J

 

204 / pammoxns or FORCED LABOR

leaders, threatened the laggards, and did whatever was‘ neces-
sary to ensure both the pace and the quality of each gangs
labor.

During the period of cultivation, this interdependence,
and the productive tension which it created, stemmed to a
considerable extent from the interaction between gangs.
Field hands were divided into two groups: the hoe gang and
the plow gang. The hoe hands chopped out the weeds which
surrounded the cotton plants as well as excessive sprouts of
cotton plants. The plow gangs followed behind, stirring the
soil near the rows of cotton plants and tossing it back around
the plants. Thus the hoe and plow gangs each put the other
under §&_ e. The hoeing had to
be completed in time to permit t e p ow hands to carry out
their tasks. At the same time the progress of the hoeing,
which entailed lighter labor than plowing, set a pace for
the plow gang. The drivers or overseers moved back and
forth between the two gangs, exhorting and prodding each
to keep up with the pace of the other, as well as inspecting
the quality of the work.

This feature of plantation life — the organization of

1 , slaves into highly disciplined, interdependent teams capable
l of maintaining a steady and intense rhythm of work-
, .l appears to be the crux of the superior efficiency of large-
 scale operations on plantations, at least as far as fieldwork

x

was concerned. It is certainly the factor which slaveowners
themselves frequently singled out as the key to the superior-
.i{y_ of the plantation system of organization. Although
Olmsted repeatedly reported that planters preferred slave
dabor to white labor b§gg§gf €D»” the
significance of these statements complete y e u ed'°'him.
White men, said one planter, “are not used to steady labour;

they work reluctantly, and will not bear driving; they can-
not be worked to advantage with slaves, and it is incon-

 

RELATIVE EFFICIENCY OF SLAVE AGRICULTURE / 205

venient to look after them, if you work them separately.”
A slaveholder who listened to Olmsted’s report of his con-
versation with Griscom, the Northerner who claimed that
slave laborers produced only one fourth as much output per
day as northem laborers, responded that these slaves “could
not have been well ‘driven.’ ” Another reported that “he
would never have white people at ordinary work, because
he couldn’t drive them." Still another said: “You never could
depend on white men, and you couldn’t drive them any;
they wouldn't stand it. Slaves were the only reliable labor-
ers. . . .” The conclusion that Olmsted drew from such reports
was not that slave labor in the plantation context was of
a superior quality, but that southern free laborers must have
been extremely lazy, inept, and of low quality compared to
northern laborers.

Even on those few occasions when Olmsted actually
witnessed gangs working in the field, he failed to appreciate

the significance of slave teamwork, coor ‘nation, an in»
tensity of effort, although he faithfully recorded these
features of their work. The hoe gang, he reported on one
of these instances, “numbered nearly two hundred hands
(for the force of two plantations was working together),
moving across the field in parallel lines, with a considerable
degree of precision. I repeatedly rode through the lines at a
canter, with other horsemen, often coming upon them
suddenly, without producing the smallest change or inter-
ruption in the dogged action of the labourers, or causing
one of them, so far as I could see, to lift an eye from the
ground.” What conclusion did Olmsted draw from this ex-
perience? Did he view it as a remarkable demonstration of
the teamwork of black laborers and of the intensity of their
concentration on the task at hand? ‘The “stupid, plodding,
machine—like manner in which they labour,” said Olmsted,
“is painful to witness.” While Olmsted was willing to con-
cede that these slave hands probably worked “harder, and