48 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



and a half pounds of meat a week. Hammond also gave order 

 to allow a heaping peck of meal and three pounds of bacon 

 with the substitution in the winter if desired of a bushel of 

 sweet potatoes for a peck of meal. Molasses was furnished 

 in proportion. "Feed everything plentifully but waste noth- 

 ing," was the admonition of one planter. 



On the Hammond plantation each man was allowed two 

 cotton shirts, a pair of woolen pants and a jacket in the 

 fall; in the spring he drew two cotton shirts and two pairs 

 of cotton pants. For the women there were six yards each 

 of cotton and woolen cloth in the fall and twelve yards of 

 cotton cloth in the spring with needed buttons, needles and 

 thread. Each worker was to have a pair of stout shoes* in 

 the fall and a heavy blanket every third year. Negroes must 

 appear once a week in clean clothes, "and every negro habit- 

 ually uncleanly in person must be washed and scrubbed by 

 order of the overseer the driver and two other negroes 

 officiating." 2 * 



The most difficult task in the cotton regime fell to the 

 lot of the plantation overseer. 25 On him was the burden 

 of the direction and integration of the plantation's ac- 

 tivities. If he has been painted as an unlovely character 

 it is largely because he was placed in a most unlovely 

 position. General manager of the plantation, inter- 

 mediary between master and slaves, he possessed the re- 

 spect of neither. In the absence of the planter he was 

 the only white man among a horde of blacks. But whether 

 the planter was present or absent, the overseer was per- 

 mitted intimacy with neither the planter nor his slaves. 

 Up in the morning before anyone else to ring the planta- 



s* Ibid., pp. 265-66. 



25 In The Plantation Overseer as Revealed in His Letters, John 

 Spencer Bassett has amply documented his career. 



