has proved 
 fatal, the people became cold and pulseless in one or 
 two hours. At Brampton, eight cases, since Monday, 
 two extremely ill. God only knows what is best to be 
 done. I have just received a letter from Mr. Sharpe, 
 stating three deaths to-day, with many severe cases. He 
 has commenced moving Mr. Potter's people. 
 
 (k) Red River Republican (Alexandria, La.), Aug. 3, 1850. News 
 item. 
 
 The Cholera at Pointe Coupee. - We regret, says the 
 Pointe Coupee Echo of the 20th. ult., that our duty to 
 the community, as a public journalist, compels us to 
 announce the appearance of the Cholera in our Parish; 
 eighteen or twenty cases have occurred of a fatal char- 
 acter on the plantation of the late Colonel Charles 
 Morgan, and two on that of Mr. Louis Porche. 
 
 (1) Red River Republican (Alexandria, La.), March i6, 1850. News 
 item. 
 
 Inundated. Owing to a break in the levee on the 
 Mississippi, a considerable portion of the lands on the 
 Ouachita, Tensas, Little and Black Rivers have been 
 inundated. That portion of the country has for several 
 years escaped all the casualties that other portions of the 
 State have been more or less afflicted with. It has en- 
 joyed almost uninterrupted health, and generally pro- 
 duced the finest cotton crops in the State, neither high 
 water nor any other cause interfering to prevent its fer- 
 tile fields from yielding a rich harvest. But its turn has 
 come, and from being the most favored, it has now be- 
 come the most afflicted portion of the State. The Chol- 
 era and high water have both visited it this season. 
 
 The town of Trinity, situated at the junction of the 
 above rivers, has suffered severely from the Cholera. 
 The Advocate, published there, gives the names of the
 
 31 8 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 following persons who in a few days fell victims to the 
 awful scourge: A. J. Barr, James Hagan, Reuben T. 
 Thoms, Wm. Guice, John Ronton, Mrs. Martha Ron- 
 ton, his wife, and Miss J. A. Ronton, their daughter. 
 The Advocate after stating that the ravages of the dis- 
 ease is now stayed, sadly adds: 
 
 "In addition to the awful visitation that has shrouded 
 our lately thriving and lively town in woe, we are nearly 
 overflowed by high water, and have before us the dark 
 and gloomy prospect of a complete inundation. The 
 river is nearly as high now as it was in '44, and none 
 doubt but that it will be much higher. 
 
 The pictures of sorrow and ruin are exhibited in 
 striking features to our view. May He who tempers 
 the breeze to the tender condition of incipient life, re- 
 lieve us from the burthen of affliction that now weighs 
 heavily upon us." 
 
 (ra) Letter of James Habersham, Savannah, Ga., July 8, 1772, to Wm. 
 Knox, London. MS. copy in the possession of the Georgia Historical 
 Society, printed in the Georgia Historical Society's Collections, vol. 
 vi, 192, 193. 
 
 Dear Sir: The 13th Ultimo I wrote you a pretty 
 long Letter, which was forwarded by the Georgia 
 Planter Capt Inglis, who sailed the 14th Instant, since 
 which your Overseer (Griffin) has been with me, and 
 informs me. That on Tuesday Evening the 14th Instant 
 about 8 oclock, the chimney of the dwelling House at 
 Knoxborough was struck with Lightning, which 
 brought it down even with the Eves of the House, and 
 killed one of the 2 Boys, last bought for you, who was 
 near the Chimney - This was a very fine Lad, and I sup- 
 pose wou'd have sold for 50 or £60 -Griffin with an 
 old Man and Woman was just sitting down to Supper, 
 which was spoiled by the Room being filled with Smoak 
 and Dust, with which, as he says, they were almost suf-
 
 PLANTATION VICISSITUDES 319 
 
 focated - 1 am very sorry for this Accident, at which I 
 hope and believe you will not repine as Providence has 
 highly favoured you hitherto in the preservation of 
 your People - Your Crop is in a very flourishing state, 
 I am afraid too much so, as I dread the Rice lodging - 
 I have been very busy in making up Gov: Wright's 
 Accounts, and probably your Account may be the next I 
 settle - The Weather is extremely hott, and fatigues 
 me very much. Doctor Johnson has been out to one of 
 my Plantations, and tells me, that a most valuable Ne- 
 gro and excellent Planter named Jacob, is very ill and 
 he thinks he will scarcely recover his Attack of a Fever, 
 The fellow is my Driver at Dean Forest, and cou'd I 
 preserve his Life I wou'd not take any Money for him, 
 not even £150 Sterl'g, but I have been used to these 
 Losses. . . 
 
 (n) Louisiana Courier (New Orleans), March 3, 1828. Local news 
 item. 
 
 Yesterday towards one o'clock P.M. as one of the Ferry 
 boats was crossing the river, with 16 slaves on board, 
 belonging to General Wade Hampton, with their bag- 
 gage, a few rods distance from the shore, the negroes 
 being frightened by the motion of the boat, all threw 
 themselves on the same side, which caused the boat to 
 fill, and notwithstanding the prompt assistance af- 
 forded, three or four of these unfortunates perished. 
 
 2 BAD SEASONS AND SLAVE RUNAWAYS 
 
 (a) Letter of Joseph Valentine, manager of the Custis estate on York 
 River, Va., Aug. 24, 1771, to George Washington. Hamilton, S. M., 
 editor. Letters to JVashington (Boston, 1898-1902), vol. iv, 81, 82. 
 
 Sir : The last time I Rote to you I acquainted you with 
 the misfortain of our Crops Being drounded & over- 
 done with the wet and now it is ass Bad the other way 
 we have had no Rain Sence to do any Service to the
 
 320 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Corn or tobacco & it Burns up for being over done with 
 the wet before it Cannot stand the drouth now the Corn 
 Cannot Shoot out nor fill the tobacco the Roots of it 
 was So mutch Sobd and overdone with the Rain before 
 that the drouth Burns it up at the Bottom & fires at 
 Sutch a Rate that I Can Scarsly tel what to do with it 
 and more particular on the Leavel StifJ Land wheare 
 the foundation would not let the water Sink from it 
 for Sum time it is not Quite so bad on the light or hilley 
 Land, if providence pleases to Send us a good Rain 
 in a little time I hope it will make a great alteration in 
 our Crops for the Better. Sir the young negro fellow 
 will Shag who formerly lived at old Quarter and ass he 
 was allways Runaway I moved him down heir to Settle 
 theis places and thought he might be better but he Run- 
 away Sum time in June went to Yorke and past for a 
 free man By the name of will Jones but at last was taken 
 up and put in prison and Sent a Letter up to me & I was 
 up at the Quarters in new Kent at the Same time & the 
 over Seer went down for him and Brout him up to the 
 plantation and then will Beat him and got away & he 
 Cant be got Sence I have heard he has Ben Seen on his 
 way Coming up to you and ass their is a good many of 
 his acQuaintence their he may Be harberd and no white 
 person no of it he is advertizd and out Lawd he went 
 away for no provocation in the world hot So lazey he 
 will not worke and a greater Roge is not to be foun. no 
 more to add but Remain Sir your most hble sert. 
 
 Joseph Valentine. 
 
 (b) Letter of Wm. Capers, overseer on East Hermitage plantation, 
 Savannah river, Chatham County, Ga., Nov. 14, 1861, to Charles 
 Manigault. MS. in the possession of Mrs. H. Jenkins, Pinopolis, B.C. 
 
 Dear Sir: At 9% OcL, reached here all Negroes do- 
 ing well, the three are safe, Big George, Dov. Jack, Lit-
 
 PLANTATION VICISSITUDES 321 
 
 tie George. Ishomail begged to remain ; he betrayed his 
 brother and little George. Jack caught in Back River 
 by Driver John, in the small canoe; he resisted the 
 Driver. George (big) attempted to run off in presents 
 of the entire force and in my presents. He was caught 
 by Driver John between Conveyor House and No. i 
 door. I gave him 60 straps in presents of those he ran 
 off in presents of. Everything else is as quiet as possi- 
 ble. Gentlemen be assured I will act in a calm and de- 
 termined manner; I will stand by your interests until 
 there is no more of me. I apprehend but little trouble 
 after a week or so. The three men should be sent away, 
 and if you can obtain $1000, for big George "to be sent 
 to Cuba" let him go or you will loose him; he should 
 not be among a gang of Negroes. I have not time or 
 space to write all. 
 
 3 EMBARRASSMENTS FROM DEBT 
 
 Letter of Geo. Mason, Gunston Hall, Va., Dec. 21, 1773, to George 
 Washington. Hamilton, S. M., editor. Letters to fVashington (Bos- 
 ton, 1898-1902), vol. iv, 286. 
 
 The embarrass'd Situation of my Friend Mr. Jas. 
 Mercer's Affairs gives Me much more Concern than 
 Surprize. I always feared that his Aversion to selling 
 the Lands & Slaves, in Expectation of paying the Debts 
 with the Crops & Profits of the Estate, whilst a heavy 
 Interest was still accumulating, wou'd be attended with 
 bad Consequences, independant of his Brother's Dif- 
 ficulties in England; having never, in a single Instance, 
 seen these sort of Delays answer the Hopes of the 
 Debtor. When Colo. Mercer was first married, & 
 thought in affluent circumstances by his Friends here, 
 considerable Purchases of Slaves were made for Him, 
 at high prices (& I believe mostly upon Credit) which 
 must now be sold at much less than the cost: He was
 
 322 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 originally burthened with a proportionable part of his 
 Fathers Debts : most of which, as well as the old Gen- 
 tleman's other Debts, are not only still unpaid, but must 
 be greatly increased by Interest; so that even if Colo. 
 Mercer had not incurr'd a large Debt in England, He 
 wou'd have found his Affairs here in a disagreeable 
 Situation. I have Bye me Mr. Mercer's Title-Papers 
 for his Lands on Pohick Run & on Four-mile Run, in 
 this County: which I have hitherto endeavoured to sell 
 for Him in Vain: for as he Left the Price entirely to 
 Me, I cou'd not take less for them than if they had been 
 my own. . .
 
 VII. OVERSEERS 
 
 I AN OVERSEER'S TESTIMONIAL 
 
 Letter of S. P. Myrick, Milledgeville, Ga., Sept. 19, 1854, to Col. John 
 B. Lamar, Macon. MS. in the possession of Mrs. A. S. Erwin, 
 Athens, Ga. 
 
 Dear Sir: I am requested by Mr Bagley to say to 
 you, if Mr Collins does not stay with you the next year, 
 he would like to attend to your business as overseer & 
 promises to do so faithfully or forfeit his wages. 
 
 I have had Mr Bagley for two years & look on him 
 as a good manager on a farm. I do not deem it neces- 
 sary to enter into the particulars in refference to Mr B. 
 as you would of course see him, before makeing any en- 
 gagements & you have some knowledge of him as a busi- 
 ness man, as he once done business for you. He wishes 
 you to let him know on the receipt of this & he will meet 
 you at any time you may name. . . 
 
 2 OVERSEERS WANTED 
 
 Advertisements from the South Carolina Gazette (Charleston), Jan. 6, 
 1787. 
 
 Great Encouragement will be given to an Overseer 
 of a sober industrious Character, to manage a Rice and 
 Lumber Plantation, about Thirty Miles from Charles- 
 Town; or, in Case any Person, with a few experienced 
 Sawyers, should incline to join his Hands, and under- 
 take the cutting and sawing of Lumber only, it will be 
 equally agreeable. For Information, apply to Printer. 
 Wanted : Two Overseers 
 
 One to Manage seven Pair of Sawyers, and a little
 
 3^4 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Planting; the other a Brick Yard with two Tables, both 
 already settled. They must both be well recommended 
 for being capable, sober and not passionate. 
 
 Richard Beresford. 
 St. Thomas's Parish, January i, 1767. 
 
 3 A PLANTER'S APPRENTICE 
 
 "Extracts from the Diary of Col Landon Carter" in William and 
 Mary College Quarterly, vol. xiii, 48. 
 
 April 30, 1770. Saturday . . . Billy Beale, the 
 youngest son of the late John Beale, a lad of about i8, 
 came to me Saturday on a letter I wrote to his mother. 
 He brought with him Mr. Eustace's and Mr. Edwards' 
 consent, his guardians, that he should be bound to me 
 in the place of William Ball, which the young gentle- 
 man very willingly agreed to & signed the same in- 
 dentures as to the tenor of it as Ball had signed. He is 
 to come here the 6th of May, and to serve me three years 
 for £io the year in order to be instructed in the steward- 
 ship or management of a Virginia estate. I ordered 
 him as he went to his mother's to see my lower planta- 
 tions, and bring me an account from under the hands of 
 the overseers what quantity of grounds they are tending, 
 how far they are advanced in it, what cattle they have 
 lost and what stocks are remaining. . . 
 
 4 A QUESTION OF AUTHORITY 
 
 Letter of Samuel L. Straughan, overseer on Forest Quarter plantation, 
 Virginia, to his employer, Robert Carter, of Nomoni Hall. MS. 
 among the Carter papers in the possession of the Virginia Historical 
 Society. 
 
 Mr. Carter Forist Quarter 27 September 1787. 
 
 Sir: I understand by Suckey that she has leave of you 
 
 to stay at home and wash her Clothes at any time when 
 
 she pleases & to goo to Eviry place to meeting in the
 
 OVERSEERS 32 ^ 
 
 week She pleases Let the worke bee in what condition it 
 will: for Last Saturday I hadn't bout 40 Thousand 
 hills of Tops & Blads of foder out & was very likely 
 for Rain & Did Rain & I sent for hir to Come in the 
 morning to help Secoure the foder but She Sent me 
 word that She would not come to worke that Day, & 
 that you had ordered to wash hir Cloaiths & goo to Any 
 meeting She pleased any time in the weke without my 
 leafe, & on monday when I Come to Reken with hir 
 about it She Said it was your orders & She would do it 
 in Defiance of me, I Never Refuse to Let wone of the 
 people goo to meeting If they ast my leafe, but without 
 that If they that is under me Doo Contrary to my Direc- 
 tion they will Sufer for it As one of the people is as 
 much to me as a other & I shall treat them as Such & I 
 hope if Suckey is aloud that privilige more than the 
 Rest that she will bee moved to some other place & one 
 Come in her Room. 
 
 5 THE SHORTCOMINGS OF OVERSEERS 
 
 (a) Extract from a letter of James Habersham, Savannah, Ga., Jan. 
 15, 1772, to William Knox, London, England. MS. copy in the pos- 
 session of the Georgia Historical Society, printed in the Georgia His- 
 torical Society's Collections, vol. vi. 
 
 Mr. Graham has taken pains to possess me with a 
 favourable opinion of your overseer, but I believe his 
 late conduct has made him think otherwise, and if I 
 had had some one proper to take his Place, I believe, I 
 should yesterday have turned him away -He is very 
 plausible and talkative, keeps a Journal of every days 
 work, as he says, and from it, he gave me an account of 
 60 or 70,000 shingles more than he had to deliver, 
 which made me look very foolish, after having engaged 
 them. The fact was, he had taken the Negroes Account 
 of their daily work without further examination, which
 
 3^6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 he owned, after he found me determined to resent his 
 imposing a Falsity upon me ; however I have forgiven 
 him, and have told him, if ever I find him again the 
 least prevaricating, I will instantly turn him adrift. . . 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of G. M. Salley, Hayneville, Ala., Jan. 15, 
 1836, to Thos. W. Glover, Orangeburgh, S.C., concerning Glover's 
 overseer. MS. in the possession of A. S. Salley Jr., Columbia, S.C. 
 
 The neighborhood report says the negroes pay little 
 or no attention to what he says & in one instance when he 
 told your Carpenter to carry home a basket of cotton for 
 an old woman he said if he wanted it carried he might 
 do it for he did not come there to work in the farm, & 
 left it. Now you say you and Stroman both wish me to 
 look to the business & act for you as I would do for my- 
 self. Now that would not do for I should settle with 
 such a man the next day and dismiss him & hire one 
 capable of managing the business & such an one could 
 not be got for less than 3 or $400 & perhaps more, & 
 neither of you would be willing to give such a price. 
 But be assured it is your only chance if you want to 
 make anything, for I assure you I would give such a 
 man $150 dollars to quit any time & give a good overseer 
 $500 rather than have him on a place of mine. (If re- 
 ports be correct I believe him to be perfectly harmless 
 but quite incompetent). . . 
 
 (c) "Extracts from the Diary of Col. Landon Carter" (1772-1774), 
 in William and Mary College Quarterly, vol. xiii, 220, 221 ; vol. xiv, 
 39, 40> 41, 184. 
 
 September 14, 1772. This day I went to see my plan- 
 tations under John E. Beale. I got there with Mr. Gi- 
 berne by 11 o'clock and dined there. I must observe 
 that Jack lives well; but I was sorry to see his wife act 
 the part of a fine lady in all her wearing aparell, with 
 at least two maids besides her own girl to get the dinner
 
 OVERSEERS 327 
 
 and wait upon her; but this I do suppose she did to shew 
 her respect; however, I had rather have seen the dilli- 
 gent, industrious woman. I rode after dinner full an 
 hour and a quarter about the cornfield and tobo ground; 
 the former pretty tollerable, and the latter well enough 
 to pass; however, the tobo but narrow and small; and I 
 do think most of it hous'd too green, although I was told 
 it was rotting from the stalk, which I thought impossi- 
 ble for its substance. . . 
 
 September 15, 1772. I had here [at Rosegill] the 
 opportunity of seeing the vanity of this youth and my 
 son's boasting. I had heard of 2000 pr share, then 1500, 
 and of neither suckers nor worms, but I saw many of 
 both; and if the crops are of this size with what I saw 
 no 10,000 plants of such tobo can make 1,500 1. the 
 share. The corn was fair; but it has destroyed a noble 
 pasture on Purpose kept for many years to support the 
 cattle & the house in butter & milk, and now I heard 
 they were hard put to it for either. I told my old friend 
 as much; but he imputed it to the loss of his cattle last 
 year, but was not that loss occasioned by the want of this 
 Pasture, now three years kept from the cattle and more 
 every year. In short the old Gentleman is a fine man- 
 ager, but it is with him as it is with me ; the least sick- 
 ness is seen in the management of our affairs. This I 
 foretold, and so it will be with others as they grow 
 old. . . 
 
 October 14, 1772. Wednesday. My people seem to 
 be quite dead hearted, and either cannot or will not 
 work, and overseers, especially those on wages, will lie 
 with expectations of great things. Lawson not two 
 days ago told me should fill at least 3 90 foot houses of 
 good tobacco. But I wish he may fill 9 inch ones. And 
 he was certain of a better crop of corn than last year, 
 when I am afraid he will not make one half of it.
 
 3^8 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 October 19, 1772. . . William Lawson went up 
 to take possession of my Park Quarter Thursday, the 
 15th of the month. He is to get things in order, and to 
 bring down all my hogs to fatten here, for that rascal, 
 Brown, not only sold all my last crop of corn, but even 
 did not intend to make any this year; for he never wed 
 the little that he tended; neither did he ever work my 
 tobacco. . . 
 
 James Purcell is to be at the Fork Quarter on Mon- 
 day next. I needed not to have a man there, but my dog 
 of a foreman is now grown a lazy villain. 
 
 24. Saturday. Lawson came down on friday. He 
 likes the Park land much ; says there will be about 10,000 
 good tobo made, and as there are no hoggs to be 
 fattened there, he thinks he shall [have] corn enough 
 made to keep the Quarter this year, altho' there has been 
 but little planted and hardly any of that tended. 
 
 Lawson is to marry & go up immediately, and after 
 him Talbot shall carry the peoples things and his goods 
 to the Falls. . . 
 
 February 21, 1774. Monday. Billy Beale off this 
 day [to] Lover'shall, my Northumberland Plantation. 
 I do suppose that his brother, the overlooker there, may 
 be miffed at it; but I cannot bear to make nothing there 
 with such fine land and such good hands. He is to 
 bring me a particular account of everything, and to ex- 
 amine narrowly into everything. . . 
 
 June 3, 1774. Mr. Beale comes from seeing my Park 
 Quarter and brought a discouraging account of the man- 
 agement of my cousin Charles Carter of Ludlow. The 
 people in his neighborhood make great clearings for 
 wheat which throws them so late that the ground cannot 
 be prepared for either corn or tobacco. . .
 
 OVERSEERS 329 
 
 (d) Extracts from the "Diary of John Harrovver, 1773-1776," in 
 American Historical Review, vol. vi, 92-97, passim. 
 
 Tuesday, February 14, 1775. This day the Col. on 
 finding more wheat left among the straw than should be 
 blamed Mr. Lewis the Overseer for his carelessness, 
 upon which Mr. Lewis seemed verry much enraged for 
 being spoke to and verry sawcily threw up all the keys 
 he hade in charge and went ofi; upon which the Col. 
 sent for me and delivered me the keys of the Barn and 
 begged I would assist him in his business untill he got 
 another Overseer. . . 
 
 Tuesday, 21st. Empld. as Yesterday. This day the 
 Col. engaged a young man for an Overseer Whose name 
 is Anthony Fraser. . . 
 
 Munday, 27th. This day Mr. Fraser came here and 
 entred to take his charge as Overseer, and he is to have 
 his bed in the school along with me. he appears to be a 
 verry quiet young man and has hade a tolerable educa- 
 tion, his Grandfather came from Scotland. . . 
 
 Freiday, June i6th. This day at 9 AM Col. Dainger- 
 field set out for his Qr. down the Country at Chicka- 
 hommanie to receive his Cash for the last years produce 
 of said plantation from John Miller his Overseer 
 there. . . 
 
 Saturday, July 22nd. On Saturdy. 13 Inst, some 
 words happened betwixt John McDearmand and the 
 Colo, about John's not being expedecious anough About 
 stacking and requiring too many hands to attend him 
 upon which John left his work immedeatly and has not 
 returned since. And by the Accots. in my hands I find 
 the Colo, is in Johns debt £9.10.9 Virga. Currancy. . . 
 
 (e) New Orleans Bee, May 17, 1845. News item. 
 
 The Natchitoches Chronicle reports a case decided at 
 the last District Court at that place, in which a suit is
 
 330 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 brought by an overseer for two hundred dollars wages. 
 The jury however returned a verdict of five hundred 
 dollars damages against the overseer for maltreating 
 the slaves under his control. 
 
 6 THE ROUTINE PROBLEMS AND POLICIES OF AN 
 EFFICIENT OVERSEER 
 
 Letters of Elisha Cain, overseer on Retreat Plantation, Jefferson County, 
 Ga., to his employers, Alexander Telfair and Miss Mary Telfair, 
 Savannah. MSS. in the possession of the Georgia Historical Society, 
 trustee for the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Savannah. 
 
 (a) To Alexander Telfair. Feb. i8, 1831. 
 
 I again write to inform you of the busine/s of this 
 Plantation. I finnished Picking Cotton the tenth in- 
 stant. I should have done much sooner if the weather 
 had Permited me to worke. the Cotton crop is 205 
 Baggs. I have sent off 188 Baggs the wagons will start 
 in the morning with 15 Baggs which will be all except 
 two they will go next week with the Bacon and Larde 
 also L. Peggy and her children they cannot go on the 
 wagon when it is Loaded with Cotton while the Roade 
 is so bad, I have killed thirteen thousand pounds Porke 
 this year and saved it neete. 
 
 I have been some time considering what Plan to take 
 with the manure this year or how to hawl it out and 
 Prepair for a Crop in due time We have twice as much 
 manure this year as we have ginerly had and not as 
 much time to hawl my Land is now in Prime order for 
 Ploughing and only eight Ploughs can run though the 
 Corn Land is nearly in order to Lay off yet the Cotton 
 Land will require a grate deel of worke to Put it in or- 
 der for Planting the Logs and brush are very thick, 
 but I have a Plan in view that I can Perhaps make out 
 with all these things only it will not be in my Power to 
 make it hit if I plant the March field in Cotton the Cow
 
 OVERSEERS 331 
 
 pen and stable manure is very heavey and will take the 
 best of worke to get it on the gin house field in four 
 weeks with one wagon and team, cotton seed is soon 
 hawled, and there is a grate quantity of them but they 
 will not do to manure cotton my Plan is to Put the 
 wagons and cartes to bawling the trash manure now im- 
 mediately or as soon as the Cotton is hawled and get it 
 done then the ox cartes can bawl the other manure while 
 I am Ploughing and Planting and Even on till the Corn 
 is half Leg high, I do not think it would be of much 
 use to manure Cotton after it is Ridged off or Planted 
 Except the manure was hawled out in the field before 
 hand and Put in beeps and then Put betwen the Rowes 
 after the Cotton was up some bight then if it was a drye 
 year it would do good I said I could not Run but eight 
 ploughs because the ballance of the mules is all worked 
 with the wagons the laste mules that came is all at work 
 and have as yet done well they were easily mannaged 
 from the first, the cows have done well this winter but 
 the young stears that I now have to worke is quite smawl 
 the Sheep have not done well in haveing Lambs, I have 
 lost a grate many of the Pigs though well attended to 
 and fed one time every day the Negroes have been 
 helthy only colds and they have for some time now done 
 their work in as much Peace and have been as obediant 
 as I could wish Chariot and Cynthy have young chil- 
 dren Born since you Left here and are doing well, I paid 
 Campbell & Glaze for the old gin they made no charge 
 for the other worke the bill was $50. Mr. Boutin 
 charge $25 dollars Doctor Jinkins Bill 15 dollars he 
 done more than Boutin did in cureing the Negroes, we 
 are much in want of a grind stone at this Place also 
 Smawl Nails I have Plenty of Large Nails There is 
 other things also much wanted all of which I cant
 
 332 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Reelect we want one coarse Plain and one or two 
 Spades and one or two Sithe Blades and files Small and 
 Large, I have Received all the articles named in your 
 Letter, I have just Received one Pair of the Carte 
 wheels and will Soon have them Runing. 
 
 (b) To Miss Mary Telfair. Nov. 20, 1836. 
 
 I have received your letter of the 15th inst. I have 
 received the Negroe shoes and given them out also I 
 have gave them their winter clothing that is the woolin 
 Home spun as far as it was wove and will soon have the 
 Ballance wove all the children have had cloth the 
 winter shirts will then be to spin & weave, after send- 
 ing the usual Quantity of hams to Savannah I gave the 
 Ballance out to the Negroes in the Early Part of the 
 season while they were good as I did not expect you 
 would wish any of them sent down in the fall season. 
 Nanny has not made any Butter yet, the cows were all 
 nearly drye and I had them turned in to the swamp as I 
 did not have any of the fields open to put them in my 
 cotton was wasting and the wagons on the Road so that 
 I did not stop to gather Corn untill the wet set in it was 
 in the Best season for saveing the cotton that the Ne- 
 groes were down sick from eight to ten at a time and 
 that for the space of six weeks or more two have died 
 namely Lucretia and Delias child John. The sickness 
 was very prevalent in this Neighbourhood more so than 
 I ever saw though it is jinerly helthy. At Presant I ex- 
 pect to send three Hundred Bales of Cotton from this 
 Plantation this year all though it has Roted very much 
 in Places that is if I can save what is yet in the fields I 
 have Packed out 160 Bales have as much as 60 Picked 
 ahead of the gin my hands have Picked well when 
 they were Able they see the cotton wasting and some of 
 them appear to have a kind of Pride in making a good
 
 OVERSEERS 333 
 
 crop I have long since known that I Planted inferior 
 seed on this Plantation but saw no chance to do Better 
 But I did not think there could be so grate differance in 
 seeds as what has Been mannifested this year on this 
 Plantation, the Petty Gulph seed is all that the Planter 
 can desire in the way of Cotton seed had it not been for 
 the seed Mr. Habersham sent and one Load from Mr. 
 Jones Plantation and one Load from Mr. Fitzsimmons 
 Plantation which I changed seed for the crop on this 
 Plantation would have been verry Lite this year. 
 
 I got the New gin Mr. Campbell sent from Augusta 
 I had some trouble and Loss of time to get it to work it 
 being a sixty saw my works which done for the old gin 
 was not strong enough for the new one; but I have got 
 it a Running and think it will answer it takes four mules 
 to work it where as two was sufiiciant for the gin I had. 
 Since the Rains set in the Cotton being so wet I cannot 
 Pick so while it was wet I have gathered corn so as to 
 get the Hogs in the field and the Sheep and will now see 
 if there is any of the Cows worth takeing up to milk and 
 make what Butter we can untill the fields are Eate out 
 the cattle is in as good order as they Ever are at this sea- 
 son the corn crop is suf!iciant for the use of the Planta- 
 tion Plenty of good fodder the Pea crop not very 
 good the oats were not worth saveing Except for seed 
 oats indeed they done the stock very little good they 
 were Ruined by the Blast. I have sent the soap the 
 Turkeys I will send in the Morning as the wagons leave 
 here with the cotton onst a week. 
 
 Charlotte & Venus & Mary & Little Sary have all 
 had children and have not received their baby clothes 
 also Hetty & Sary & Coteler will want baby clothes. I 
 see a Blanket for the old fellow Sampson he is dead. I 
 thought I wrote to you that he was dead Little Peggy
 
 334 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Sarys daughter has not ever drawn any Blanket at all, 
 and when they come I think it would be right to give her 
 the Blanket that was sent to Sampson. 
 
 It is not my wish to Dictate to you nor do I wish to 
 make any a Rangement with the Business without your 
 approbation but the Spinning Business on this Planta- 
 tion is very ungaining in the Presant arangement there 
 is eight hands Regular imployed in spinning and 
 weaveing four of which spin [wa]rpe and it could be 
 bought at the factory at 120 dollars Annually, besides 
 it takes 400 lbs. of cotton each year Leaveing 60 dollars 
 only to the four hands who spin warp. At Col. Cobbs 
 Plantation they spin wool but he buys all the warp, 
 these hands are not old negroes not all of them two of 
 Nannys Daughters or three I may say are all Able hands 
 also Mary and Peggy are good field hands and these 
 make neither corn nor meet take out $20. to pay their 
 horde and it Leaves them in debt. I give them their 
 task to spin and they say they cannot do any more that is 
 they have what is jenerly given as a task. 
 
 (c) To Miss Mary Telfair Dec. 14, 1840. 
 
 Jacob returned to me and brot. your letter dated 5th 
 Inst I feel it to be my indispensible duty to obey your 
 instructions at all times concerning the management of 
 this plantation, altho I feel that it will be at the expense 
 of justice and an injury in the future government of 
 these negroes to let Jacob go unpunished, as he ran 
 away from me, and not from John; soon as I saw your 
 letter I asked him how he could go to you with such a 
 falsehood, saying John had beat him, when it was well 
 known to near all on the plantation that no such thing 
 had taken place; he positively denied telling that John 
 had whiped him, but that he told you John was driver 
 and himself and John had a falling out, and he feared
 
 OVERSEERS 335 
 
 that I would whip him ; I write this to let you know how 
 inconsistent they will act and talk; Jacob is a boy that I 
 have ever treated with kindness, I feel convinced that 
 he did not run away with his own council; I found a 
 camp near your plantation, where ranaway negroes had 
 concealed themselves, and when I approached it they 
 were gone, I thought Jacob & Hector, who is yet out, 
 had made it, but Jacob says he went to it expecting to 
 find Hector, but found three negroes that he does not 
 know. 
 
 When I named the subject of having a driver, to Mr. 
 Jones, I thought that I explained it so as not to give any 
 cause of complaint; by the term driver, I do not mean to 
 appoint a hand to lay off tasks & use the whip, neither 
 was it for the purpose of indulging myself, but for the 
 purpose of attending to the work being done in better 
 order. The extension of the plantation and increase of 
 hands has placed it beyound my power to render all the 
 attention in person^ that my judgement dictates abso- 
 lutely nece/sary; I am frequently compelled to work 
 them in three seperate cla/ses, (viz) plow hands, hoe 
 hands, the full grown & small hands these seperate 
 classes are frequently seperate a considerable distance 
 from each other, and so soon as I am absent from either 
 they are subject to quarrel & fight, or to idle time, or 
 beat and abuse the mules, and when called to an ac- 
 count, each negro present when the misconduct took 
 place, will deny all about the same; I therefore thought 
 & yet believe that for the good order of the plantation, 
 and faithful performance of their duty; it was proper 
 to have some faithful and trusty hand, whose duty it 
 should be to report to me those in fault, and that is the 
 only dread they have of John, for they know he is not 
 authorised to beat them.
 
 33^ AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 You mention in your letter that you do not wish your 
 negroes treated with severity. I have ever thought my 
 fault on the side of lenity; If they were treated severe as 
 many are I should not be their overseer on any consid- 
 eration. 
 
 The meat held out this year to give eleven allowances 
 commencing in Jany. it held out to Novr. which is one 
 month longer than usual; it requires 1050 lbs. to give 
 your negroes here one allowance, the bacon Mr. Haber- 
 sham sent up, though good was not perfectly dry, it lost 
 considerable in drying, that which I killed was small 
 and lost more in drying than it otherwise would have 
 done. 
 
 I wrote to you about the 3rd Inst, giving you an ac- 
 count of the plantation stock &c which letter I hope you 
 have reed, before this. I then wrote that three of your 
 negroes were sick, to wit Lydia, & two of Chariot's 
 children, since then the two children are dead, namely 
 Maria & Eda. . . 
 
 7 ASSISTANT OVERSEERS 
 
 Extract of a letter from Charles Manigault, Paris, France, July 12, 
 1848, to G. T. Cooper, his overseer on Gowrie plantation, Chatham 
 County, Ga. MS. copy in Charles Manigault's letter book in the 
 possession of Mrs. H. Jenkins, Pinopolis, S.C. 
 
 With regard to what you say respecting a sub-over- 
 seer, I must now state that all I wrote you respecting one 
 was merely to shew you that anything you thought bene- 
 ficial to my place I was ready to agree to, and I am 
 now happy indeed to find that your opinion & experi- 
 ence completely coincides with mine - for I have had 
 many young men as sub-overseers on the place, & never 
 yet found one who gave entire satisfaction, for all of 
 them shewed a jealous disposition being always anxious 
 to put a wrong meaning to their instructions, or follow-
 
 OVERSEERS 337 
 
 ing them in so lo[o]se a manner as shew'd too clearly 
 that they were secretly in opposition to the manager. 
 And if I should ever have another on my place 1 have 
 made it a rule to avoid every one who comes from the 
 Georgia or Carolina shore, or whose family resides any- 
 where on or near the Savannah River - for in this case 
 while on the place their friends & acquaintances are 
 constantly coming to see them - or they take my Ne- 
 groes & slip off in a boat to visit their friends. I could 
 say much more on this subject, but you seem to know it 
 as well as I do - & will only add that if one of these 
 people happens to be turned away he goes home, & then 
 we are sure to have an enemy in our neighborhood. 
 
 8 THE PURCHASE OF A PLANTATION FOREMAN 
 
 Extracts of letters of Wm. Capers, overseer on Gowrie Plantation, Sa- 
 vannah River, i860, to Charles Manigault, his employer at Charles- 
 ton, S.C. MSS. in the possession of Mrs. H. Jenkins, Pinopolis, S.C. 
 
 (a) Letter of Aug. 5, i860. 
 
 John is about 45 years old, & if he is the man that I 
 had as Driver [plantation foreman] when at Mr. Prin- 
 gle's buy him by all means ^ there is but few negroes 
 more competent than he is, and was not a drunkard 
 when under my management, & was not ruptured. In 
 speaking with John he does not answer like a smart ne- 
 gro but he is quite so. You had better say to him who is 
 to manage him on Savannah. On Wednesday the 8th 
 will have a Boat at the S. river for him. 
 
 (b) Letter of Aug. ii, i860. 
 
 John arrived safe & handed me yours of the 9th inst. 
 I congratulate you on the purchase of said negro, he 
 says he is quite satisfied to be here and will do as he has 
 always done 'during the time I have managed him.' No 
 drink will be offered him. All on my part will be done 
 to bring John all right.
 
 33^ AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 (c) Letter of Oct. 15, i860. 
 
 I have found John as good a driver as when I left 
 him on Santee, bad management was the cause of his 
 being sold & am glad you have been the fortunate man 
 to get him, his measure is 1 1^4 inches, or no. lo shoe.
 
 VIII. PLANTATION LABOR: INDENTED 
 
 WHITES 
 
 I CLASSES AND CONDITIONS OF WHITE SERVANTS 
 
 Jones, Hugh. Present State of Virginia, 1724. Sabin's reprint (New 
 York, 1865), 53, 54- 
 
 The Ships that tran/port these Things often call at 
 Ireland to victual, and bring over frequently white Ser- 
 vants, which are of three Kinds, i. Such as come upon 
 certain Wages by Agreement for a certain Time. 2. 
 Such as come bound by Indenture, commonly call'd 
 Kids, who are u/ually to /erve four or five Years ; and 
 3. tho/e Convicts or Felons that are tran/ported, who/e 
 Room they had much rather have than their Company; 
 for abundance of them do great Mi/chiefs, commit Rob- 
 bery and Murder, and /poil Servants, that were before 
 very good : But they frequently there meet with the End 
 that they de/"erved at Home, though indeed /ome of 
 them prove indifferent good. Their being /ent thither 
 to work as Slaves for Puni/hment, is but a mere Notion, 
 for few of them ever lived /o well and /o ea/y before, 
 e/pecially if they are good for any thing. The/e are to 
 /erve /"even and /ometimes fourteen Years, and they and 
 Servants by Indentures have an Allowance of Corn and 
 Cloaths, when they are out of their Time, that they may 
 be therewith /upported, till they can be provided with 
 Services, or otherwi/e /ettled. With the/e three Sorts 
 of Servants are they /upplied from England, Wales, 
 Scotland and Ireland, among which they that have a 
 Mind to it may /erve their Time with Ea/e and Sati/f ac-
 
 340 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 tion to them/elves and their Ma/ters, e/pecially if they 
 fall into good Hands. 
 
 Except the la/t Sort, for the mo/t Part who are loo/e 
 Villains, made tame by Wild, and then en/laved by his 
 Forward Name/ake: To prevent too great a Stock of 
 which Servants, and Negroes many Attempts and Laws 
 have been in vain made. 
 
 The/e if they for/ake their Roguery together with the 
 other Kids of the later Jonathan, when they are free, 
 may work Day-Labour, or el/e rent a /mall Plantation 
 for a Trifle almo/t; or el/e turn Over/eers, if they are 
 expert, indu/trious and careful, or follow their Trade, 
 if they have been brought up to any; e/pecially Smiths, 
 Carpenters, Taylors, Sawders, Coopers, Bricklayers, 
 &c. The Plenty of the Country and the good Wages 
 given to Work-Folks occa/ion very few Poor, who are 
 /upported by the Parish, being /uch as are lame, /ick or 
 decrepit through Age, Di/tempers, Accidents, or /ome 
 Infirmities; for where there is a numerous Family of 
 poor Children the Ve/try takes care to bind them out 
 Apprentices, till they are able to maintain them/elves 
 by their own Labour; by which Means they are never 
 tormented with Vagrant, and Vagabond Beggars, there 
 being a Reward for taking up Runaways, that are at a 
 /mall Di/tance from their Home; if they are not known 
 or are without a Pa/s from their Ma/ter, and can give 
 no good Account of them/elves, e/pecially Negroes. . . 
 
 2 FAVORABLE VIEWS OF THE INDENTED SYSTEM 
 
 (a) Extract from John Hammond's Leah and Rachel (1656), Reprint 
 in Peter Force's Tracts, vol. iii. 
 
 The labour servants are put to, is not so hard nor of 
 such continuance as Husbandmen, nor Handecraftmen 
 are kept at in England, I said little or nothing is done
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 341 
 
 in winter time, none ever work before sun rising nor 
 after sun set, in the summer they rest, sleep or exercise 
 themselves five houres in the heat of the day, Saturdayes 
 afternoon is always their own, the old Holidayes are al- 
 ways observed and the Sabbath spent in good exercises. 
 
 The Women are not (as is reported) put into the 
 ground to worke, but occupie such domestic employ- 
 ments and housewifery as in England, that is dressing 
 victuals, righting up the house, milking, imployed about 
 dayries, washing, sowing &c. and both men and women 
 have times of recreations, as much or more than in any 
 part of the world besides, yet som wenches that are nasty, 
 beastly and not fit to be so imployed are put into the 
 ground, for reason tells us, they must not at charge be 
 transported and then maintained for nothing, but those 
 that prove so aukward are rather burthensome then ser- 
 vants desirable or useful. . . 
 
 Those servants that will be industrious may in their 
 time of service gain a competent estate before their 
 Freedomes, which is usually done by many, and they 
 gaine esteeme and assistance, that appear so industrious : 
 There is no master almost but will allow his servant a 
 parcell of clear ground to plant some Tobacco in for 
 himself, which he may husband at those many idle times 
 he hath allowed him and not prejudice, but rejoyce his 
 Master to see it, which in time of Shipping he may lay 
 out for commodities, and in Summer sell them again 
 with advantage, and get a Sow-Pig or two, which any 
 body almost will give him, and his Master suffer him to 
 keep them with his own, which will be no charge to his 
 Master, and with one year's increase of them may pur- 
 chase a Cow-Calf or two, and by that time he is for him- 
 self ; he may have Cattle, Hogs and Tobacco of his own, 
 and come to live gallantly; but this must be gained (as
 
 342 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 I said) by Industry and affability, not by sloth nor 
 churlish behaviour. 
 
 And whereas it is rumored that Servants have no 
 lodging other then on boards, or by the Fire side, it is 
 contrary to reason to believe it: First, as we are Chris- 
 tians; next as people living under a law, which compels 
 as well the Master as the Servant to perform his duty; 
 nor can true labour be either expected or exacted with- 
 out a sufficient cloathing, diet and lodging; all which 
 both their Indentures (which must inviolably be ob- 
 served) and the Justice of the Country requires. 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of George Alsop, an indented servant, to his 
 father, circa 1659, printed in the Maryland Historical Society's Fund 
 Publications, no. 15, 94. 
 
 The Christian inhabitant of this Province, as to the 
 general, lives wonderful well and contented : The Gov- 
 ernment of this Province, is by the loyalness of the peo- 
 ple and loving demeanor of the Proprietor and Gover- 
 nor of the same, kept in a continued peace and unity. 
 
 The Servants of this Province, which are stigmatiz'd 
 for Slaves by the clappermouth jaws of the vulgar in 
 England, live more like Freemen then the most Me- 
 chanick Apprentices in London, wanting for nothing 
 that is convenient and necessary, and according to their 
 several capacities, are extraordinary well used and re- 
 spected. So leaving things here as I found them, and 
 lest I should commit Sacriledge upon your more serious 
 meditations, with the Tautologies of a long-winded Let- 
 ter, I'le subscribe with a heavenly Ejaculation to the 
 God of Mercy to preserve you now and for evermore, 
 Amen. Your Obedient Son, G. A. 
 
 From Mary-Land, Jan. 17, Anno
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 343 
 
 3 AN ADVERSE CRITICISM 
 
 Eddis, William. Letters from America (London, 1792), 69-71, describ- 
 ing conditions as observed by him about 1770. 
 
 The generality of the inhabitants of this province, 
 are very little acquainted with those fallacious pre- 
 tences, by which numbers are continually induced to 
 embark for this continent. On the contrary, they too 
 generally conceive an opinion that the difference is 
 merely nominal between the indented servant and the 
 convicted felon : nor will they readily believe that peo- 
 ple, who had the least experience in life, and whose 
 characters were unexceptionable, would abandon their 
 friends and families, and their ancient connexions, for 
 a servile situation, in a remote appendage of the British 
 Empire. From this persuasion they rather consider the 
 convict as the more profitable servant, his term being 
 for seven, the latter only for five years; and, I am sorry 
 to observe, that there are but few instances wherein they 
 experience different treatment. Negroes being a prop- 
 erty for life, the death of slaves, in the prime of youth 
 or strength, is a material loss to the proprietor; they are 
 therefore, almost in every instance, under more com- 
 fortable circumstances than the miserable European, 
 over whom the rigid planter exercises an inflexible se- 
 verity. They are strained to the utmost to perform their 
 allotted labour; and, from a prepossession in many cases 
 too justly founded, they are supposed to be receiving 
 only the just reward which is due to repeated offences. 
 There are doubtless many exceptions to this observation, 
 yet, generally speaking, they groan beneath a worse than 
 Egyptian bondage. By attempting to lighten the intol- 
 erable burthen, they often render it more insupportable. 
 For real or imaginary causes, these frequently attempt 
 to escape, but very few are successful ; the country being
 
 344 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 intersected with rivers, and the utmost vigilance ob- 
 served in detecting persons under suspicious circum- 
 stances, who, when apprehended, are committed to close 
 confinement, advertised, and delivered to their respec- 
 tive masters ; the party who detects the vagrant being en- 
 titled to a reward. Other incidental charges arise. The 
 unhappy culprit is doomed to a severe chastisement; 
 and a prolongation of servitude is decreed in full pro- 
 portion to expences incurred, and supposed inconven- 
 iences resulting from a desertion of duty. 
 
 4 INDENTED LABOR USELESS ON A DISTURBED 
 FRONTIER 
 
 Extract from a letter to George Washington from Valentine Crawford, 
 his overseer and agent, in an attempt to establish a plantation in 
 western Virginia, 1774. Letters to Washington, 8. M. Hamilton, ed- 
 itor (Boston, 1898-1902, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., for the Society of 
 Colonial Dames), vol. v, 12-14. 
 
 Jacobs Creeke June 8th 1774. 
 Dear Colo : I Received your Letter by Mr. Creley of 
 the 27th of May and am Sorrey for the Sudint Braking 
 up of the Esembly before they hitt on Som Method to 
 Releve our Distress Situation Butt it is a happey Scur- 
 cumstance for us Lordonmore [Lord Dunmore, gover- 
 nor of the colony] being So warm in our favour which 
 gives us great Reselution to stand our ground what few 
 of us is Left though the Contre [country] is very thin 
 we have Bilt Sevrell Forts out Hear which wase a very 
 great means of the people Standing there ground I have 
 built one att My house and have got Som Men to garde 
 it and Mr. Simson has Built a Fort att the place where 
 they are Building of your Mill by the Esistence of His 
 Neabours and part of your Carpenters and I have been 
 there Severell times and have Encuraged him all I can 
 to Stand his Ground and I have Severell times oferd
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 345 
 
 him all the Carpenters and all the Sarvants but he 
 would not take aney of the Sarvants and but four of the 
 best of the Carpenters his Reason for not taking of the 
 Sarvents as there wase a great dale of Companey att the 
 Fort and drink Midling plenty it would be out of his 
 power to govern them and he Said they would Run 
 away from him and as to Carpenters he and Stephens 
 the Millwright had Engaged Som Carpenters them 
 Selves before this Erouption broake out with the Indens 
 and are Louth to discharge them and take in these you 
 Engagd for me to take down the ohio or att Least aney 
 More of them than Convenently work as he Says from 
 the Noys of the Indens and the Crowds of people that 
 Come to the Fort he Cant get Nothing don with the 
 Small Numbr of hands he has but I will goe to Simson 
 to Morrow morning and Consult him farther on the 
 afair and doe Every thing in My power for your En- 
 trast the thoughts of selling of the Sarvents Elarmed 
 them verey Much for they dont want to be Sold but the 
 hole of the Sarvents have had Som Short Spells of Sick- 
 ness and Som others Cut them Selfes with an ax and 
 Lay bye Som time and one of the best of Stephens Men 
 Cut him Selfe with an adze the worst I Ever Saw aney 
 body Cut in My Life So that he has Not been able to 
 doe one Strok for Near one Month this hapened in digin 
 the Canews I have Sent you a Scetch of Stephens article 
 when I waite on Simson if he does Not take the Car- 
 penters all I Shall Ether Sett them to building of a 
 house att the big Medows or discharge them intirely for 
 it Seems all Most Emposable to Ceep Men Close to 
 bisness att a Fort where there is So meney people and So 
 much Confusion if they Can doe Eney thing it Must be 
 att the Medow as they will be to them Selfes and as 
 Stevens Seems to be verey Loth to be discharged and 
 Says he Left som very good Jobs to Serve you.
 
 346 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 5 RUNAWAY REDEMPTIONERS AND CONVICTS 
 
 (a) Virginia Historical Register, vol, vi, 96-97, advertisements re- 
 printed from the Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), 1736-1737. 
 
 Ran away lately from the Bristol Company's Iron 
 Works, in King George County, a servant man named 
 James Sumners, a West Country [i.e. Cornish] Man, 
 and speaks thick, he is a short thick fellow, with short 
 black hair and a ruddy complexion. Whoever secures 
 the said servant and brings him to the said Iron Works, 
 or to the Hon. John Taylor, Esq., in Richmond County, 
 or gives notice of him, so as he may be had again, shall 
 be well rewarded besides what the law allows. 
 
 Nansemond, July 14, 1737. 
 
 Ran away some time in June last, from William 
 Pierce of Nansemond County, near Mr. Theophilus 
 Pugh's Merchant: a convict servant woman named 
 Winifred Thomas. She is Welsh woman, short black 
 Hair'd and young; mark'd on the Inside of her Right 
 Arm with Gunpowder W. T. and the Date of the Year 
 underneath. She knits and spins, and is supposed to be 
 gone into North Carolina by the way of Cureatuck and 
 Roanoke Inlet. Whoever brings her to her master shall 
 be paid a Pistole besides what the law allows, paid by 
 
 William Pierce. 
 
 (b) Virginia Gazette, Feb. 26, 1767. Advertisement. 
 
 Run away from the subscriber in Augusta, on the 
 17th of January last, a convict servant man named John 
 Jones, an Englishman, about 35 years of age, about 5 
 feet 7 inches high, of a fair complexion, and fair short 
 hair; had on when he went away a blue homemade 
 drugget jacket lined with striped linen, a blue broad 
 cloth do. under it, leather breeches, coarse spun shirt
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 347 
 
 made out of hemp linen, sheep gray stockings, and coun- 
 try made shoes; he has been a sailor, and I suppose 
 will endeavour to get on board some vessel. I have 
 heard that he has altered his name at Fredericksburg, 
 and stole from thence a ruffed shirt, a pair of everlast- 
 ing breeches, an old whitish coloured jacket, and two 
 razors. Whoever takes up the said servant, and brings 
 him to me, or John Briggs at Falmouth, or secures him 
 in any county goal so that I may get him again, shall 
 have five pounds reward, paid by me or John Briggs. 
 
 Andrew Burd. 
 N.B. As he is a very good scholar, it is imagined he 
 will forge a pass. 
 
 (c) South Carolina Gazette (Charleston), June 16 to 23, 1739. Adver- 
 tisement. 
 
 Savannah, May 7, 1739. 
 
 Run away on the 5th Instant from Robert William's 
 Plantation in Georgia, 3 Men Servants, one named 
 James Powell, is a Bricklayer by Trade about Five Feet 
 9 inches high, a strong made man, born in Wiltshire, 
 talks broad, and when he went away he wore his own 
 short hair, with a White cap : Among his comrades he 
 was call'd Alderman. 
 
 Another named Charles Gastril did formerly belong 
 to the Pilot Boat at Pill near Bristol, is by Trade a 
 Sawyer, about 5 feet 10 Inches high, of a thin spare 
 make, raw boned, and has a Scar somewhere on his up- 
 per Lip, aged about 25. 
 
 The 3rd named Jenkin James, a lusty young fellow, 
 about the same Height as Gastrill, has a good fresh 
 complection, bred by trade a Taylor, but of late has 
 been used to Sawing, talks very much Welshly, and had 
 on when he went away a coarse red coat and waistcoat, 
 the Buttons and Button holes of the Coat black.
 
 348 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Any person or Persons who apprehend them, or either 
 of them, and bring them to Mr. Thomas Jenys in 
 Charleston, or to the said Mr. Robert Williams in Sa- 
 vannah shall receive lo 1. Currency of South Carolina 
 for each . Robert Williams. 
 
 Besides the above mentioned Reward, there is a con- 
 siderable sum allow'd by the Trustees [of the colony 
 of Georgia] for taking run away Servants. 
 
 N.B. About a Fortnight ago, three other of the said 
 Robert William's Servants run away, who are already 
 advertized. 
 
 6 A STAMPEDE OF SPANISH AND ITALIAN BOND- 
 MEN IN BRITISH FLORIDA 
 
 (a) Boston Chronicle, Sept. 26, 1768. News item from Mosquito Inlet, 
 Florida, contained in a letter from a correspondent in Charleston, 
 S.C, Sept. 12. 
 
 News that on Aug. 17, about two hundred of the 
 Spaniards and Italians introduced by Doct. TurnbuU, 
 and which he was settling at Musquito's, rose and siezed 
 a Schooner which was employed in carrying Provisions 
 to the settlement. They tried to capture other vessels 
 also and get away to Havanna ; but the wind was against 
 them. An express was sent to St. Augustine. Two 
 sloops full of troops were sent to prevent them getting 
 away from Musquito's. The Spaniards, upon the 
 troops arriving, took to the bushes. It is apprehended 
 that Mr. TurnbuU will have much trouble with the 
 settlers he has introduced. 
 
 (b) Extract from Bernard Roraans's Concise Natural History of East 
 and West Florida (New York, 1776), 268-273. 
 
 [About 35 miles south of St. Augustine, on St. John's 
 River,] A few miles from the bar is the situation of 
 the town or settlement made by Dr. TurnbuU for Sir
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 349 
 
 William Duncan, himself, and perhaps more associates; 
 this town is called New Smyrna^ from the place of the 
 Doctor's lady's nativity. The settlements round this 
 famous town extend considerably along the banks of this 
 lagoon^ and large quantities of very good indigo have 
 been made here. If my reader is inquisitive to know 
 why i call this famous^ i answer on account of the cruel 
 methods used in settling it, which made it the daily 
 topic of conversation for a long time in this and the 
 neighboring provinces. 
 
 About 1500 people, men, women and children, were 
 deluded away from their native country, where they 
 lived at home in the plentiful cornfields and vineyards 
 of Greece and Italy, to this place, where instead of 
 plenty they found want in its last degree, instead of 
 promised fields, a dreary wilderness; instead of a grate- 
 ful fertile soil a barren arid sand; and in addition to 
 their misery, were obliged to indent themselves, their 
 wives, and children for many years, to a man who had 
 the most sanguine expectations of transplanting 5<2jA<2'Z£;- 
 ship from the Levant. The better to efifect his purpose, 
 he granted them a pitiful portion of land for ten years, 
 upon the plan of the feodal system : this being improved 
 and just rendered fit for cultivation, at the end of that 
 term it reverts to the original grantor, and the grantee, 
 may, if he chuses, begin a new state of vassalage for ten 
 years more. Many were denied even such grants as 
 these, and were obliged to work in the manner of ne- 
 groes, a task in the field; their provisions were at the 
 best of times only a quart of maize per day, and two 
 ounces of pork per week; this might have sufficed with 
 the help of fish which abounds in this lagoon^ but they 
 Were denied the liberty of fishing, and lest they should 
 not labour enough, inhuman taskmasters were set over
 
 3 so AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 them, and instead of allowing each family to do with 
 their homely fare as they pleased, they were forced to 
 join all together in one mess, and at the beat of a vile 
 drum, to come to one common copper, from whence 
 their homany was laded out to them; even this coarse 
 and scanty meal was through careless management ren- 
 dered still more coarse, and through the knavery of a 
 proveditor, and the pilfering of a hungry cook, still 
 more scant. . . 
 
 . . . O Florida! were this the only instance of 
 similar barbarity which thou hast seen, we might draw a 
 veil over these scenes of horror; but RoUes Town, 
 Mount Royal, and three or four others of less note have 
 seen too many wretches fall victims to hunger and ill 
 usage, and that at a period of life when health and 
 strength generally maintain the human frame in its 
 greatest vigor, and seem to insure longevity. RoUes- 
 Town in particular has been the sepulchre of above 
 four hundred such victims. Before i leave this subject 
 i will relate the insurrection to which these unhappy 
 people at New Smyrna were obliged to have recourse, 
 and which the great ones stiled rebellion. In the year 
 1769 at a time when the unparalleled severities of their 
 task-masters, particularly one Cutter (who had been 
 made a justice of the peace, with no other view than to 
 enable him to execute his barbarities to a larger extent, 
 and with greater appearance of authority) had drove 
 these wretches to despair, they resolved to escape to the 
 Havannah ; to execute this, they broke into the pro- 
 vision stores, and siezed on some craft lying in the har- 
 bour, but were prevented from taking others by the care 
 of the masters. Destitute of any man fit for the impor- 
 tant post of a leader, their proceedings were all con- 
 fusion, and an Italian of very bad principles, who was
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 351 
 
 accused of a rape on a very young girl, but of so much 
 note that he had formerly been admitted to the over- 
 seer's table, assumed a kind of command; they thought 
 themselves secure w^here they were, and this occasioned 
 a delay, 'til a detachment of the ninth regiment had 
 time to arrive, to whom they submitted, except one boat- 
 full, which escaped to the Florida keys ; but was taken 
 up by a Providence-man: many were the victims des- 
 tined to punishment; as i was one of the grand jury 
 which sat fifteen days on this business, i had an oppor- 
 tunity of canvassing it well, but the accusations were of 
 so small account that we found only five bills; one of 
 these was against a man for maiming the above said 
 Cutter, whom, it seems, they had pitched upon as the 
 principal object of their resentment, and curtailed his 
 ear, and two of his fingers ;- another for shooting a cow, 
 which being a capital crime in England, the law mak- 
 ing it such was here extended to this Province; the 
 others were against the leader, and three more, for the 
 burglary committed on the provision store; the distress 
 of the sufferers touched us so, that we almost unani- 
 mously wished for some happy circumstances that might 
 justify our rejecting all the bills, except that against the 
 chief, who was a villain. One man was brought before 
 us three or four times, and at last was joined in one ac- 
 cusation with the person who maimed Cutter; yet no 
 evidence of weight appearing against him, i had an 
 opportunity to remark by the appearance of some faces 
 in court, that he had been marked, and that the grand 
 jury disappointed the expectations of more than one 
 great man. Governor Grant pardoned two, and a third 
 who was obliged to be the executioner of the remaining 
 two. . . I have dwelt the longer on this subject, be- 
 cause the native prejudice of vulgar Englishmen has
 
 3S^ AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 represented the misfortunes of these wretches in too 
 black a light. It is said that Dr. Stork, who was near 
 the spot when the insurrection happened, died with the 
 fright, and Cutter some time after died a lingering 
 death, having experienced, besides his wounds, the ter- 
 rors of a coward in power, overtaken by vengeance. 
 
 7 INDENTED ARTISANS 
 
 (a) Virginia Gazette, April i6, 1767. Advertisement. 
 
 Run away from King William court-house, on the 
 14th of March last, three apprentice boys, viz. James 
 Axley, a carpenter, about 5 feet 8 inches high, and wears 
 his own black hair cued behind; had on when he went 
 away a gray cloth coat, without pockets or flaps, and a 
 pair of leather breeches much daubed with turpentine. 
 William Arter, a carpenter, rather taller and better set 
 than the former, of a dark complexion, has black hair, 
 but his clothes no way remarkable. William Kindrick, 
 a bricklayer, which business he understands well, and is 
 supposed to be gone with a view of carrying it on with 
 the other boys ; he is a fresh complexioned youth, wears 
 a cap, and had on a bearskin coat with metal buttons, 
 a dark brown waistcoat, and a pair of lead coloured 
 serge breeches. It is supposed they are gone to Bed- 
 ford, or into Carolina. Whoever brings the said ap- 
 prentices to King William or Hanover court-houses 
 shall have forty shillings reward for each, besides their 
 expenses defrayed. 
 
 Francis Smith, Sen.-jAMES Geddy. 
 
 (b) Virginia Gazette, March 26, 1767. 
 
 Run away from the subscriber, in Northumberland 
 county, t\vo Irish convict servants named William and 
 Hannah Daylies, tinkers by trade, of which the woman 
 is extremely good ; they had a note of leave to go out
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 353 
 
 and work in Richmond county and Hobb's Hole, the 
 money to be paid to Job Thomas, in said county; soon 
 after I heard they were run away. The man wore a 
 light coloured coarse cloth frock coat, a blue striped 
 satin jacket, and plaid one, a pair of leather breeches, 
 a pair of Russia drill white stockings, a little brown 
 bog wig, and his hat cocked up very sharp. He is about 
 5 feet 8 inches high, of a sandy complexion, and 
 freckled ; is a well made fellow, somewhat bow legged. 
 The woman had on an old stuff gown and a light col- 
 oured petticoat, and under petticoat of cotton with a 
 blue selvedge at the bottom, a blue striped satin gown, 
 the same with his jacket, two check aprons, and a pair 
 of pale blue calimanco shoes. They both wore white 
 shirts, with very short ruffles, and white thread stock- 
 ings. They had a complete set of tinkers tools. They 
 were seen to have two English guineas and a good deal 
 of silver, and said in Essex county they lived in Agusta, 
 and inquired the road that way. Whoever will appre- 
 hend both or either of said servants, and brings them to 
 me, shall have five pounds reward for each, and reason- 
 able travelling charges allowed by 
 
 William Taite. 
 
 (c) Virginia Gazette, Nov. 1767. 
 
 Prince George, November lo, 1767. 
 
 Supposed to be run away from the subscriber (having 
 liberty about three weeks ago to go up to Osborne's and 
 Warwick, on James river, to look for work, and not 
 since heard of) an indented serv^ant man named Alex- 
 ander Cuthbert, by trade a bricklayer, born in Perth in 
 Scotland, but came last from London in one Captain 
 Grigg to Potowmack river. He is about 5 feet 6 or 7 
 inches high, about 22 years of age, wears his own hair of 
 a dark brown colour, is a little pitted with the smallpox,
 
 354 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 and, as he was some time in England, has not much of 
 the Scoth accent. Had with him when he went away 
 a blue coarse cloth coat, blue and red striped silk and 
 cotton jacket, blue breeches, several white and check 
 linen shirts, and many other articles of apparel. He 
 carried with him his bricklayer's and plaistering tools, 
 a sliding rule, some books of architecture and mensura- 
 tion, etc. From the little time I have had him, he ap- 
 peared a harmless inofifensive lad, entirely sober and 
 obliging, and if he has gone off must have been advised 
 to such a measure by some more designing than him- 
 self. It is probable he may make to the northward and 
 so to Philadelphia, having been heard to speak of some 
 acquaintances gone that way. Whoever takes up the 
 said servant (if run away) and delivers him to the sub- 
 scriber, shall have five pounds if taken within the col- 
 ony, and ten pounds if taken at any considerable dis- 
 tance out of it, paid by William Black. 
 N.B. All masters of vessels are desired to be cautious 
 of not carrying such a person out of the country. 
 
 8 WAGE-EARNING SERVANTS AND ARTISANS IM- 
 PORTED UNDER CONTRACT 
 
 (a) Extract from a letter of Richard Cumberland, London, Oct. 17, 
 1767, to Roger Pinckney, at Charleston, S.C, in P. C. J. Weston's Doc- 
 uments connected luith the History of South Carolina (London, 1856), 
 
 137. 
 
 My dear Sir : I write a few lines to you by a young 
 man who has served me in the capacity of coachman 
 for two years, and is now hired himself to Mr. Gibbs 
 of our Province. I have promised the man, that, if he 
 behaves well, you will, if occasion requires, protect him 
 and allow him to lodge in your hands any little matter 
 he may have ye good fortune to save. I am not in the 
 least acquainted with Mr. Gibbs, so that I look upon it
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 355 
 
 as possible that he may need your countenance and as- 
 sistance. He has stipulated to serve him for three years 
 at ye rate of £40 Stg pr annum. 
 
 (b) Extract from a letter of William Fitzhugh, of Stafford County, 
 Va., July I, 1680, to Captain Frasier Partis, who was probably a 
 skipper in the Virginia carrying trade. Virginia Historical Register, 
 vol. i, 166. 
 
 I would have you be very careful of my flax, hemp 
 and hay seed, two bushel of each of which I have sent 
 for, because we now have resolved a cessation from 
 making Tobo. next year. We are also going to make 
 towns. If you can meet with any tradesmen that will 
 come and live at the towns, they may have large priv- 
 ileges and communitys. I would have you bring me in 
 a good Housewife. I do not intend or mean [her] to 
 be brought in as the ordinary servants are; but to pay 
 for her passage, and agree to give her Fifty Shillings 
 or Three Pound a year during the space of five years; 
 upon which terms I suppose good servants may be had, 
 because they have their passage clear and as much wages 
 as they can have there. I would have a good one or 
 none. I look upon the generality of wenches you usually 
 bring in not worth the keeping. I expect to hear from 
 you by all conveniencys, for I assure you I let slip none 
 to tell you I am, &c., &c. 
 
 I would have you bring me two large paper bookes; 
 one to contain about fourteen or fifteen Quire of Paper; 
 and another about ten Quire; and one other small one. 
 
 (c) Extract from a letter of George Mason, Gunston Hall, Va., Aug. 
 20, 1792, to his son. Rowland, K. M. Life of George Mason (New 
 York, 1892), vol. ii, 359. 
 
 Dear John : About four or five years ago Mr. Hen- 
 derson imported from Scotland, upon annual wages, 
 two stonemasons, James Reid and Alexander Watson, 
 very good workmen. Since the expiration of their con-
 
 356 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 tract with Mr. Henderson they have been working in 
 Dumfries and about that part of the country, and last 
 year made some free stone chimney-pieces for Col. 
 Cooke which I think are well done and upon reasonable 
 terms, to the best of my recollection, a guinea each. Be- 
 ing desirous to get these men to make four free stone 
 chimney-pieces for your brother Thomson's house, I 
 sent down to Dumfries three or four days ago to get one 
 of them to come up to take the dimensions of your 
 brother Thomson's chimneys that they might immedi- 
 ately get the chimney-pieces, but was informed they are 
 both at work at George Town, I suppose about the new 
 bridge building over Rock Creek. I must therefore beg 
 you will inquire them out, and see if you can get them 
 to do your brother's chimney-pieces, as soon as the Rock 
 Creek bridge is finished, which I am told will be by the 
 last of this month, and that, in the meantime, the sooner 
 the better, you will endeavor to get one of them to ride 
 down to your brother Thomson's to take the dimensions 
 of the four chimneys, for which he wants free stone 
 chimney-pieces, and also of the fire place in his best 
 room, and give directions for a marble chimney-piece 
 to be sent for to England, unless one of those you have 
 to dispose of will suit it, or can be made by them to do 
 so, which you will know by getting the man to examine 
 them after he returns from your brother's. If you can 
 get one of these men to go down to your brother Thom- 
 son's you will be kind enough to let your man Lewis 
 go down with him to show him the way, and you will 
 hire a horse upon my account for the man to ride. I 
 purpose that these men shall get the stone themselves 
 for Thomson's chimney-pieces and hearth stones, either 
 at Aquia or at the quarry near Dumfries, whichever 
 they think the best stone, and I will carry them from 
 thence to your brother Thomson's.
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 357 
 
 9 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CRIMINALLY DIS- 
 POSED REDEMPTIONER 
 
 The Vain Prodigal Life, and Tragical Penitent Death of Thomas Hel- 
 lier born at Whitchurch near Lyme in Dorset-shire: vjho for murder- 
 ing his Master, Mistress, and a maid, ivas executed according to lata 
 at Westover in Charles City, in the cou?itry of Virginia, near the 
 Plantation called Hard Labour, luhere he perpetrated the said 
 murders. He suffer'd on Monday the 5th of August, 1678. And 
 •was after hanged up in chains at Windmill Point on James 
 River . . . (London, 1680). 
 
 I, Thomas Hellier (age now some 28 years or there- 
 abouts) was born at Whitchurch neer Lime in Dorset- 
 shire; Son to J. H. of Parrocks. I liv'd with my own 
 Parents till I was ten years old, about which time my 
 Grandfather Thomas Turner of Marshwood took me 
 home to him, and setting me to School, bred me up till 
 fifteen or sixteen years of age; who loved and tender'd 
 me very indulgently. About the age of sixteen I was 
 bound as Apprentice to one Jo. Sprake of Lime, by 
 Profession a Barber-chirurgeon, for seven years; from 
 whose Son I also learned, by my own industry, the Trade 
 of a Stationer. After I had serv'd six years almost, my 
 Master died; during which term, I had plaid some 
 frolickish youthful Pranks, which were mildly con- 
 niv'd and winked at, through the gentleness of indulgent 
 Relations ; which yet I had not the grace to make a good 
 use of. 
 
 After my Masters death, (not being bound to any but 
 my Master onely) I sued out my indenture, and so 
 gained my Freedom before six years were fully ex- 
 pired. 
 
 A while after I was got free from my Master's 
 Widow, my Grandfather dying, left me fifty acres of 
 good Land purchased for three Lives; the other two 
 were dead, and onely my own Life then remaining in 
 in the said fifty acres of Land: which Estate I lived on
 
 358 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 some half a year a single man ; then I married one Hes- 
 ter Bensloe, daughter to a good sufficient Farmer, who 
 enjoyed fifty pounds per annum of Prebends Land. 
 After which I liv'd with my said Wife on the foremen- 
 tioned Estate the space of one year, till she brought me 
 forth a Daughter, by name Hester Hellier. 
 
 My own and Wife's Friends both loved me very well, 
 and would have done very well for me, had I not taken 
 bad courses; but I could not contain my self within the 
 due bounds of Sobriety and Moderation. 
 
 About this time (in the year 1673 ^^ 74) ^^^^ Michael- 
 mas) I choused my Father of twelve pounds Sterl. 
 which he had entrusted me to receive for him, he being 
 then Collector of the Royal Aid money: After the re- 
 ceipt of which money, I taking horse, rode away to Lon- 
 don (unknown to Father, Wife, or any other Relations, 
 who all that while knew not what was become of me.) 
 In London I ranted out my twelve pounds in Company- 
 keeping. And now I lived but too much at ease, I knew 
 not when I was well ; I was all on fire to set up in the 
 world, to make a bustle abroad to and fro, and be doing, 
 that I might seem somebody. I would therefore needs, 
 all on the spirit, set up my own Trade, and that too of a 
 Stationer; to which intent I took up on Credit, to the 
 value of some twenty four pounds in Books of one per- 
 son, which were never to this day paid for. I did the 
 like by others, to a considerable value; none whereof 
 (I do confess) were yet ever paid for. . . 
 
 Now it was high Noon, I thought it would never be 
 Night with me ; I seem'd to have the World in a string, 
 and thought I could hale it which way I listed at my 
 pleasure: but soft my haste; for before two years were 
 fully expir'd, after my seating at Crewkerne, (what by 
 keeping high Company, what by Gaming) I had on
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 359 
 
 a sudden run my self very deep into debt. But still I 
 bore my head aloft above water with courage, making 
 a plausible shew in the eye of the vulgar. One ruinous 
 humor I confess my self very vaingloriously guilty of : 
 I ever too much affected foolishly to be admir'd and 
 applauded; wherefore if six or eight Pot-companions 
 had sate tipling with me, had they but bestowed their 
 Compliments liberally upon me, let such flatterers drink 
 night and day, there was nothing for any of them to 
 pay. . . 
 
 I . . . took my Horse and ten pounds in my 
 pocket, and tripped up to London, resolving there to 
 seek my fortune. Where, though I might have turn'd 
 my self to several Employments, having skill in Paint- 
 ing and mixing of Colours; judgment to eat any Let- 
 ters, Knots, or Devices in Mettals by Chemical waters ; 
 a dexterous hand at Ingraving in Mettals and Carving 
 in Wood, with several other ingenious and commend- 
 able Mysteries. Yet, here was I so fatally besotted to 
 my own Overthrow, that I could fancie nothing but a 
 Voyage to Sea. 
 
 Whereupon, after much fruitless rambling to and 
 fro, I met with a German, one Captain Prison, who had 
 a Privateer-Ship, and a French Commission about the 
 beginning of June "]"]. I went on board the said Ship, 
 designing to sail in her under the capacity of a Sea- 
 Chirurgeon. The said Captain was to furnish forth 
 my Chest with all sorts of Drugs and Medicaments: 
 but the Captain being sentenced by the Admiralty- 
 Court for a Pyrate, and doom'd to pay (as I under- 
 stood) 1000 1. before he could get free. Money falling 
 short, he could not set me forth nor furnish my Chest. 
 Whereupon I left his Ship, and to shore I went in Au- 
 gust ']^^ having just one poor sixpence in my pocket.
 
 360 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Thus had I trifled away and mis-spent my ten pounds 
 and the price of my horse. Next, to supply necessity, I 
 sold my Cloaths for want of money: so walking up 
 Tower-ditch, I going in at the Eagle and Childe, en- 
 quired if there were any Ship-Captain quartered there? 
 one replied, There was no Ship-Captain quartered in 
 that house, but that he himself was concern'd about Sea- 
 faring matters. I enquired to what parts he was con- 
 cern'd? he answered. To Virginia: So asked withal, if 
 I were minded for that Country; if I were, I should 
 have Meat, Drink, and Apparel, with other Necessaries 
 provided for me. I replied, I had heard so bad a char- 
 acter of that Country, that I dreaded going thither, in 
 regard I abhorred the Ax and the Haw. He told me, 
 he would promise I should onely be employ'd in Mer- 
 chants Accompts, and such Employments to which I 
 had been bred, if they were here used. 
 
 On August the loth, "j'-j^ I being over-perswaded, 
 went on board the Young Princes Captain Robert Mor- 
 ris Commander; on the 5th of September ditto, the 
 Young Prince weighed Anchor from the Downs; and 
 on the 25th of October following, she arrived within 
 the Capes of Virginia, and dropt Anchor at Newpers- 
 news. 
 
 I was delivered into the custody and dispose of one 
 Lewis Connor of Barmedoe hundred Virginia, who 
 sold me off to one Cutbeard Williamson, living at a 
 Plantation call'd Hard Labour, belonging to Westover- 
 Parish in Charles City County Virginia: which said 
 Williamson promised me I should be employed in 
 Teaching his Children, and not be set to any laborious 
 work, unless necessity did compel now and then, meerly 
 for a short spurt. But nevertheless, though I wanted not 
 for Cloaths nor Victuals, yet I found their dealings con-
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 361 
 
 trary to their fair promises; which much disheartened 
 me. And though my labour at the Howe was very irk- 
 some, and I was however resolved to do my utmost en- 
 deavour at it; yet that which embittered my life, and 
 made everything I took in hand burdensome to me, was 
 the unworthy ill-usage which I received daily and 
 hourly from my ill-tongued Mistriss; who would not 
 only rail, swear and curse at me within doors, when- 
 ever I came into the house casting on me continually 
 biting Taunts and bitter Flouts; but like a live Ghost 
 would impertinently haunt me, when I was quiet in the 
 Ground at work. And although I silently wrought as 
 fast as she rail'd, plying my labour, without so much as 
 muttering at her, or answering any thing good or bad; 
 yet all the silence and observance that I could use, 
 would not charm her vile tongue. These things burn- 
 ing and broyling in my Breast, tempted me to take the 
 trip, and give my master the bag to hold; thereupon I 
 vamped off, and got on board Capt. Larimore's ship, 
 where I remained eleven days, or thereabouts, the Ship 
 then riding at Warwicks-Creek Bay. 
 
 I was absent from my Master's business almost three 
 weeks, but at length my Master hunting about, and 
 searching to and fro, had discovered where I was, and 
 so sending a Messenger, fetched me back home again. 
 As I was upon my return homeward, I had a design to 
 have knock the Messenger on the head; for which pur- 
 pose I took up a great stone and carried it along in my 
 hand a good way, unknown to the man: but my heart 
 failing me, I let drop that design. At length home I 
 came, begg'd pardon of my Master for my fault, and 
 all seemed pretty well again. But my usage proving 
 still worse than before, my Mistress ever taunting me 
 with her odious and inveterate Tongue, do all I
 
 362 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 would, and strive all the ways whatever I could, she, 
 I found, was no whit pacified toward me. Whereupon 
 I began to cast about and bethink my self, which way to 
 rid me of that Hell upon Earth, yet still seeking if pos- 
 sible to weather it, but all in vain. 
 
 At last, Satan taking advantage of my secret inward 
 regret, suggested to my vicious corrupt minde, that by 
 ridding my Master and Mistress out of the way, I might 
 with ease gain my Freedom, after which time I sought 
 all opportunities to effectuate and bring to pass my said 
 horrid contrivance : Concluding, when they were dead, 
 I should be a Freeman. Which said execrable Project 
 I attempted and put in execution May 24, 1678. 
 Thus. . . 
 
 Betimes in the Morning before day, I put on my best 
 cloaths, then got my Ax, and attempted two or three 
 times to enter my Master's Lodging-room, still my heart 
 failing me, I stept back again; but however at length 
 in I rushed: A Servant-maid, who lay every night in 
 the same Room, passed along by me the same time with 
 her bed on her shoulder, or under her arm, to whom I 
 offer'd no violence, but let her pass untouched; nor had 
 I meddled with her, had she kept out of my way. From 
 her I passed on to my Masters Bed, and struck at him 
 with the Ax, and gave him several blows, as near as I 
 could guess, upon the Head: I do believe I had so 
 unhappy an aim with my hand, that I mortally wounded 
 him the first blow. My Mistress in the interim got out 
 of Bed, and got hold of a Chair, thinking to defend her 
 self; and when I came toward her, struggled, but I 
 proved to hard for her; She begg'd me to save her Life, 
 and I might take what I would, and go my way. But 
 all in vain, nothing would satisfie but her Life, whom 
 I looked on as my greatest Enemy; so down she went
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 363 
 
 without Mercy. The Wench to whom I intended no 
 hurt, returned, as I suppose to rescue her Mistress; 
 whereupon she suffer'd the same cruel Fate with the 
 other two. 
 
 After this Tragedy I broke open a Clorset, and took 
 provision for my Journey, and rummaging my Mistress 
 Chest, I took what I thought fit, as much as loaded a 
 good lusty Horse; So taking my Master's Gun in my 
 hand, away I hastened : But while the Horse stood with- 
 out door, a neighbor came to the house, with an excuse 
 to borrow the said Horse. To whom I frowning, an- 
 swered very roughly, and threatening him, bid him be 
 gone, he could not have the Horse ; who departed, and 
 (I suppose) betrayed to the other Neighbours some 
 jealousie he had conceived, concerning some Mischief 
 I had been doing. A Childe also belonging to the Fam- 
 ily was run forth to betray the business. But before 
 any body came, I was gone upon my intended progress 
 with my Master's Horse loaded, and his gun in my 
 hand. 
 
 After wandering the unknown Woods a tedious time, 
 to and fro, and finding no path, I struck up towards a 
 Plantation belonging to one Gilly, near Chickahom- 
 mony Swamp, where I had a Ship-mate living; here I 
 found a Path, and following that Path, it led me up to 
 the house, where finding my Ship-mate, I enquir'd the 
 nearest way to the Falls of James River: Who told 
 me, he knew not the way, but said, he would go and en- 
 quire; so he called his Master's Son, who asked, if I 
 would not walk into the house, and eat before I went. 
 I said it was too early for me to eat: The said Gilly's 
 Son-in-law came forth also, and very urgent they were 
 to have me walk in and smoke Tobacco, seeing I would 
 not eat. I told them, I would not smoke, but desired
 
 364 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 them to direct me my way, (still keeping my Gun in 
 my hand, I being as shie of them, as they were watchful 
 over me.) At last they told me, they would shew me 
 the way; one walking before me, and the other follow- 
 ing me, who led me to a Passage over a Water: where 
 before I passed over, I had some occasion to lay my Gun 
 out of my hand: Whereupon one laying hold of the 
 Gun, said. This is a compleat Gun, and withal fired it 
 off: Whereupon I discern'd my self surprised. 
 
 They told me I was to go no farther : So they seising 
 me, I struggled a while, and had like to have been too 
 hard for one of the men. But Gilly himself hearing 
 the report of the Gun, run down toward the place; so 
 being overpower'd, I was forced to submit to have my 
 hands bound. Upon this seisure I was struck with si- 
 lence, not having power either to confess or deny the 
 Fact. They forthwith brought me before Mr. John 
 Stith, the next Justice of Peace; This happened May 
 25, 1678. I had no power to answer the Justice to any 
 thing, only I begg'd that I might have a Minster sent 
 for to me, and then I should relate the whole matter. 
 One Mr. Williams was sent to me the next morning 
 (being Saturday) to whom I acknowledged the whole 
 matter. After conference with the said Minister, I be- 
 gan by degrees to be rendred sensible of the heinousness 
 of my horrid and bloudy Crime ; for which I was Tryed 
 at James-Town, July 26, 1678. And was Sentenced to 
 be Hang'd in Chains the 27, ditto; according to which 
 just Sentence, I am now deservedly to suffer here this 
 instant 5th of August, 1678. 
 
 Whereas some have reported me formerly an High- 
 way-man, and that I was transported from England 
 hither as a Malefactor; I do here now declare to the 
 world, that I never abused any person on any account on
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 365 
 
 the Road in England, in all my Life-time (except one 
 pitiful Begger.) For, as I rode one day along the Road, 
 a Begger by the Way-side importuned me earnestly, 
 that I would give him something. I had then been on 
 the ramble, having spent all my Money to eighteen 
 Pence, and had sixty Miles father to ride. Whereupon 
 I bethought my self how to supply my present penury 
 out of that Beggers Purse, whom I judged to be far bet- 
 ter in stock than my self. I therefore told the man, I 
 had no Money about me less than Half a Crown, re- 
 quiring him to give me seven Groats, and I would give 
 him tv\'0 Pence out of the Half-Crown. The Begger 
 streight pull'd out a quantity of small Money, and laid 
 it into my hand ; I griping my said hand, put the Money 
 into my pocket. The Begger re-demanded his Money; 
 I told him, I had little Money, and a great way to ride; 
 but he could beg for more Money, I could not; so I 
 rode away with the poor man's Money. Besides this 
 Cheat, I was never guilty of any thing, which might 
 incur the censure of the Law, in England, except my 
 Debts so unadvisedly contracted. 
 
 This fore-recited Relation, after I had penned it from 
 his own Mouth, I red the same over to him, because I 
 had not related it (ipsius atque totidem verbis) just in 
 the very same numerical words wherein he made his 
 Confession to me. After he had heard the same read 
 over, he acknowledged this to be the true sense of his 
 own Intentions, and the very same which he desired 
 might be published to the world. So I promised him 
 I would take so much care, as to have it transported for 
 England. . .
 
 3^6 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 10 CAREER AND OBSERVATIONS OF A HIGH GRADE 
 REDEMPTIONER 
 
 Extracts from the "Diary of John Harrower, 1773-1776." American 
 Historical Reineio, vol. vi, 72-106, passim. 
 
 Wednesday, 26th. [Jan. 1774.] This day I being re- 
 duced to the last shilling I hade was obliged to engage 
 to go to Virginia for four years as a schoolmaster for 
 Bedd, Board, washing and five pound during the whole 
 time. I have also wrote my wife this day a particular 
 Acco* of everything that has happened to me since I 
 left her until this date ; At 3 pm this day I went on board 
 the Snow Planter Cap* Bowers Com"^ for Virginia 
 now lying at Ratlifif Cross, and imediately as I came 
 Onb*^ I rec*^ my Hammock and Bedding. 
 
 Saturday, 29th. This day came on b'^ Alex' Ken- 
 nedy a young man from Edinb"^ who hade been a Mas- 
 ter Cooper there and a Glasgow Man by trade a Bar- 
 ber both which we took into our Mace, [mess] which 
 compleated it being five Scotsmen and one Yorkshire- 
 man, and was always called the Scots mace. . . 
 
 Munday 31st. . . It is surprising to see the N° of 
 good trades men of all kinds, th* come on b*^ every day. 
 
 Sunday, [Feb.] 6th. At 7 AM got under way with a 
 fair wind and clear w^ and at 1 1 AM came to an An- 
 chor off Gravesend and immediately the Merch* came 
 onboard and a Doctor and clerk with him and while 
 the Clerk was filling up the Indentures the doctor 
 search'd every serv* to see that they were sound. . . 
 seventy five were Intend [indented] to Cap* Bowres for 
 four Years. 
 
 Munday, 7th. This forenoon imployed in getting 
 in provisions and water, at 4 pm put a servant ashore 
 extreamly bade in a fever, and then got under saile for 
 Virginia with seventy Servants on board all indented to
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 367 
 
 serve four years there at their differint Occoupations 
 myself being one of the Number and Indented for a 
 Clerk and Bookkeeper, But when I arrived there I cou'd 
 get no such birth as will appear in the place. . . [the 
 items omitted describe the vicissitudes of the voyage to 
 Chesapeake Bay]. 
 
 Thursday, [April] 28th. At 7 AM the Pillot wegh'd 
 Anchor and wrought the ship up to Hampton Roads 
 where we came to an Anchor at 10 AM. This morning 
 I was employ'd in Making out a Clean list of the serv- 
 ants names and Business and age, and how soon I was 
 done Cap* Bowers went ashore in the Pillot boat to 
 Hamton on Elizabeth river. We have some goods to 
 put out before we leave this place, at night, a deal of 
 Thunder, lightning and rain. 
 
 Monday, May 2d. Wind as before, fine fair warm 
 weather, got out the rest of the goods that was for 
 Hampton, at 2 pm the Cap* Carried five serv*' ashore 
 to Hampton in order to sell their Indentures, But re- 
 turned again at Midnight with[out] selling any more 
 but one Boat Builder, he brought onb*^ with him four 
 Barrells Virginia Pork and one Puncheon D° rum, and 
 3 live hogs. 
 
 Tuesday, 3d. Wind at W.N.W. fine moderate 
 weather, at 6 AM weigh'd Anchor from Hampton 
 Roads, and stood out to sea until we made the Entry of 
 Rappahannock river, which we did at 10 AM, proceed- 
 ing up the same for Fredericksburgh, at 6 pm came to 
 an Anchor at Arrabanna. 
 
 Freiday, 6th. Wind as before, at 4 AM got under 
 saile and stood up the river and at 9 AM passed by the 
 town of Hobshole and let it on our Larboard hand as 
 we did the Town of Arrabanna. at Hobshole there was 
 five Glasgow ships and an English Brigantine lying at
 
 368 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 2 pm we passed by Leedstown on our Starboard hand 
 where there was a ship from London lying with con- 
 victs, at night came to another about 6 Miles above 
 Leedstown. . . 
 
 Tuesday, loth. At 2 AM weigh'd and stood up with 
 the tide, came to an anchor at 6 AM and lay untill D° 8 
 when we weigh'd with a fair wind and got to our Moor- 
 ings at 6 pm at the Toun of Fredericksburgh. 
 
 Wednesday, nth. At lo AM Both Coopers and the 
 Barber from our Mace went ashore upon tryall. At 
 night one Daniel Turner a serv^ returned onb*^ from 
 Liberty so drunk that he abused the Cap* and Chief 
 Mate and Boatswan to a verry high degree, which made 
 to be horse whip*, put in Irons and thumb screwed, on 
 houre afterward he was unthumbscrewed, taken out of 
 the Irons, but then he was hand cufifed, and gagged all 
 night. 
 
 Thursday, i2th. All hands quite [quiet] on board 
 this day. Turner ungagged But continoued in hand- 
 cuffs. . . 
 
 Munday, i6th. This day severalls came onb^ to 
 purchase serv*^ Indentures and among them there was 
 two Soul drivers, they are men who make it their busi- 
 ness to go onb"^ all ships who have in either Servants 
 or Convicts and buy sometimes the whole and some- 
 times a parcell of them as they can agree, and then they 
 drive them through the Country like a parcell of Sheep 
 untill they can sell them to advantage, but all went 
 away without buying any. . . 
 
 Munday 23d. This morning a great number of 
 Gentlemen and Ladies driving into Town it being an 
 annuall Fair day and tomorrow the day of the Horse 
 races, at 11 AM M^ Anderson begged to settle as a 
 schoolmaster with a friend of his one Colonel Dainger- 
 field and told me he was to be in town tomorrow, or
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 369 
 
 perhaps to-night, and how soon he came he shou'd 
 aquant me. at same time all the rest of the servants 
 were ordered ashore to a tent at Fredericksb^ and sev- 
 erall of their Indentures were then sold, about 4 pm I 
 was brought to Colonel Daingerfield, when we imedi- 
 atly agreed and my Indenture for four years was then 
 delivered him and he was to send for me the next day. 
 at same time ordred to get all my dirty Cloaths of every 
 kind washed at his expense in Toun; at night he sent 
 me five shillings onb"^ by Cap^ Bowers to keep my 
 pocket. . . 
 
 Thursday 26th. This day at noon the Colonel sent a 
 Black with a cuple of horses for me and soon after I set 
 out on Horseback and aravied at his seat of Belvidera 
 about 3 pm and after I hade dined the Colonel took me 
 to a neat little house at the upper end of an Avenue of 
 planting at 500 yd^ from the Main house, where I was 
 to keep the school, and Lodge myself in it. 
 
 This place is verry pleasantly situated on the Banks 
 of the river Rappahannock about seven miles below the 
 Toun of Fredericksburgh and the school's right above 
 the Warfif so that I can stand in the door and pitch a 
 stone onboard of any ship or Boat going up or coming 
 doun the river. 
 
 Freiday, 27th. This morning about 8 AM the Colo- 
 nel delivered his three Sons to my Charge to teach them 
 to read, write and figure, his oldest son Edwin 10 years 
 of age, intred into two syllables in the spelling book, 
 Bathourest his second son six years of age in the Alpha- 
 bete and William his third son 4 years of age does not 
 know the letters, he has likewise a Daughter whose 
 name is Hanna Basset Years of age. . . My school 
 Houres is from 6 to 8 in the morning, in the forenoon 
 from 9 to 12, and from 3 to 6 in the afternoon. . .
 
 370 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 Tuesday, [June] 14th. This morning entred to school 
 William Pattie son of John Pattie wright, and Salley 
 Evens daughter to Thomas Evens Planter. This day I 
 wrote my wife a particular Acco* of all my transactions 
 since I wrote her from London 26*'' Jan'^ last, the 
 Coppy of which I have by me. . . 
 
 Freiday, 17th. This day rec*^ two pair new Rushia 
 drill britches and two new Coats of Brown Holland. 
 
 Munday, 20th. This morning entred to school Philip 
 and Dorothea Edge's Children of M^ Benjamin Edge 
 Planter. Same day Colonel Dangerfield began to cut 
 down his wheat, which they do with a syth. 
 
 Tuesday, 21st. This day M"" Samuel Edge Planter 
 came to me and begged me to take a son of his to school 
 who was both deaf and dum, and I consented to try 
 what I cou'd do with him. . . 
 
 Tuesday, August i6th. Expecting a visit of one M' 
 Kennedy an Edinburgher, a Cooper now in Fredericks- 
 burgh, I this day sent to Toun for a Quart of the best 
 Vestindia Rum which cost me Eighteen pence Virginia 
 Currancy. . . 
 
 Sunday, [December] 25th. Christmas day, stayed at 
 home all day along w* the Overseer and Childreen be- 
 cause I hade no saddle to go to the Church with. In the 
 morning the Col' Ordred up to school two Bottles of 
 the best Rum and some suggar for me. 
 
 Munday, 26th. This forenoon the CoP wou'd have 
 me to take his saddle and ride to Toun and Amuse my- 
 self, and when I was going gave me Six Shillings for 
 pocket money. I went to Toun and Dined in a private 
 house and after buying i>4 Doz*" Mother of Pearle but- 
 tons for my white morsyld Vest I return'd home in the 
 evening. . .
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 371 
 
 Freiday, 30th. This day there was severall Gentle- 
 men from Fredericksburgh here at Dinner with whom 
 I dined. 
 
 Munday, 17th [April, 1775]. At 8 AM I rode to 
 Town in order to see the boys and Amuse myself fore 
 some hours. On my Aravel in Town the first thing I 
 got to do was to dictate and write a love letter from M' 
 Anderson, to one Peggie Dewar at the Howse of M' 
 John Mitchel at the Wilderness. After that I went to 
 M' John Glassell's store to enquire for letters from 
 home but found none; here I mett with the Col' who 
 gave me two pair brown thread stockins for my summer 
 wear. At 2 pm I dined with him in M*^ Porter's, and 
 soon after Returned home. 
 
 Thursday, 20th, This morning all the boys came to 
 school again at their Usual hour. On tuesday last was 
 missed out of the pasture a breeding mare, search be- 
 ing made for her by the Overseer he found this after- 
 noon the Neiger fellow who hade rode her ofT and after 
 riding her about 24 Miles from the Plantation turned 
 her loose in the high road, he is a Blacksmith by trade 
 and belongs to and works at a Plantation of M"" Cor- 
 bins, and after he had confessed the fact M*" Frazer 
 ower Overseer stript him to the [skin] and gave him 39 
 laches with Hickry switches that being the highest the 
 Law allows at one Wheeping. . . 
 
 Tuesday, 23d. [April, 1776]. At noon rode to Town, 
 got the Newspapers and settled with M' Porter for 
 teaching his two sons 12 M°' when he verry genteely 
 allowed me £6 for them, besides a present of two silk 
 vests and two pair of Nankeen Breeches last summer 
 and a Gallon of rum at Christenmass, both he and M" 
 Porter being extreamly well satisfied with what I hade 
 don to them.
 
 372 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 II CONVICT TRANSPORTATION, VICISSITUDES 
 
 Boston Chronicle, March 14 to 21, 1768. News item from Antigua. 
 
 Antigua, January 25. Last week arrived here the 
 Snow Rodney, Nicholas Pirdy, from London, for 
 Mayland with convicts; we have received an extract 
 from the Ship's log-book, which we insert that the pub- 
 lic may be acquainted with hardships these poor 
 wretches sustained during their terrible voyage. 
 
 September 27. came thro' the Downs. Octo. 5 came 
 too on the mother bank after beating &c. 7th. discovered 
 a scheme of the convicts to take away the ship - loth. 
 set sail with clear weather and steady breeze; wind N. 
 by E. -Nov. 4th. Boatsw^ain took to his bed; the i6th. 
 returned - Dec. 12th. convicts wet- 14th, 15th, i6th. 
 no observation ; cloudy weather, a very heavy gale on 
 the 15th. with thunder and lightning; the Ship labour- 
 ing very much, and makes a great deal of water - 26th. 
 found the bolts of the standards between decks broke by 
 yesterday's gale, so that they are of no service to the 
 ship, which opens fore and aft, and leaks much - 27th. 
 more water 28th. a great deal of water -29th. a very 
 heavy gale of wind and high sea; a stroke of the sea on 
 the starboard quarter, broke the tiller short off in the 
 rudder head ; pump every half hour, nailed canvass over 
 the bows and the seams of the forecastle - 30th. obliged 
 to make some of the convicts assist in working and 
 pumping the ship; every thing in a bad situation; only 
 30 pieces of beef, 26 pieces of pork, and 700 lb. of bread, 
 for 105 people and no probability of getting into Vir- 
 ginia -31st. the people wrote to the Captain desiring 
 to know what he intended to do with the ship in that 
 situation, expecting every minute to founder; and the 
 convicts almost starved for want of food, and almost 
 drowned with the water bet^veen decks; only two bis-
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 373 
 
 cuits a day. - At seven A.M. the ship received so severe 
 a shock from a stroke of the sea, that it was necessary 
 to keep one pump continually going; at eight, not being 
 able to lay to any longer, was obliged to bear away to the 
 southward, hoping to get into South Carolina, lat. 35. 
 36. long. 72. 27. W. - Jan. ist. John Jay, convict, died. - 
 2nd. being near the lat. of Carolina, and by account 10 
 degrees to the Eastward of it in a heavy gale of wind, 
 and having only 24 pieces of beef, 22 pieces of pork, and 
 600 weight of bread, to feed 104 people, bore away for 
 Antigua, the vessel being much wrecked in hull and 
 rigging, and, it being impossible to get into any port on 
 the continent, 4 P.M. found four of the fore-shrouds 
 broke; Richard Owen, convict, died -3d. convicts in a 
 very poor condition, very low and many sick -5th. in 
 lat. 31. long. 65. 57. contrary winds; provisions almost 
 expended, convicts only three ounces of bread a day and 
 so great was their distress that they eat the very vermin 
 which they picked ofT of themselves. The ship's com- 
 pany, upon whose lives depended the welfare of the 
 whole, fared but little better; their 24 hours allowance 
 being insufficient for one man's meal -7th. examined 
 the convicts, their condition truly miserable; full of 
 sores and ulcers, very low, and have lain for three weeks 
 absolutely in water, the vessel being almost tore to pieces 
 by the many severe storms she encountered. loth. 14th. 
 and 17th. William Smith, Joseph Green, Joseph James, 
 William Stude, and John Cole, convicts, died - 20th. 
 having no provisions of any kind to issue to the poor 
 unhappy creatures, the company and myself, I opened a 
 cake of cheese containing 100 lb. consigned to Charles 
 Carroll, Esq: the poor wretches having long ago eat 
 their leather breeches, and every shoe they found in the 
 vessel - At noon saw Antigua, distant 7 leagues.
 
 374 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 
 
 12 ITEMS ON THE TR.'^DE IN SERVANTS 
 
 (a) Extract of a letter from William Byrd, James River, Virginia, 
 Nov. lo, 1739, to Mr. Andrews of Rotterdam. American Historical 
 Review, vol. i, 90. 
 
 I know not how long the Palatines are sold for, who 
 do not Pay Passage to Phyladelphia, but here they are 
 sold for Four years and fetch from 6 to 9 Pounds and 
 perhaps good Tradesmen may go for Ten. If these 
 Prices would answer, I am pretty Confident I could 
 dispose of two Shipsload every year in this River: and I 
 myself would undertake it for Eight [per] cent on the 
 Sales, and make you as few bad Debts as possible. This 
 is the Allowance Our Negro Sellers have, which sell for 
 more than Double these People will, and consequently 
 afford t^vice the Profet. 
 
 (b) Extract of a letter from John Brown (presumably from Augusta 
 County in the Shenandoah Valley), Aug. 22, 1774, to William Pres- 
 ton. MS. in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society, 
 Draper collection, series QQ, vol. iii, 8i. Brown lived at Provi- 
 dence, near Staunton, Virginia. 
 
 Some time ago you told me that you intended to enter 
 the servant tread [trade], and desire me to tell if there 
 was any encouragement our way for the sale of them, I 
 think there is none, for these reasons i. the scarcity of 
 money 2. servants are plenty and everyone has as many 
 as they want besides the country is sunk in debt by them 
 already. 
 
 (c) Knoxville (Tennessee) Register, Dec. 8, 1818. Advertisement. 
 
 German Redemptioner. 20 dollars reward Will 
 be given for apprehending and securing JOHN ADAM 
 Wolf. 
 
 In any jail, in the United States; he is a German lad, 
 about 17 years old, but would be considered small of his 
 age by Americans : he is a taylor by trade, had a blue
 
 PLANTATION LABOR 375 
 
 roundabout made in the German fashion with buttons 
 behind: grey mixed pantaloons, vest not recollected; 
 Blue eyes auburn hair, speaks very little English, and 
 has two scars or marks under the chin, that have the ap- 
 pearance of soreness, and are supposed to have been 
 occassioned by the itch; he however keeps them con- 
 cealed by wearing his neck handkerchief very high - he 
 was in company with a number of his countrymen on 
 their way to the Alabama Territory, when he absconded, 
 on the 1 6th. inst, about 20 miles east of this place. 
 
 Any person apprehending the above lad will please 
 give information of the same to David Keller Esq. of 
 this place and to the subscriber near Florence, Alabama 
 Territory. F. C. Clopper.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles ' 
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