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Divided Loyalties in a “Predatory War”: Plantation Overseers and Slavery during the American Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2013

LAURA SANDY
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Abstract

Drawing primarily on archival material such as plantation records, this article places the figure of the plantation overseer at the centre of the drama of the American Revolution in the southern colonies. Occupying a contested liminal space within colonial society, between rich and poor, and between the free and the unfree, the overseer was not necessarily the ne'er-do-well of conventional stereotype. This “Predatory War,” however, tested the overseer's loyalties and sense of duty to the fullest extent. Understanding his role in the conflict offers a significant insight into the experience of a plantation society at war. In particular the overseer was caught in the tension between elite and yeomanry, between the conflicting calls of loyalism and the cause of the Patriots. Perhaps most significantly of all he stood at the forefront of the defence of race slavery during the tumult of civil conflict.

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Articles
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Journal of American Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , May 2014 , pp. 357 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

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13 Many historians have written excellent accounts of planters' attempts to organize their plantation businesses to achieve maximum profit and at the same time act paternally towards their enslaved labourers. Some of the most important contributions, which include reference to slavery and plantation management during the American Revolution, are Brown, Kathleen, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Chaplin, Joyce, An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730–1815 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Edelson, Max, Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Isaac, Rhys, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Isaac, , Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Kulikoff; Morgan, Slave Counterpoint; Olwell, Robert, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740–1790 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Wiencek, Henry, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America (Oxford: Pan Macmillian, 2004)Google Scholar.

14 Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 324.

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17 Thomas Jefferson to William Wirt, 14 Aug. 1814, Thomas Jefferson Papers, series 1, Library of Congress (hereafter LC); George Washington to Antony Whitting, 16 Dec. 1792, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799, ed. J. C. Fitzpatrick (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1931–44) (hereafter WGW), Volume XXXIV, 193; PHL, Volume IV, 503.

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19 Bridenbaugh, Carl, The Colonial Craftsman (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Bridenbaugh, , Myths and Realities: Societies of the Colonial South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952)Google Scholar. Bridenbaugh re-enforced the idea that overseers came from the lowliest groups in society. Furthermore, a study of South Carolina overseers in the mid- to late antebellum period also proposed that overseers came from a pool of poor farmers and landless whites of “questionable ability and character.” Clark, Thomas, ed., Travels in the Old South: A Bibliography, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956)Google Scholar.

20 Wiethoff, William, Crafting the Overseer's Image (Columbia: South Carolina University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

21 Scarborough, William, The Overseer (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), xvi, 3–4Google Scholar.

22 Edelson, 200–54. Historians who have looked at the development of colonial slave plantations have touched on the use of overseers to manage them. In particular, Philip Morgan's Slave Counterpoint and Robert Olwell's Masters, Slaves and Subjects include important discussions of overseers' roles in plantation labour systems in the eighteenth century. Both analyse overseers' conflicts with slaves on colonial slave plantations. Yet the primary focus on the planter class, slave culture and the relevance of slavery in maturing colonial societies determines the course of these investigations. In works such as these the principal task of examining the influence of slavery and black culture on the social and economic development of the two colonies dominates the depiction of overseers, and their lives as separate, autonomous individuals are not explored. James Baird states that “the presence of a racially debased slave population stigmatized dependence in new and powerful ways” and characterizes overseers, although members of the free white population, as dependants rather than men with ambition or agency. James Baird, “Between Slavery and Independence: Power Relations between Dependent White Men and Their Superiors in Late Colonial and Early National Virginia, with Particular Reference to the Overseer–Employer Relationship,” PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1999, ii; Baird, , “Paternalism and Profit: Planters and Overseers in Piedmont Virginia, 1750–1825,” in Olwell, Robert and Tully, Alan, eds., Cultures and Identities in Colonial British America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 147–68Google Scholar.

23 Philip Morgan outlines differences between the labour routines, work patterns, and resulting slave culture that developed in the South Carolina Low Country (which predominantly grew rice and indigo) and the Chesapeake region (which predominantly grew tobacco, corn and wheat). However, broader comparison makes it clear that the majority of slaves in both regions who worked on large slave plantations laboured under gruelling conditions and received similar treatment with regard to welfare, provisions, reward and punishment, and thus had some important shared experiences despite the differences in plantation structure and labour systems. For more detail see Morgan, Philip, “Work and Culture: The Task System and the World of Lowcountry Blacks, 1700–1880,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 39 (1982), 563–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morgan, Slave Counterpoint; Morgan, , “Three Planters and Their Slaves: Perspectives on Slavery in Virginia, South Carolina, and Jamaica, 1750–1790,” in Jordon, Winthrop and Skemp, Shelia, eds., Race and the Family in the Colonial South (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1987), 37–79Google Scholar. For a broader comparison of slavery and plantation management in across these two regions see Laura Sandy, “Between Planter and Slave: The Social and Economic Role of Plantation Overseers in Virginia and South Carolina, 1740–1790,” PhD diss., University of Manchester, 2006, passim.

24 For a detailed discussion of the South Carolina landscape and analysis of the development of plantations in South Carolina in the eighteenth century see Edelson, 13–53 and 92–126.

25 Cooper, Thomas and McCord, David, eds., Statutes at Large of South Carolina, 10 vols. (Columbia, SC: A. S. Johnson, 1836–41)Google Scholar, Volume II, 363; 3, 193, 272; 97, 175.

26 Hening, William, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature in the Year 1619 (Charlottesville, VA: Published for the Jamestown Foundation of the Commonwealth of Virginia by the University Press of Virginia, 1969)Google Scholar, Volume II, 481; Volume III, 451, 436, 460, 336.

27 The need for overseers on plantations in North America did not start with the institutionalization of slavery in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Laws and court records suggest that in the seventeenth century black, white and Indian overseers were used to supervise plantations on which mixed (free and unfree men and women, black and white) groups of labourers worked. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, however, overseeing became racially prescriptive. With the decline of the system of indentured servitude and the rise and institutionalization of black slavery, legislators made overseeing, before the law, exclusively a white man's profession.

28 Pringle, Robert, Robert Pringle Letter Book, ed. Edgar, W. (Columbia, SC: Published for the South Carolina Historical Society and the South Carolina Tricentennial Commissioned by the University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 474, 577Google Scholar.

29 PHL, Volume IV, 633.

30 Ibid, Volume V, 16.

31 Sandy, “Between Planter and Slave,” 149–83.

32 Sandy, Laura, “Supervisors of Small Worlds: The Role of Overseers on Colonial South Carolina Slave Plantations,” Journal of Early American History, 2, 2 (2012), 178–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sandy, “Between Planter and Slave,” 74–107.

33 Henry Laurens supplied his overseers with “a good Medicine Box” and medical literature, as did other planters. PHL, Volume VIII, 375, 522.

34 PHL, Volume XI, 375; Volume V, 123.

35 PHL, Volume VIII, 110; William Ancrum to Mr Givings, 17 Oct. 1778, William Ancrum Letterbook, Caroliniana, University of South Carolina (hereafter USC); George Washington to Howell Lewis, 23 July, 10 Nov. 1793, 6 Jan. 1794, George Washington Papers, series 4 and 9, LC; See also a number of overseer agreements in J. Bear and L. Stanton, eds., Thomas Jefferson Memorandum Books: Accounts with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), Volume I, 238.

36 Washington, George, The Diaries of George Washington, 1732–1799, ed. Jackson, D. and Twohig, D. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976–79)Google Scholar (hereafter DGW), Volume I, 296; Washington, George, The Papers of George Washington, 1732– 1799, ed. Twohig, D. and Jackson, D. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976–79)Google Scholar (hereafter PGW) Volume I, 217. After being employed by George Washington as an overseer, and overseeing for a year, Nelson Kelly returned to his occupation as a tenant farmer. Similarly, Samuel Johnson Sr. went back to being a tenant farmer after being employed by Washington as an overseer for a number of years. For example, Cabell's overseer, Lansum, was a tenant before he became an overseer. William Cabell Common Place Books (hereafter CCB), 5, Virginia Historical Society (hereafter VHS).

37 John Palmer to John Ewing Calhoun, 29 April 1974, John Ewing Calhoun Papers, Caroliniana, USC; “The Henry Laurens Papers,” South Carolina Historical Magazine (hereafter SCHM), 17 (1916), 42, 43, 76. Lauren employed many experienced planters as overseers, including Abraham Schad. Schad was granted land in South Carolina in the 1750s and owned a small number of slaves, which suggests he was a yeoman planter. In 1763 he took up a position of overseer on one of Henry Laurens's plantations and used the role, and his ownership of slaves, to his advantage and return to independent planting with increased skill and resources.

38 Dalzell, R. and Dalzell, L., George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 155Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., 155. For more examples George Washington contracts with his overseers see DGW, Volume I, 296; Volume II, 164; Volume IV, 1, 15–16, 20–21, 141–43, 315, 337; Volume XXXVI, 64–65; PGW, Volume V, 274–75, 418–19; Volume VI, 377, 378; 8, 100–2, 145; Volume XXXVI, 64–65; Dalzell and Dalzell, 155; George Washington Papers, Ledger A, 294, LC. Washington also employed John Askew, Thomas Green and other carpenters to specifically oversee the slave carpenters on his plantations at various times, George Washington Papers, series 4, LC; Sandy, “Between Planter and Slave,” 37–73.

40 Josiah Smith to George Austin, 17 June 1771, Josiah Smith Letter Book (hereafter JSL), Southern Historical Collection.

41 PHL, Volume IV, 575, 585; Volume VIII, 339; For more examples see Sandy, “Between Planter and Slave,” 37–73.

42 Josiah Smith to George Austin in England, 30 Jan. 1772, JSL.

43 Galenson, David, White Servitude in Colonial America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar. As Galenson notes, in the eighteenth century most servants came to North America with skills. These men were then trained on the plantation to be overseers. PHL, Volume VIII, 89, 339; Volume IX, 204, 334.

44 PHL, Volume VIII, 89, 339; Volume IX, 204, 334. Henry Laurens' Account Book, 1763–1773, Robert Scott Small Library, College of Charleston, 186, 387–38, 441. The items Henry Laurens gave to Casper Springer, a German or Dutchman, on his arrival in South Carolina in 1768, such as a suit of clothes, a coat, a hat, and a pair of shoes, suggest that he was an indentured servant.

45 Isaac Hayne Register, South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston.

46 PHL, Volume IV, 338, and Volume VIII, 421; Joseph Ball Letterbook, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches and Anxious Patriarchs, 352; DGW, Volume IV, 143; Sandy, Between Planter and Slave, 54–60.

47 PHL, Volume VIII, 88; the Henry Laurens Papers, SCHM, 17 (1916), 42, 43, 76. Henry Laurens, a prominent planter in South Carolina and leading revolutionary, employed at least eleven overseers who owned slaves. CCB, 3, 17 March 1771–21 Dec. 1771, VHS; Lorena Walsh, “Carters Grove Biographical Notes.” The biographical notes about employees who worked for Lewis Burwell at Carters Grove plantation were kindly given to me by Lorena Walsh. The original notes remain in her possession. Though not as common in Virginia, planter records also indicate that a small number of overseers in that state owned slaves. For example, the Virginian planter Lewis Burwell gave his overseer, John Ross, £9 per annum as “rent” for the overseer's slave, Phil, and William Cabell accounts include extra payments made to overseers for the use of their slaves.

48 Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects, 44.

49 Sandy, Between Planter and Slave, 166–84.

50 Jones, Jacqueline, American Work: Four Centuries of Black and White Labour (New York: Norton, 1998)Google Scholar, 210.

51 Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, 343; For George Washington's use of black overseers see Table 3 (Appendix).

52 PHL, Volume V, 574; Volume IV, 202. Laurens paid £600 currency for a black overseer before the price of Negroes was “very high.” He also paid £1200 currency for “a mulatto named Samuel” who was a skilled bricklayer, “well versed in other methods of construction” and used as an overseer. He lived and worked on Laurens's plantations for 32 years.

53 Hening, Virginia Statutes at Large, Volume VII, 93; Volume IX, 28; The matter is also discussed briefly in Holton, Forced Founders, 168; Fifth Virginia Convention, Friday 26 April 1776, in R. Scribner and B. Tartar, eds., Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence, Volume VI, The Time for Decision, 1776: A Documentary Record (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1981), 474–82.

54 Early Albemarle County Court Orders, 15 Sept. 1753, Collection 2027, Box 1, University of Virginia.

55 Aptheker, Herbert, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), 86–90, 162–208Google Scholar.

56 For more details on the Stono Rebellion and slave resistance, see Thornton, John, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” American Historical Review, 96 (1991), 1101–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pearson, Edward, “A Countryside Full of Flames: A Reconsideration of the Stono Rebellion and Slave Rebelliousness in the Eighteenth-Century South Carolina Lowcountry,” in Heuman, Gad and Walvin, James, eds., The Slavery Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar; Wood, Black Majority, 308–9, 313–20; Aptheker, 86, 187–89. For a recent revisionist account of the Stono Rebellion see Hoffer, Peter, Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

57 Aptheker, 87; Robert Dinwiddie to Charles Carter, 18 July 1755, in R. A. Brock, ed., Dinwiddie Records, transcribed in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 105 (1997), 157–93.

58 Frey, Water from the Rock, passim. Sylvia Frey's work, for example, has demonstrated how, during the British campaign launched in the South in 1780, slave insurrectionists effectively formed a third force, apart from both Loyalists and Patriots.

59 After capturing Williamsburg in 1775, Governor Lord Dunmore issued a proclamation that freed all slaves who joined the British Army. This proclamation only applied to slaves owned by Patriots; Loyalists' slaves were left in bondage. A further proclamation in 1779 gave freedom to all slaves, North and South, who joined the British Army. See “Lord Dunmore Promises Freedom to Slaves Who Fight for Britain, 1775,” in H. Niles, ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America (Baltimore: W. O. Niles, 1822), 375.

60 Brown, Christopher, “Empire without Slaves: British Conceptions of Emancipation in the Age of the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd series, 56 (1999), 273–306, 286CrossRefGoogle Scholar; See also Blumrosen, Alfred and Blumrosen, Ruth, Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2005)Google Scholar, who argue that perception of a British threat towards slavery in the aftermath of the Somerset decision of 1772 was an important factor in causing the revolution.

61 Kranis, Michael, Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar, 66, 67, 76, 77, 292; Carter, L., The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, 1752–1778, ed. Greene, J. P. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1965) Volume II, 1051Google Scholar. The number of slaves taken from Jefferson's Elk Hill plantation has been a matter of debate among historians. Some historians have claimed that the British took as many as 30 slaves; however, others have claimed that only 11 slaves were stolen from Elk Hill. Though in some records Jefferson claimed he lost up to 30 slaves during the American Revolution, he noted in his farm book that he lost 23 slaves in total from three different plantations and as many as 11 from Elk Hill.

62 Davis, David Brion, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of New World Slavery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 150Google Scholar.

63 Mullin, British, Caribbean and North American Slaves in an Era of War and Revolution, 236; Morgan, “Black Society in the Low Country,” 108.

64 Norton, “What an Alarming Crisis Is This,” 213, 214, 215; Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution, 163, 172.

65 Aptheker, Herbert, “Maroons within the Present Limits of the United States,” Journal of Negro History, 24 (1939), 167–84, 170CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Schwarz, Philip, Twice Condemned: Slaves and the Criminal Laws of Virginia, 1705–1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 169Google Scholar; Kranis, 67.

67 Fifth Virginia Convention, Friday 26 April 1776, Scribner and Tartar, Revolutionary Virginia, 474–82.

68 Ibid.; Hening, The Statutes at Large, Volume VII, 19, 93; Volume IX, 28; Holton, Forced Founders, 168.

69 Ralph Wormeley to Mr. Welch, 18 April 1784, Ralph Wormeley Papers, 1773–1802, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; William Ancrum to James Colleton, 14 July 1780, and Mr. Muncrief to Mr. Swaiston, 17 Feb. 1781, Margaret Colleton Papers, Caroliniana, University of South Carolina.

70 Pinckney, Eliza, The Letter Book of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739–1762, ed. Pinckney, E. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972), xxiii–xxivGoogle Scholar.

71 PHL, Volume XVI, 153–55.

72 Kranis, 292–93.

73 Fifth Virginia Convention, Friday 26 April, in Scribner and Tarter, Revolutionary Virginia, 475.

74 PHL, Volume XI, 482.

75 Ibid.

76 PHL, Volume XIV, 290, 333.

77 Clyde Ferguson, “Carolina and Georgia Patriot and Loyalist Militia in Action, 1778–1783,” in Crow and Tise, The Southern Experience in the American Revolution, 174–99, 191, 192.

78 PHL, Volume XI, 224 n, 269, 482.

79 Josiah Smith to George Austin , 30 Jan. and 25 Feb. 1772; Josiah Smith to George Appleby, 16 June 1775, 23 March 1778, 15 March 1781, 30 April 1782, JSL, Southern Historical Collection.

80 PHL, Volume XI, 238; 15, 301–6; 16, 30; Robert Wormeley Carter Diaries, 1764–1792, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

81 PHL, Volumes XIV and XV. Although Henry Laurens uses this phrase to describe the actions of his overseer, George Aaron, he also uses it more broadly to characterize the opportunist war waged on plantations by Spanish Floridians and Indians who simply took advantage of the disarray to plunder and steal what they could.

82 From John Lewis Gervais, 13 May 1780, 15, 317.

83 Sandy, “Homemakers, Supervisors and Peach-Stealing Bitches,” 1–6.

84 PHL, Volume XVI, 258, 491, 389–90.

85 PHL, Volume VIII, 89, 289, 339, 525, 646; 108, 112, 204, 419; Volume XIV, 551.

86 Joseph Ball to Joseph Chinn, 22 Oct. 1756, Joseph Ball Letterbook, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; William Ancrum to Marlow Pryor, 30 Oct. 1776; and William Ancrum to Christopher Giving, 16 Jan. 1777, William Ancrum Letterbook, Caroliniana, Univeristy of South Carolina; Josiah Smith to George Appleby, 5 June 1783, JSL, Southern Historical Collection.

87 William Wither to Mr. Tucker, 10 Aug. 1781, Tucker–Coleman Papers, Swem, College of William and Mary; John Sutton to Robert Carter, 3 April, Robert Carter Papers, VHS; William Ancrum to Messr. Panton Forbes, 14 Feb. 1778, William Ancrum Letterbook, Caroliniana, USC.

88 Quoted in Berlin, Ira, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 259Google Scholar.

89 Quoted in Norton, “What an Alarming Crisis Is This,” 214, 231.

90 William Ancrum to James Colleton, 14 July 1780, Margaret Colleton Papers, Caroliniana, University of South Carolina; also quoted in Morgan, “Black Society in the Low Country,” 109; and Olwell, Masters, Slaves and Subjects, 253.

91 PHL, Volume XI, 269.

92 Massey, G., John Laurens and the American Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000), 209Google Scholar.

93 PHL, Volume XV, 238, 289–93; Thomas Pinckney to Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 17 May 1779, Pinckney Family Papers, South Carolina Historical Society; William Ancrum to James Colleton, 14 July 1780, in Easterby, J. H., ed., Wadboo Barony: Its Fate as Told in the Colleton Family Papers, 1773–1793 (Columbia: South Carolina University Press, 1952), 4Google Scholar.

94 South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, 25 Aug. 1733; South Carolina and American Genral Gazette, 20 Jan. 1781.

95 John Lewis Gervais to Henry Laurens, 27 Sept. 1781, John Lewis Gervais Papers, Caroliniana, University of South Carolina; South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, 10 June 1783; PHL, Volume XV, 301–6; Volume XVI, 30.

96 See Appendix, Table 3. In 14 years, Washington employed 17 different overseers to supervise four quarters. Between 1760 and 1766, Washington employed 13 different white men to supervise his farms, while 14 white overseers in total were employed in the period from 1760 to 1774. Thus only one new white overseer was employed in the period between 1766 and 1774. The inconsistency of supervision on the quarters that made up Mount Vernon during the six-year period from 1760 to 1766 indicates that the overseeing profession was an unstable one, and that his white overseers were unsatisfactory or unsatisfied. The problems and inconsistency Washington encountered encouraged him to promote slaves to the position of overseer. From the beginning of 1766 to the end of 1774, only seven different overseers were used to supervise the four farms, and for the four years between 1766 and 1770, the overseers at all four quarters remained the same, in great contrast to the frequent changes and high staff turnover experienced in the previous period. Three of the seven overseers of this period were black slaves who had lived on Washington's estate prior to becoming overseers. Thus it is evident that, in the years following 1765, overseeing at Mount Vernon was significantly more stable, which in many ways can be attributed to the use of slaves as overseers. Information regarding overseers on George Washington's plantations comes from his memorandum lists of tithables, 1760 to 1774, PGW.

97 For more detail as to the reasons why white overseers left after short periods and the further implications that these swift departures cast on overseeing as a career, and the effect this had on plantation management, see Sandy, “Between Planter and Slave,” 206–30.

98 For more detail on the use of black overseers and the role, behaviour, ambitions, reasons for leaving the job and the futures of overseers in both Virginia and South Carolina see Sandy, , “Supervisors of Small Worlds,” passimGoogle Scholar; Sandy, “Between Planter and Slave,” passim. The information regarding overseers on George Washington's plantations comes from his memorandum lists of tithables, 1760 to 1774, PGW. Will, Morris and Davy were slaves owned by George Washington, who at various times were all promoted to the position of sole overseer on the plantation and named as “overseer” in Washington's records.

99 DGW, Volume IV, 252. Morris was chosen to be the new overseer of Dogue Run in 1766, and remained as overseer there to 1794. Davy was placed as overseer of the Mill Tract Plantation in 1770. In 1785 he was moved to River Farm plantation to replace the overseer John Alton, who had died earlier that year. Will was briefly used as overseer at Muddy Hole, from 1772 to 1774, until John Alton (who was still alive at that time) returned. After being removed from that position, Will continued to receive privileges for his efforts as a carpenter, and in 1785 was “sent to Muddy Hole as an overseer.”

100 Washington to Pearce, Philadelphia, 18 December 1793, WGW, 32, 472, 474–76.

101 Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, 220.

102 PHL, Volume XI, 191; Volume XVI, 28–33.

103 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to Ralph Izard, 26 Dec. 1794, Manigault Family Papers, series 11-276-80, South Carolina Historical Society; also quoted in Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, 344.

104 Laurens to Hamilton, Alexander, 19 April 1785, in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Syrett, Harold C. et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 3, 605–8Google Scholar; 15, 304–7.

105 John Lewis Gervais to Henry Laurens, 27 Sept. 1781, John Lewis Gervais Papers, Caroliniana, USC; South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, 10 June 1783.

106 PHL, Volume IV, 184.

107 For a full discussion of this point see Johnson, Walter, “On Agency,” Journal of Social History, 37, 1 (2003), 113–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108 For a full discussion of master–slave relations in the colonial and revolutionary period see Morgan, Slave Counterpoint; and Olwell, Masters, Subjects and Slaves.

109 Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects, 264, original emphasis.

110 Countryman, The American Revolution; Nash, The Urban Crucible; Holton, Forced Founders; McDonnell, The Politics of War; Marvin Kay and Lorin Cary, “Class, Mobility and Conflict in North Carolina on the Eve of the Revolution” in Crow and Tise, The Southern Experience in the American Revolution, 109–51.