The task system,
on the other hand, was almost wholly confined to the rice coast. The gang
method was adaptable to operations on any scale. If a proprietor were of
the great majority who had but one or two families of slaves, he and his
sons commonly labored alongside the blacks, giving not less than step for
step at the plow and stroke for stroke with the hoe. If there were a dozen
or two working hands, the master, and perhaps the son, instead of laboring
manually would superintend the work of the plow and hoe gangs. If the
slaves numbered several score the master and his family might live in
leisure comparative or complete, while delegating the field supervision to
an overseer, aided perhaps by one or more slave foremen. When an estate
was inherited by minor children or scattered heirs, or where a single
proprietor had several plantations, an overseer would be put into full
charge of an establishment so far as the routine work was concerned; and
when the plantations in one ownership were quite numerous or of a great
scale a steward might be employed to supervise the several overseers. Thus
in the latter part of the eighteenth century, Robert Carter of Nomoni Hall
on the Potomac had a steward to assist in the administration of his many
scattered properties, and Washington after dividing the Mount Vernon lands
into several units had an overseer upon each and a steward for the whole
during his own absence in the public service.
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