Plantation Overseer Research Articles

Correspondence of James K. Polk (review)

BOOK REVIEWS349 Correspoiulence of James K. Polk. Volume II, 1833-34. Edited by Herbert Weaver and Paul H. Bergeron. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1972. Pp. xxxvi, 645. $15.00.) The first volume of this series was reviewed in the June 1970 number of this journal, and most of my comments regarding editorial method and general usefulness continue to apply. Now for the first time selectivity becomes an important matter. The editors found 850 letters from this period and selected 664 for inclusion—512 in full and 152 in summary . The remainder seemed "too routine and inconsequential." Perhaps so—but the pattern already revealed in Polk's correspondence leaves this editorial judgment somewhat adrift. He was very meticulous about his duties; he apparently kept no letterbooks yet, although he did save incoming envelopes; and he had in Volume I a large number of "routine" exchanges with other government officers. Now that he is Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, "routine" correspondence may derive significance from its very quantity, especially for those probing administrative history. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing how many of the excluded 186 deal with his committee work, nor even how many of them Polk himself wrote. Excluded items should probably be calendared at the end of each volume, or at least more thoroughly described in the preface. Only forty-four of the letters in this volume are by Polk. And only a handful of them reveal much about his own political views and plans. Several written to House colleague Cave Johnson during the summer recess of 1833, when Polk was up for reelection, are significant, as are four more in the summer of 1834 (to Jackson and others), and two to James Walker, brother-in-law and political confidant, at Christmas. Polk thus plays the title role from the shadows, while being addressed by the other actors. And the stage is crowded and cacophonous. Through the din, which is by turns flowery, cryptic, and ungrammatical , comes one constant refrain: The Bank is Beelzebub! Out with the deposits! Down with the Bank! One can detect other political leit-motifs. Arkansas Territory, soon to be a state, must not send Bank-men to the Senate. The press, particularly in Nashville, must be rescued from Bank control. The Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1834 must be kept in friendly hands. The party must not be split by putting up Hugh Lawson White in competition with Van Buren for the 1836 presidential canvass. John Bell, elected Speaker over Polk with Whig assistance though nominally a Jackson man, must be carefully watched. This volume is more heavily political, and more politically useful, than the first; but it also contains the usual family letters, pension requests , complaints about mail service, pleas for patronage, and gossipy reports from Maury County. A misspelled request datelined "Ultima Thule, Sevier Co., Arkansas Territory" typifies the rural Jacksonian's view of a congressman's duties: "I would be glad to hear from you & 350civil war history if you have any public documts that you think I would like to see pleose send them. I like to read anything against the Damd Bank." Aspiring soldier William H. Stephens urged, "Exercise half the zeal for me that I did distributing Circulars for you, and I can go to West Point." Aspiring poet Robert Mack wanted Polk to peddle to fellow congressmen a volume of his poems including an "irregular Ode" describing Napoleon 's battle of Marengo. Aspiring politician and lover Terry Cahal concluded a long political letter, "I am out as a beau about the 27th time & am actually courting two girls at this very time. . . . Marriage should be effected in a business like style upon reflection and not perpetrated in a passion." Aspiring student Williamson Haggard (term paper hucksters take note) asked Polk to compose him a "tolerable lengthy" speech against nullification, to be read at an "exhibition." In addition to these lighter bits there is a series of letters from a plantation overseer, illustrating well the travails of working for an absentee landlord. Totally absent are the crank letters we would expect in a modern statesman's papers, or even many letters of reasoned criticism, which is...

David Walker's Appeal in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World (review)

188CIVIL WAR HISTORY has produced a sound study of the characteristics and behavior of the group as a whole. In all instances his findings add depth, substance, or corrective to the generalizations of earlier students of slavery. Professor Scarborough's findings are, in brief, that the great majority of the plantation overseers were native southerners of the yeoman farmer class; that they were men of average competence, humaneness, and conscientiousness; and that they exercised a vital function in the running of the plantations. The author sharpens the effect of his conclusions by presenting them as a countertheme to the Simon Legree tradition about overseers. Unquestionably the overseer has shared with the slave trader the villains role in the abolitionist script of the slavery tragedy; and even as sympathetic a student of the institution as Professor U. B. Phillips described the overseers as being "crude in manner, barely literate, commonplace in capacity, capable only of ruling slaves by severity." Professor Scarborough convincingly challenges this sweeping characterization. Yet, the present book is not so much a ground breaker as it is a cultivator and fertilizer in its reappraisal of the overseer's nature; for many recent students of slavery have reached comparable, if tentative, conclusions. The Overseer is not a sparkling work at any point; and here and there the literary style falls into a pedantic exposition on sources of information and methods of analysis and presentation. But the book is the product of thorough research, and it closes a serious gap in the literature on the Old South. It will probably long remain the definitive monograph on the subject. „, , ...Charles P. Roland lulane University David Walker's Appeal in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Edited by Charles M. Wiltse. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1965. Pp. xii, 78. $1.25.) The timeliness of this work, which first appeared in 1829, is attested to by the fact that two editions of it appeared in 1965 and by the further fact that its author is better known today than he was a century ago. Those who today insist on "freedom now at any and all costs" are the direct spiritual descendants of the North Carolina free Negro who became a secondhand clothes dealer in Boston and the author of one of the most incendiary antislavery tracts published before the Civil War. Indeed, according to the editor, the publication of Walker's Appeal . . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World did as much as "any single event to trigger the Negro revolt." David Walker was a fiery, uncompromising enemy of slavery; and it would appear that he spent more time attacking slavery—through speeches, newspaper articles, and other writings—than in dealing in used clothing and sailors' gear. Walker's Appeal may well be regarded as a significant turning point in antislavery writings—from the rather mild antislavery remonstrances by the Quakers to the strident voices raised by Garrison and his fellow crusaders. BOOK REVIEWS189 His was an "ungentle probing that first laid bare the deepseated schizophrenia of the South, where the right hand held the Bible and the left hand the bull whip." The Appeal went through three editions in 1829 and 1830; and when Walker was found dead in June 1850, in the doorway of his shop, few doubted that this eloquent voice in the battle for Negro freedom had been violently stilled. Already there was a price on his head in several southern states where even the possession of the Appeal had become a crime against the state. Thirty years ago, in the Journal of Southern History, Clement Eaton described Walker's Appeal as "A Dangerous Pamphlet in the Old South" and indicated that its appearance created extreme fear and apprehension among the southern leaders. In North Carolina the governor wrote to the police of the principal towns and to the senators of thirty-two eastern counties urging them to guard against any unfortunate consequences of the pamphlet's circulation. The next session of the General Assembly passed "An Act to Prevent the Circulation of Seditious Publications." Walker's Appeal was indeed seditious and incendiary. The editor says that it "decries hypocrisy, repudiates...

The Overseer: Plantation Management in the Old South (review)

BOOK REVIEWS187 voluntarily they could have lived out peaceful lives as respected citizens within their communities. He attributes to John Newman Edwards major responsibility for laying the basis for the James legend. A wartime adjutant to General Jo Shelby and a popular writer for a number of Missouri newspapers in the postwar years, Edwards served as apologist for Jesse and Frank in his book Noted Guerrillas (1877) and in numerous editorials. He created a vast amount of sympathy among Missourians who had known the suffering and bitterness which had supposedly driven these men to crime. Although the James gang by no means confined its operations to Missouri , activities in that state absorbed much of their energies. Here the band evaded the law for nearly fifteen years, sheltered by a host of relatives , friends, neighbors, and those who feared them—the same elements which had protected and nurtured them when they rode with Quantrill during the war. Here they had their beginnings, and here (with the exception of the Youngers who were captured in Minnesota) their careers ended. Shot in the back while unarmed and unsuspecting, Jesse achieved "martyrdom" at the hands of one of his own band. This act and a series of trials for Frank and other members of the gang became heavily tinged with pohtical overtones in a Missouri whose dominant Democracy was evenly divided between Union and Confederate wings. Out of all this, Settle has produced a volume which should appeal to buff and scholar alike. Certainly he has made a major contribution to a better understanding of one of the most fascinating figures in American WrLLIAM E. Parrish Westminster College The Overseer: Phntation Management in the Old South. By William Kauffman Scarborough. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966. Pp. xv, 256. $7.50.) This is an important book, for it is the only comprehensive analysis ever attempted of one of the most important functionaries of the plantation system, the overseer. In addition to its wealth of information on the life and labor of overseers in general, this study presents valuable treatises on two exceptional groups within the overseer profession. One of these is the elite minority among overseers, men who themselves eventually rose to become successful planters, or men who made important contributions to the science of agriculture and of plantation management. The other exceptional group discussed here is the stewards, officials who supervised the operations of the ordinary overseers on two or more plantations. By avoiding a priori moralistic conclusions, and by examining the careers of the overseers as they actually appear in their letters and papers, in the plantation records, and in the manuscript census reports, the author 188CIVIL WAR HISTORY has produced a sound study of the characteristics and behavior of the group as a whole. In all instances his findings add depth, substance, or corrective to the generalizations of earlier students of slavery. Professor Scarborough's findings are, in brief, that the great majority of the plantation overseers were native southerners of the yeoman farmer class; that they were men of average competence, humaneness, and conscientiousness; and that they exercised a vital function in the running of the plantations. The author sharpens the effect of his conclusions by presenting them as a countertheme to the Simon Legree tradition about overseers. Unquestionably the overseer has shared with the slave trader the villains role in the abolitionist script of the slavery tragedy; and even as sympathetic a student of the institution as Professor U. B. Phillips described the overseers as being "crude in manner, barely literate, commonplace in capacity, capable only of ruling slaves by severity." Professor Scarborough convincingly challenges this sweeping characterization. Yet, the present book is not so much a ground breaker as it is a cultivator and fertilizer in its reappraisal of the overseer's nature; for many recent students of slavery have reached comparable, if tentative, conclusions. The Overseer is not a sparkling work at any point; and here and there the literary style falls into a pedantic exposition on sources of information and methods of analysis and presentation. But the book is the product of thorough research, and it closes a serious gap in the literature on the...

Essays in Southern Biography (review)

BOOK REVIEWS183 Only the most unbending of perfectionists would have been willing to insist that the original dissertation failed to meet satisfactory scholarly requirements. It was a most creditable job by a careful craftsman. In published form it is no less craftsmanlike. The volume does lack the sense of climax and the readable style which would make it a candidate for the title of a "Georgia Biographical Classic." It seems certain, however, that a Nevins or a Schlesinger would have troubles in making T. Buder King of Georgia a figure of heroic proportions. King was not such a figure; Steel deserves commendation for refusing to portray him as such. Robert L. Peterson University of Oregon Essays in Southern Biography. Edited by Joseph F. Steelman, et al. (Greenville, N.C.: East Carolina Publications in History, 1965. Pp. vii, 166. $2.50.) Eight members of the department of history of East Carolina College have written Essays in Southern Biography which range in time from 1705 to the rise of Harry Flood Byrd, and in area from Virginia to Georgia. The essays have no common theme and few common characteristics . Several of them tell less than the reader wants to know. In discussing "Daniel Reeves Goodloe: A Perplexed Abolitionist During Reconstruction ," Joseph F. Steelman repeats a story that Goodloe married a congressman's daughter who gave birth to another man's child on her wedding day. One wonders if this story is as useful for its comic properties , as Steelman finds it, or whether it might not be indicative of the sort of tale likely to circulate concerning a southern abolitionist. One wonders, too, in reading LaIa Carr Steelman's study of "Senator Augustus O. Bacon, Champion of Philippine Independence," how this Georgian's views on domestic racial issues shaped his anti-imperialistic role in the Senate. Other essays are "Charles Griffin: Schoolmaster to the Southern Frontier ," by Herbert Paschal; "Richard Yeadon, Charleston Unionist-Whig Editor and Opponent of Nullification, 1832-1844," by John C. Ellen, Jr.; "William 'Extra Billy' Smith, Democratic Governor of Virginia, 18461849 ," by Alvin A. Fahrner; "Civil War Correspondence of Private Henry Tucker," by Hubert A. Coleman; "Daniel Augustus Tompkins and Industrial Revival in the South," by Howard B. Clay; and "The Role of Virginia Democratic Party Factionalism in the Rise of Harry Flood Byrd, 1917-1923," by Henry C Ferrell, Jr. The only essay with direct relevance to the Civil War is somewhat disappointing, for Private Tucker was semi-literate, and given to plagiarizing the poetry of others. Tucker was discharged from the Confederate Army in 1862 as over age, but drafted again in 1864, despite the fact that he had become a plantation overseer and was in ill health. The letters 184CIVIL WAR HISTORY printed by Coleman, all from his second period of service, with the Hampton Legion in Virginia, illustrate the breakdown in morale of the Confederates in the closing months of the war. In one dark hour on December 23, 1864, Tucker told his wife: the yankes has the advanteg of us and we never can git it back un less the kind providence should smile on us and that I am a fraid he will not do we undoubtedly have the wickeddist pepai in the world in plais of ther gitting beter they git wors the young men inpatickle a fidlen and dancin and wishing the .d-d. Confederecy would go up ... we are gone pepai I am Sorrey to say it But the Lord onley knows what will be hour fait. Tucker, always hungry and dispirited, reported on February 21, 1865, that "hour men is whopped the wirst that they have ever bin." The last of the documents, Tucker's pass to return home from Appomattox "and there remain undisturbed," reads like a sigh of relief. John Y. Simon Southern Illinois University The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction. By James M. McPherson. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964. Pp. 474. $10.00.) Whether historians viewed the abolitionists as disruptive fanatics or crusaders for freedom, the tradition of historical writing has been to concentrate on the decades before the Civil War and pay them little, if any...

A Bibliography of Civil War Articles: 1964

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CIVIL WAR ARTICLES: 1964 Compiled by Ada M. Stoflet I. GENERAL Bestor, Arthur. "The American Civil War as a Constitutional Crisis." American Historical Review, LXLX, 327-352. Bhogan, Denis. "The Debate on the American Civil War." British Academy. Proceedings. XLLX (1963), 203-232. RozANSKi, Edward C. "The Civil War Centennial and Polish Americans." Polish American Studies, XX (1963), 40-44. Runzle, Gerald. "Karl Marx and the American Civil War." Comparative Studies in Society and History, VI, 117-142. SrLBEY, Joel H. "The Civil War Synthesis in American Political History." OvU War History, X, 130-140. Stoflet, Ada M. "A Bibliography of Civil War Articles: 1963." Civil War History, X, 181-199. Zachaby, Hugh. "Operation: Preservation." Columbia, XLIV, 20-21+. [Restoration of artifacts.] n. slavery and the antebellum south Alexander, Thomas B. [and others]. "Who Were the Alabama Whigs?" Alabama Review, XVI (1963), 5-19. Anderson, Robert L. "The End of an Idyll." Florida Historical Quarterly, XLII (1963), 35-47. Cantor, Milton. "The Image of the Negro in Colonial Literature." New England Quarterly, XXXVI (1963), 452-477. Chenault, WrLLiAM W. and RjEiNDERs, Robert C. "The Northern-Born Community of New Orleans in the 1850's." Journal of American History, LI, 232-247. Clark, John G. "The Antebellum Grain Trade of New Orleans: Changing Patterns in the Relation of New Orleans with Ûie Old Northwest." AgricuUural History, XXXVUI, 131-142. Durden, Robert F. "The Establishment of Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church for Negroes in Charleston." South Carolina Historical Magazine, LXIV, 63-84. Durham, Phtlip and Jones, Everett L. "Slaves on Horseback." Pacific Historical Review, XXXIII, 405-409. Epstein, Dena J. "Slave Music in the United States before I860: A Sur178 vey of Sources." Music Library Association. Notes, XX (1963), 195-212, 377-390. Evans, Emory G., ed. "A Question of Complexion: Documents concerning die Negro and the Franchise in Eighteendi-Century Virginia." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, LXXI (1963), 411-415. Ford, Paul M. "Calvin H. Wiley's View of the Negro." North Carolina Historical Review, XLI, 1-120. [North Carolina state superintendent of common schools, 1861-1865.] Green, Charles. "Second American Revolution." Negro History Bulletin, XXVn, 103-105. [Slavery and slave revolts.] GRTFFm, Richard W. "Ante Bellum Industrial Foundation of the (Alleged) *New South/ " Textile History Review, V, 33-42. ________ "The Textile Industry in Greene County, Georgia before I860." Georgia Historical Quarterly, XLVIII, 81-84. Griffith, Benjamin W. "A Longer Version of 'Guinea Negro Song*: From a Georgia Frontier Songster." Southern Folklore Quarterly, XXVUL 116118 . Halsey, Ashley, Jr. "The Last American Slave Ship." Ciott War Times Illustrated, ??-i. 18-24. [Schooner Wanderer.] HiGGTNS, W. Robert. "Charles Town Merchants and Factors Dealing in the External Negro Trade, 1735-1775." South Carolina Historical Magazine, LXV, 205-217. Jackson, Carlton. The White Basis System and the Alabama Whiggery." Alabama Historical Quarterly, XXV (1963), 246-253. Ktlson, Marion D. de B. "Towards Freedom: An Analysis of Slave Revolts in the United States." Phylon, XXV, 175-187. Miller, William L. "J. E. Cairaes on the Economics of American Negro Slavery." Southern Economic Journal, XXX, 333-341. Patterson, Cecil L. "A Different Drum: The Image of the Negro in the Nineteenth Century Songster." CLA Journal, VIII, 44-50. Porter, Kenneth Wiggins. "Negroes and the Seminole War, 1835-1842." Journal of Southern History, XXX, 427-450. Saraydar, Edward. "A Note on the Profitability of Ante Bellum Slavery." Southern Economic Journal, XXX, 325-332. Scarborough, William K. "The Plantation Overseer: A Re-evaluation." Agricultural History, XXXVIII, 13-20. Smith, Harmon L. "William Capers and William A. Smith: Neglected Advocates of the Pro-Slavery Moral Argument." Methodist History, n.s., m-i, 23-32. Smith, Ralph A. The Mamelukes of West Texas and Mexico." West Texas Historical Year Book, XXXLX (1963), 65-88. [Runaway slave warriors in decade before war.] Stange, Douglas C. "A Note on Daniel A. Payne." Negro History Bulletin , XXVm, 9-10. Suarez, Raleigh A. "Louisiana's Struggling Majority: The Ante-BeDum Farmer." McNeese Review, XTV (1963), 14-31. [Non-slaveholding farmers.] 179 180CIVIL WAR HISTORY Wade, Richard C. The Vesey Plot: A Reconsideration." Journal of Southern History, XXX, 143-161. Wax, Darold D. "Robert Ellis, Philadelphia Merchant and Slave Trader." Pennsylvania Magazine...

A Letter from Governor James S. Conway to His Plantation Overseer

A Letter from Governor James S. Conway to His Plantation Overseer

John Spencer Bassett, The Plantation Overseer As Revealed in His Letters

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsJohn Spencer Bassett, The Plantation Overseer As Revealed in His LettersWilliam M. BrewerWilliam M. Brewer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 12, Number 2April 1927 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2714059 Views: 4Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in The Journal of Negro History (1916-2001), which is continued by The Journal of African American History (2002-present). Copyright 1927, 1955, 1969 The Association for the Study of African American Life and HistoryPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

White Servitude in Pennsylvania.Cheesman A. HerrickThe Southern Plantation Overseer: As Revealed in His Letters.John Spencer BassettThe Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction.Alrutheus Ambush TaylorFree Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830.Carter Godwin WoodsonFree Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830: Together with Absentee Ownership of Slaves in the United States in 1830.Carter Godwin

<i>White Servitude in Pennsylvania.</i>Cheesman A. Herrick<i>The Southern Plantation Overseer: As Revealed in His Letters.</i>John Spencer Bassett<i>The Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction.</i>Alrutheus Ambush Taylor<i>Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830.</i>Carter Godwin Woodson<i>Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830: Together with Absentee Ownership of Slaves in the United States in 1830.</i>Carter Godwin

The Southern Plantation Overseer as Revealed in His Letters

The Southern Plantation Overseer as Revealed in His Letters