The Negro in Tennessee, 1790-1865

by C. Perry Patterson

II. The Management of the Plantation.

Plantation life in Tennessee was more humane than is generally supposed. Great care was taken in establishing the negro quarters. There were several reasons for this, not especially peculiar to Tennessee. Health is an indispensable factor in the life of an efficient laborer. It saved or reduced the expense of medical attention. Sanitary quarters for the negroes produced contentment and thus lessened the problem of government. They prevented the spread of disease, and a consequent heavy death rate. They diminished crime among the slaves and on the whole made a good reputation for the master. Respect for the master was no inconsiderable force in the proper functioning of a plantation. The slaveholders discussed these subjects in the agricultural fairs and read papers on how to build proper slave quarters.

In an issue of the Practical Farmer and Mechanic, published at Somerville, Tennessee, the county seat of the most densely slave-populated county in the state, are given the following instructions relative to the establishment of the plantation buildings:

In the selection of his farm, he (the master) should have an eye to health, convenience of water, and a soil with such a substratum as to retain manures. His home should be neat but not costly—erected on an elevated situation—with a sufficient number of shade trees to impart health and comfort to its inmates. His negro quarters should be placed a convenient distance from his dwelling on a dry, airy ridge—raised two feet from the ground—so they can be thoroughly ventilated underneath, and placed at distances apart of at least fifty yards to ensure health. In this construction, they should be sufficiently spacious so as not to crowd the family intended to occupy them—with brick chimneys and large fire-places to impart warmth to every part of the room. More diseases and loss of time on plantations are engendered from crowded negro cabins than from almost any other cause. The successful planter should therefore have an especial eye to the comfort of his negroes, in not permitting them to be overcrowded in their sleeping quarters.[15]

This was an ideal that was regarded as a model. There was pride among masters as to the character and appearance of their plantations. In a description of a plantation in Haywood County, the following elaborate set of buildings is given: dwelling-house, kitchen, washhouse, storehouse, office, smokehouse, servants’ houses about the dwelling of the master, weaving, ice, and poultry houses, gin house, grist mill, flouring mill, wheat granary, stables, corn crib, overseer’s house, seven double negro cabins, thirty-six feet by fourteen, with large brick chimneys, closets, and other conveniences, all of which buildings are annually whitewashed.[16] If one family was to occupy the cabin, it was usually about 16 feet by 20 feet in its dimensions.[17] An effort was made to locate cabins among shade trees. If this condition was not met, trees were planted. Comfortable housing of the slaves was one of the real problems of slave management, and it seems that an honest effort in most cases was made to solve it. Proper bedding with plenty of blankets was furnished in the winter, and close attention was given to the food of the slaves. Weekly allowances were usually made, yet some fed in common. Five pounds of good, clean bacon, one quart of molasses, a sufficiency of bread and coffee with sugar were usually distributed to each slave on some designated night each week. Family rations were put together. Single hands received their rations separately, and then united in squads and masses. Some woman was detailed to cook their meat or make their coffee. The bread was cooked in the bakery for the entire plantation.

Two suits of cotton for spring and summer; two suits of woolen for winter; four pairs of shoes, and three hats made up the clothing allowance. The slave was encouraged to be neat in his dress.

The slaves were supposed to go to work by sunrise. They rested from one to two hours at noon and then worked until night. In summer, the plan frequently was to work from sunrise to 8:00 o’clock a.m., then breakfast, work until 12:00 o’clock at noon, rest two hours, and then work until night. They always quit work at noon on Saturday to prepare for Sunday.

Various plans were used to stimulate the slaves to work. One of the most effective was “task week.” The negroes varied among themselves considerably as to the rapidity with which they could perform their labor. It was this very fact that constituted the basis of the “task” system. According to this system, a slave could work for himself or play when he had finished his assigned task. Some masters permitted the slaves to cultivate a few acres for themselves.

Prompt attention in case of sickness was a vastly important matter among slaves. Masters, mistresses, and overseers usually knew a great many home remedies which, if given in time, would suffice for a large number of complaints. A good amount of red pepper was used in the vegetables. This was supposed to stimulate the system, prevent sore throat, and render the system less liable to chills and fevers.

Good plantation management contained a number of additional interesting features. A weekly dance was an event to be looked forward to. For the master and mistress to chaperon these occasions made a strong impression on the slaves. Family prayers in which the slaves participated had a bracing effect on the negro’s character. It was wise to have an employed preacher for the slaves. Religion appealed to the negro’s character, and it was a psychological factor in his control.

One of the most interesting features of plantation life was the raising of poultry by the old slaves who were incapacitated for hard work. An old negro man, giving most zealous attention to his brood, his negro assistants careful to please him in every detail, and the “happy family,” consisting of everything from a bob white and turkey gobbler to a mockingbird, made one of the most beautiful pictures of plantation life.[18]

The duties of the master was a subject that was kept before the community even if economic interests were not sufficient to control such matters. J. P. Williams, in a prize essay on plantations and their management, urged that the master should give his personal attention to his negroes. He thought that such supervision would not only pay in financial returns but would largely solve the problem of discontent and insubordination frequently due to mistreatment of slaves by an overseer.[19]

The master’s relation to the overseer was an important factor in the management of the plantation. It was a good policy to pay any overseer well. This gave the master the right to demand his entire time, and usually ended in efficiency and satisfactory relations of overseer to both master and slaves.

“An employer,” said Jas. C. Lusby, in a paper read before the Agricultural and Mechanical Society of Fayette County, September 2, 1855, “should never ask a negro any questions whatever about the business of the plantation, or the condition of the crops; nor say anything in the presence of the negroes about the overseer, for they are always ready to catch any word that may be dropped, and use it if possible to cause a disturbance between the master and the overseer.”[20] It seems that there was a common practice among masters to have one or two trusties among the negroes to act as spies upon the overseer. “Negroes,” said Lusby, “in two-thirds of the cases, are the cause of employers and overseers falling out.”[21] The successful planter was one who gave sufficient time and thought to the management of his farm to enable him to be his own judge as to the character and efficiency of his overseer.

The overseer was the most important factor in the management of the large plantation. His indifference toward the interests of either master or slaves broke down the system, because there was perfect unity of interests inherent in the system, and the successful overseer recognized this ideal. It was the business of the overseer to be present at the beginning of every important work, not merely because he was paid to do so, but because the negroes always took advantage of his absence. It was his business to ring a bell or blow a horn in the morning for breakfast, because it was unsafe to entrust this duty to a negro driver for the reason that it was almost impossible to find a negro sufficiently regular in his habits to be reliable. If the breakfast hour was a failure, the entire day’s work was seriously damaged.

The overseer had to see that the negroes were up by four o’clock in the winter and about half past three in the spring and summer. This gave time to prepare victuals, arrange clothes and shoes, to see that horses and mules were properly fed, that crib doors were shut, that fires were built for the children, and that everybody was ready to go to work by daylight.[22]

The overseer accompanied the slaves to the field and saw that the day’s work was properly begun. He could then return to his house for breakfast. Following breakfast, he was free to make a general inspection of the plantation. He inspected the cabins to see that they were neatly kept, that the clothes of the negroes were washed, that the negro nurses were properly looking after the children, that the common bakery, boot-and-shoe shop, carpenters, mechanics, and tailors were efficiently functioning.

He inspected fences, ditches, gates, and stock occasionally. He visited the cabins two or three times a week at night to see that the negroes were at home and that no strange negroes were on the premises. The nature of the negro was to gad about, and to keep improper hours. It was the duty of the overseer to prevent this. He had to look after the farming implements, and, after the crops were harvested, to gather up the tools of the plantation and have them repaired and properly housed during the winter.

The overseer had constantly to plan work two or three weeks in advance to have the greatest success. He had to keep in close touch with the master, especially concerning work after the crops were finished. “I consider it to be the duty of the overseer,” said Lusby, “to do anything that the employer wishes him to do, right or wrong.”

Lusby advocated that an overseer should be a model of personal appearance. He should keep himself close-shaven, wear good clothes, “hold his head up equal to his employer, ride a good, sprightly horse, and have one of the hands to attend to him, and saddle him in the morning.”[23] An overseer was rated by the slaves very largely according to the manner in which he conducted himself. His personal conduct was a determining factor in the degree of control that he was able to exercise. This factor either made or undid all his efforts.

An overseer who was a success in the employment of a master was usually able to buy land and negroes for himself in a few years. In an address given at an agricultural fair in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1855, an account is given of a planter in Haywood County, who had had only four overseers from 1838 to 1855. One of these in six years, with a large family, accumulated nineteen hundred dollars which he invested in lands and negroes in Texas, and was soon doing well. Another accumulated in seven years more than two thousand dollars, and was ready to go to Arkansas and invest his capital in lands and negroes. The other two had similar success.[24]

The slaves in Tennessee undoubtedly were, on the whole, humanely treated. Rev. Arthur Howard says in his history of the Episcopal Church in Tennessee that “it is impossible to deny that the negroes of the South were happier, and better cared for, physically and morally, under the system of slavery existing in the South, than they have been at any time since they obtained their freedom and were suddenly, without any training, endowed with the right of citizenship.”[25]

Rev. J. N. Pendleton, of the Baptist Church, said:

I take great pleasure in testifying that slavery in Kentucky and Tennessee, and I was not acquainted with it elsewhere, was of the mild type. When I went North, nothing surprised me more than to see laborers at work in the rain and snow. In such weather, slaves in Kentucky and Tennessee would have been under shelter.[26]