A planter
in explaining his mildness might well have said it was due to his being
neither a knave nor a fool He refrained from the use of fetters not so much
because they would have hampered the slaves in their work as because the
general use of them never crossed his mind. And since chains and bolts were
out of the question, the whole system of control must be moderate; slaves
must be impelled as little as possible by fear, and as much as might be by
loyalty, pride and the prospect of reward.
Here and there a planter applied this policy in an exceptional degree. A
certain Z. Kingsley followed it with marked success even when his whole
force was of fresh Africans. In a pamphlet of the late eighteen-twenties
he told of his method as follows: "About twenty-five years ago I settled
a plantation on St. John's River in Florida with about fifty new negroes,
many of whom I brought from the Coast myself. They were mostly fine young
men and women, and nearly in equal numbers. I never interfered in their
connubial concerns nor domestic affairs, but let them regulate these after
their own manner. I taught them nothing but what was useful, and what I
thought would add to their physical and moral happiness.
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