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These colored foremen were, in their turn, subject to the overseers, who, in turn, if not found to be temperate and reliable, were dismissed. Upon well-ordered plantations punishments were rare, I may say unknown, except to the half-grown youths.
Life was falling into the dull routine again, and after the past shocks his nerves were gratefully clothing themselves in the old habits of tranquillity once more, when one day a letter came from the overseers of Patmos University, offering him the presidency of that institution on condition of his early return.
Before Luther appeared it was never heard of; but the troubles with Luther happened at a time when there was an inadequate number of spiritual overseers, and when the few bishops were, moreover, indolent, and the licentiousness of the clergy excluded them from the office of judges. Now all is changed; we now count as many bishops as there are provinces.
I think I have improved, but I certainly should not like, after our last experience, to trust to that for keeping us, in England. "The question is, what should I do here? There will be plenty of openings, for men who can speak the native language, as labour overseers.
Curious demands were made by the Negroes: here, farm bells must not ring; there, overseers or managers must be done away with; in some places plantation courts were to settle matters of work, rent, and conduct; elsewhere, agreements were made that on Saturday the laborer should be permitted to go to town and, perhaps, ride a mule or horse.
Two white overseers, dressed in broad-brimmed hats and gingham jackets, stood by with whips in their hands, giving directions to the slaves, and at the same time bestowing not a few lashes on their backs, if they did not at once comprehend what was said to them. Among them I caught sight of Dio.
In 1775 he engaged overseers to manage his various estates in his absence "upon shares," but during the whole war the plantations barely supported themselves, even with depletion of stock and fertility, and he was able to draw nothing from them.
If his agents and he troubled themselves but little about the sufferings of their captives, they must reckon more seriously either with the soldiers who claimed some additional rations, or with the "pagazis" who wanted to halt. Thence discussions; often even an exchange of brutality. The slaves suffered more from the overseers' constant irritation.
Often, as this scene has occurred to my mind, have I thought of what would be the fate of the planters, and overseers, and other white residents in the Slave States of the American Union, should the negroes ever find an opportunity of revolting. What sanguinary massacres would take place! what havoc and destruction would be the result!
His servants and overseers lived here, and he could easily go thither in a morning's journey on his favorite dapple gray, or by rowing seven miles around the Dutch Gap peninsula, could make the journey in his barge.
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