A Quarter-Century of a Mississippi Plantation: Eli J. Capell of "Pleasant Hill"

Stephenson, Wendell Holmes

doi:10.2307/1886370

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Summary results from diaries are presented in Olson (forthcoming). Discussions and examples of diaries include Riley (1909), Davis (1943), and Stephenson (1936). See also Sydnor (1933), Davis (1939), Sellers (1950), and Taylor (1963).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess Mortality of American Slaves

Steckel¹

1986

Social Science History

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Mortality rates in early childhood are widely regarded as a sensitive index of the health and living standards of a population (United Nations, 1973: 138-139; Williamson, 1981; Haines, 1985). The debate over the health and treatment of American slaves has led scholars to investigate various data and methods to construct these measures. Early work based on plantation records placed the infant mortality rate (the proportion of live births that die within one year of birth) at 152.6 per thousand (Postell, 1951: 158). Using census data and indirect techniques, estimates of the infant mortality rate climbed from 182.7 per thousand by Evans (1962: 212) to 274 to 302 per thousand by Farley (1970: 33) and 246 to 275 per thousand by Eblen (1972; 1974). Recent work based on height data and indirect techniques places the infant mortality rate in the neighborhood of 350 per thousand and total losses before the end of the first year (stillbirths plus infant deaths) at nearly 50% (Steckel, 1986a). Thus, measurements over the past four decades have gravitated toward the judgment of southern planter Thomas Afflick (1851: 435) who wrote, “Of those born, one half die under one year.”

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess Mortality of American Slaves

Steckel¹

1986

Social Science History

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Rational management, modern business practices, and economies of scale in the ante-bellum southern plantations

Metzer

1975

Explorations in Economic History

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Enslaved Africans’ Rivalry with White Overseers in Plantation Culture

Wiethoff

2006

Journal of Black Studies

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Conventional wisdom about the Old South excludes slaves from the ranks of plantation overseers. However, a preference for restrictive types of evidence and a race-sensitive system for assigning titles in plantation culture raise questions about the accuracy of conventional wisdom. Reexamining conventional scholarship and supplementing it with slave narratives and legal resources suggest that slaves served as overseers more frequently and more competently than previously reported. First, an analysis of both Black and White narratives across the Old South reveals many instances where slaves performed the duties of overseers without carrying that title. Second, drawing on a comparison with the rivalry between Black and White urban workers, an analysis of salary data for White overseers suggests that their competition for work with slaves contributed to other factors that depressed their value to planters.Conventional wisdom about plantation culture in the Old South minimizes the enslaved Africans' opportunity and competence to work as overseers, but influential scholars who have collected and assessed relevant evidence have viewed it through restrictive if not race-sensitive filters. Early 20th-century historians reported that White overseers had a reputation for incompetence but that enslaved Africans were inherently unable to supplant them. Phillips (1918Phillips ( /1959 observed that planters derided overseers generally for their "dishonesty, inattention and self indulgence" (p. 283); however, he also concluded that plantations were schools

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A Quarter-Century of a Mississippi Plantation: Eli J. Capell of "Pleasant Hill"

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess Mortality of American Slaves

A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess Mortality of American Slaves

Rational management, modern business practices, and economies of scale in the ante-bellum southern plantations

Enslaved Africans’ Rivalry with White Overseers in Plantation Culture

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