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 class 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 principally 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 entitled 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 wishing 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 classes 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.