Acklen's rules for the conduct of his
plantations will be discussed in another connection;[12] but no description
of his estate or his actual operations is available.
[Footnote 11: _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), Aug. 2, 1859.]
[Footnote 12: Below, pp. 262 ff.]
Olmsted described in detail a plantation in the neighborhood of Natchez.
Its thirteen or fourteen hundred acres of cotton, corn and incidental
crops were tilled by a plow gang of thirty and a hoe gang of thirty-seven,
furnished by a total of 135 slaves on the place. A driver cracked a whip
among the hoe hands, occasionally playing it lightly upon the shoulders
of one or another whom he thought would be stimulated by the suggestion.
"There was a nursery for sucklings at the quarters, and twenty women at
this time left their work four times a day, for half an hour, to nurse the
young ones, and whom the overseer counted as half hands--that is, expected
to do half an ordinary day's work." At half past nine every night the hoe
and plow foremen, serving alternately, sounded curfew on a horn, and half
an hour afterward visited each cabin to see that the households were at
rest and the fires safely banked.
Pages:
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431