" Telfair informed his overseer: "I have no driver. You are to
task the negroes yourself, and each negro is responsible to you for his own
work, and nobody's else."
Of the master's own functions Hammond wrote in another place: "A planter
should have all his work laid out, days, weeks, months, seasons and years
ahead, according to the nature of it. He must go from job to job without
losing a moment in turning round, and he must have all the parts of his
work so arranged that due proportion of attention may be bestowed upon each
at the proper time. More is lost by doing work out of season, and doing it
better or worse than is requisite, than can readily be supposed. Negroes
are harassed by it, too, instead of being indulged; so are mules, and
everything else. A halting, vacillating, undecided course, now idle, now
overstrained, is more fatal on a plantation than in any other kind of
business--ruinous as it is in any."[6]
[Footnote 6: Letter of Hammond to William Gilmore Simms, Jan. 21, 1841,
from Hammond's MS. copy in the Library of Congress.]
In the overseer all the virtues of a master were desired, with a deputy's
obedience added. Corbin enjoined upon his staff that they "attend their
business with diligence, keep the negroes in good order, and enforce
obedience by the example of their own industry, which is a more effectual
method in every respect than hurry and severity.
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