]
[Footnote 12: _Southern Quarterly Review_, XXI, 215, 216.]
[Footnote 13: Olmsted, _Seaboard Slave States_, p. 660.]
Of overseers in general, the great variety in their functions, their
scales of operation and their personal qualities make sweeping assertions
hazardous. Some were at just one remove from the authority of a great
planter, as is suggested by the following advertisement: "Wanted, a manager
to superintend several rice plantations on the Santee River. As the
business is extensive, a proportionate salary will be made, and one or two
young men of his own selection employed under him.[14] A healthful summer
residence on the seashore is provided for himself and family." Others
were hardly more removed from the status of common field hands. Lawrence
Tompkins, for example, signed with his mark in 1779 a contract to oversee
the four slaves of William Allason, near Alexandria, and to work steadily
with them. He was to receive three barrels of corn and three hundred pounds
of pork as his food allowance, and a fifth share of the tobacco, hemp and
flax crops and a sixth of the corn; but if he neglected his work he might
be dismissed without pay of any sort.
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