Volume III Part 48 (1/2)
”WILL be offered for hire, for the ensuing year, at Capt. Long's Hotel, a number of SLAVES. MOSES R. RICHARDS.”
”WILL be offered for hire, the slaves belonging to the estate of James Bowen, deceased, consisting of men, and women, boys and girls. GILES COOK. _One of the Exrs. of James Bowen dec'd_.”
”THE _hiring_ at Millwood will take place on Friday, the 28th day of December, 1838. BURWELL.”
”N.B. We are desired to say that other valuable NEGROES will also be _hired_ at Millwood on the same day, besides those offered by Mr. B.”
”The SLAVES of the late John Jolliffe, about twenty in number, and of all ages and both s.e.xes, will be offered for hire at Cain's Depot.
DAVID W. BARTON. _Administrator_.”
”I WILL hire at public hiring before the tavern door of Dr. Lacy, about 30 NEGROES, consisting of men, and women. JAMES R. RICHARDS.”
”WILL be hired, at Carter's Tavern, on 31st of December, a number of NEGROES. JOHN J.H. GUNNELL.”
”NEGROES FOR HIRE, (PRIVATELY.) About twelve servants, consisting of men, women, boys, and girls, for hire privately. Apply to the subscriber at Col. Smith's in Battletown. JOHN W. OWEN.”
A volume might easily be filled with advertis.e.m.e.nts like the preceding, showing conclusively that _hired_ slaves must be a large proportion of the whole number. The actual proportion has been variously estimated, at 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/2, &c. if we adopt the last as our basis, it will make the number of hired slaves, in the United States, FIVE HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND!
6th. _Slaves under overseers whose wages are a part of the crop_.--That this is a common usage; appears from the following testimony. The late Hon. John Taylor, of Caroline Co. Virginia, one of the largest slaveholders in the state, President of the State Agricultural Society, and three times elected to the Senate of the United States, says, in his ”Agricultural Essays,” No. 15. P. 57,
”This necessary cla.s.s of men, (overseers,) are bribed by agriculturalists, not to improve, but to impoverish their land, _by a share of the crop for one year_.... The _greatest_ annual crop, and not the most judicious culture, advances his interest, and establishes his character; and the fees of these land-doctors, are much higher for killing than for curing.... The most which the land can yield, and seldom or never improvement with a view to future profit, is a point of common consent, and mutual need between the agriculturist and his overseer.... Must the practice of hiring a man for one year, by a share of the crop, to lay out all his skill and industry in killing land, and as little as possible in improving it, be kept up to commemorate the pious leaning of man to his primitive state of ignorance and barbarity? _Unless this is abolished_, the attempt to fertilize our lands is needless.”
Philemon Bliss, Esq, of Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida, in 1834-5, says,
”It is common for owners of plantations and slaves, to hire overseers to take charge of them, while they themselves reside at a distance.
_Their wages depend princ.i.p.ally upon the amount of labor which they can exact from the slave_. The term ”good overseer,” signifies one who can make the greatest amount of the staple, cotton for instance, from a given number of hands, besides raising sufficient provisions for their consumption. He has no interest in the life of the slave. Hence the fact, so notorious at the south, that negroes are driven harder and fare worse under overseers than under their owners.”
William Ladd, Esq. of Minot, Maine, formerly a slaveholder in Florida, speaking, in a recent letter of the system of labor adopted there, says; ”The compensation of the overseers _was a certain portion of the crop_.”
Rev. Phineas Smith, of Centreville, Allegany Co. N.Y. who has recently returned from a four years' residence, in the Southern slave states and Texas, says,
”The mode in which _many_ plantations are managed, is calculated and _designed_, as an inducement to the slave driver, to lay upon the slave the _greatest possible burden, the overseer being ent.i.tled by contract, to a certain share of the crop_.”
We leave the reader to form his own opinion, as to the proportion of slaves under overseers, whose wages are in proportion to the crop, raised by them. We have little doubt that we shall escape the charge of wis.h.i.+ng to make out a ”strong case” when we put the proportion at _one-eighth_ of the whole number of slaves, which would be _three hundred and fifty thousand_.
Without drawing out upon the page a sum in addition for the reader to ”run up,” it is easily seen that the slaves in the preceding cla.s.ses amount to more than ELEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND, exclusive of the deaf and dumb, and the blind, some of whom, especially the former, might be profitable to their ”owners”;
Now it is plainly for the interest of the ”owners” of these slaves, or of those who have the charge of them, to _treat than cruelly_, to overwork, under-feed, half-clothe, half-shelter, poison, or kill outright, the aged, the broken down, the incurably diseased, idiots, feeble infants, most of the blind, some deaf and dumb, &c. It is besides a part of the slave-holder's creed, that it is _for his interest_ to treat with terrible severity, all runaways and the incorrigibly stubborn, thievish, lazy, &c.; also for those who hire slaves, to overwork them; also for overseers to overwork the slaves under them, when their own wages are increased by it.
We have thus shown that it would be ”_for the interest_,” of masters and overseers to treat with _habitual_ cruelty _more than one million_ of the slaves in the United States. But this is not all; as we have said already, it is for the interest of overseers generally, whether their wages are proportioned to the crop or not, to overwork the slaves; we need not repeat the reasons.
Neither is it necessary to re-state the arguments, going to show that it is for the interest of slaveholders, who cultivate the great southern staples, especially cotton, and the sugarcane, to overwork periodically _all_ their slaves, and _habitually_ the majority of them, when the demand for those staples creates high prices, as has been the case with cotton for many years, with little exception.
Instead of entering into a labored estimate to get at the proportion of the slaves, affected by the operation of these and the other causes enumerated, we may say, that they operate _directly_ on the ”field hands,” employed in raising the southern staples, and indirectly upon all cla.s.ses of the slaves.
Finally, the conclude this head by turning the objector's negative proposition into an affirmative one, and state formally what has been already proved.
_It is for the interest of shareholders, upon their own principles, and by their own showing, TO TREAT CRUELLY the great body of their slaves._