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It is difficult to generalize, even within one country at a particular time in history. Overseers in Haiti were more brutal, because Haitian slavery was more brutal generally. In the USA, overseers often treated the slaves worse than their owners would treat them, because the overseers did not have an investment in the slaves. The overseers generally wanted a good crop above all else, since their pay was sometimes partially dependent upon a good crop.But U.S. slaves had some weapons at their disposal:Practical Remedies for Oppression. Slaves were not helpless victims on the job. Slaves usually outnumbered the whites on the plantation itself and had multiple opportunities to kill their masters, mistresses, overseers and drivers. On one very large Georgia plantation, “De marster done all de whippin’,” Jerry Boykins said, “‘cause dey had been two overseers killed on de plantation for whippin’ slaves till de blood run out dey body.”[i] If things got too bad on the plantation, the slaves could kill the offending white person, often without detection. Slaves injured or killed many overseers.[ii] As one ex-slave said, “Marse Jim had ‘bout three hundred slaves, and he had one mighty bad overseer. But he got killed down on de bank of de creek one night. Dey never did find out who killed him, but Marse Jim always b’lieved de field han’s done it.”[iii] The field hands, male and female, teenagers and older slaves, were in superb physical condition, better than their masters and overseers. Slaves had ready access to knives, blades, tools, wood, stones, axes, saws, hoes, fire and any number of other potentially deadly instruments. Many slaves used firearms to hunt deer, turkey, raccoons, o’possum, squirrels, wild hogs, bear, foxes, birds and other game. Slaves were intimately familiar with the habits of those who lived on the plantation. Southern newspapers carried stories of masters and overseers being killed in the woods or in the fields.[iv] Murder in the woods and fields helped conceal the identity of the slayer, and the slave community tightened in mutual support when a cruel oppressor was eliminated. “If a good nigger killed a white overseer,” Henry Banner believed, “they wouldn’t do nothin’ to him. . . It was just like a mule killing a man.” [v] If religion did not make the slave owners kindly, believable threats of murder might. Slaves had plenty of opportunity to kill whites, and most whites were not interested in supplying the motive. Some slaves were so strong and mean that white and black people steered clear of them. Still, Old South slaves killed very few masters, a tiny percentage of all the whites killed, which supports the Plantation Myth a great deal more than any abolitionist myth.Isaam Morgan worked on a plantation where there were no runaways: “No’m none of our slaves ever tried to run a way. Dey all knowed dey was well off. We didn’t have no oberseer but once. He was a mean un too. He tried to fight an’ whup us slaves, an’ one night six big nigger men jumped on him an’ scairt him mos’ to death. Atter dat de massa wouldn’t never have no mo’ oberseers. He tended to dat business himself.” [vi] That master would not eagerly jail, kill or even punish six prime field hands worth about $250,000.00 in today’s money – and those six men knew it.Because slaves were involved in the preparation of meals, they had every opportunity to poison the plantation owners.[vii] Arsenic, other poisons, and ground glass were used.[viii] Arson and poisoning were the main fears of whites on the plantation.[ix] Unlike the Roman Republic and Empire, Southern states did not have a law that all household slaves were to be killed if the master was murdered by a household slave.[x] Slaves had extremely detailed knowledge of every aspect of the plantation and knew the other slaves well. Slaves did not have to “case the joint” in preparation for a crime. While patrols rode the surrounding roads at night, the plantation itself was extremely quiet in the middle of the night. Proving who performed the plantation murder or arson might be difficult, especially if the master or overseer was unpopular.Slave owners were constantly worried about slave uprisings, though not usually on their own plantations.[xi] Mary Boykin Chestnut expressed no fear of being the only white person within 20 miles of her plantation, even after slaves strangled her nearby cousin.[xii]The possibility of murder or arson, perhaps by a mentally ill slave, maybe in reaction to physical or unjust punishment, or for some other motive, attracted planters to the use of positive rewards, which are more productive and effective than punishment in encouraging productive behavior. Diabolic possibilities and the greater physical strength of many slaves acted as a check and balance upon the severity of slave masters and overseers. The premature death of a cruel overseer witnessed by Frederick Douglass may have been caused by poison – we’ll never know.More common than murder were a number of other “weapons of the weak.” [xiii] An appeal process was available. “[W]hen a slave had nerve enough to go straight to his master with a well-founded complaint against an overseer, though he might be repelled and have even that of which he at the time complained repeated, and though he might be beaten by his master, as well as by the overseer, for his temerity, the policy of complaining was, in the end, generally vindicated by the relaxed rigor of the overseer's treatment. The latter became more careful and less disposed to use the lash upon such slaves thereafter. The overseer very naturally disliked to have the ear of the master disturbed by complaints; and, either for this reason or because of advice privately given him by his employer, he generally modified the rigor of his rule after complaints of this kind had been made against him. For some cause or other, the slaves, no matter how often they were repulsed by their masters, were ever disposed to regard them with less abhorrence than the overseer.” [xiv]Another grievance procedure was the “lie out” – a tactic whereby the disgruntled slave or slaves would leave the plantation by a few miles and send complaints or demands for better treatment back to the owners.[xv] “Lying out” worked because it was usually undertaken at planting or harvest time, when the planter desperately needed the labor and the slaves knew they had bargaining power.[xvi] Of course, slaves could live in the woods, swamps, or caves and cease all communication with their owners, while receiving food from other slaves. Corporal Octave Johnson was treated “pretty well,” but one day he thought an overseer would whip him unjustifiably for not getting up on time, so he hid out in the Louisiana woods for a year and a half.[xvii] The faked lie out worked, too. Slaves could change masters with the connivance of the new, more humane master, who bought the escaped-but-concealed slave for a fraction of the slave’s value. After the sale, the “fugitive slave” would show up at his old master’s plantation and be informed that he had been sold to the more humane master.If a slave greatly disliked his or her master, they could obtain a new master by running away, getting jailed, and refusing to tell the authorities the name or address of their true owner. After the statutory period, the slave would then be sold at auction, and would take the chance that their new owner was better than their old owner. Runaways were frequently sold after re-capture, passing the risk of escape to the next purchaser and removing the slave from the disfavored work environment. Some slaves ran away to remain in the same general location, rather than be sold out of state.[xviii]Feigned illness was a way slaves avoided work. “I was on a plantation where a woman had been excused from any sort of labour for more than two years,” Frederick Law Olmsted wrote, “on the supposition that she was dying of phthisis. At last the overseer discovered that she was employed as a milliner and dressmaker by all the other coloured ladies of the vicinity; and upon taking her to the house, it was found that she had acquired a remarkable skill in these vocations.”[xix]Some slaves, particularly strong ones, physically resisted all whippings, or threatened to run away or stop working if they were whipped, and their masters accepted this resistance.[xx] Frederick Douglass understood the dynamic: “The old doctrine that submission is the very best cure for outrage and wrong, does not hold good on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest, who is whipped easiest; and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself against the overseer, although he may have many hard stripes at the first, becomes, in the end, a freeman, even though he sustain the formal relation of a slave.” [xxi] Richard Toler didn’t like slavery, but he was not mistreated, “And ah jus’ tell them – if they whipped me, ah’d kill ‘em, and ah nevah did get a whippin’. If ah thought one was comin’ to me, Ah’d hide in the woods; then they’d send aftah me, and they say, ‘Come, on back – we won’t whip you.’” [xxii] Escaped slave and abolitionist William Wells Brown wrote of one strong slave, Randall, who was eventually whipped, but who resisted it for many years.[xxiii] A very strong slave was physically intimidating, and the master and overseer could never be sure the slave would not harm them in a fit of anger, which happened many times.[xxiv] A fistfight or other physical altercation might end up permanently injuring the white person who angered the slave. Strong slaves could resist physical punishment at the hands of overseers. Uncle William Baltimore’s master “Dr. Waters had a good heart. He didn’t call us ‘slaves’. He call us ‘servants’. He didn’t want none of his niggers whipped ‘ceptin when there wasn’t no other way. I was grown up pretty good size. Dr. Waters liked me cause I could make wagons and show mules. Once when he was going away to be gone all day, he tole me what to do while he was gone. The overseer wasn’t no such good man as old master. He wanted to be boss and told me what to do. I tole him de big boss had tole me what to do and I was goin’ to do it. He got mad and said if I didn’t do what he said I’d take a beating. I was a big nigger and powerful stout. I tole the overseer fore he whipped me he’s show himself a better man than I was. When he found he was to have a fight he didn’t say no more about the whipping.”[xxv]Women also stood up to overseers. Fannie Alexander relates her mother-in-law’s story that “One day the overseer was going to whoop one of the women ‘bout sompin or other and all the women started with the hoes to him and run him clear out of the field. They would killed him if he hadn’t got out of the way. She said the master hadn’t put an overseer over them for a long time.”[xxvi] One woman with a hoe could intimidate an overseer: “The overseer couldn’t whip my old mother anyhow because she was a kind of bully and she would git back in a corner with a hoe and dare him in. And he wouldn’t go in neither.”[xxvii] Leonard Franklin’s mother was no pushover: “My mother had about three masters before she got free. She was a terrible working woman. Her boss went off deer hunting once for a few weeks. While he was gone, the overseer tried to whip her. She knocked him down and tore his face up so that the doctor had to ‘tend to him. When Pennington came back, he noticed his face all patched up and asked him what was the matter with it. The overseer told him that he went down in the field to whip the hands and that he just thought he would hit Lucy a few licks to show the slaves that he was impartial, but she jumped on me and like to tore me up. Old Pennington said to him, ‘Well, if that is the best you could do with her, damned if you won’t just have to take it.’”[xxviii] Alice Alexander’s aunt whipped an overseer half to death, and the master fired the overseer because he didn’t want an overseer who could be whipped by a woman.[xxix]Women who had babies regularly were “special people” on the plantation, and whipping them was not often accomplished, especially when they worked as a group and had hoes in their hands.[xxx] Slaveholders had special regard for prolific mothers, did not work them as hard, and were extra good to them.[xxxi] Little did their masters know that, from about 1838 forward, this prized investment in newborn slaves would be destroyed by the War and an 1865 amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The year 1838 is based on Drs. Fogel & Engerman’s calculations that individual slaves paid for their upbringing and investment, and started making money for their owners at age 27.A work slow-down would harm the master, and unjust cruelty to one of their slave brothers or sisters could encourage such behavior. Slaves could slow work down when one of them received unfair punishment. They were known to become very solemn, saying nothing. This sent the message to the slave drivers, overseers or owners that the slave group disapproved of the punishment, that the slaves were united in their thoughts, and if many slaves acted together, the psychological effect was significant.[xxxii] On the other hand, it is not hard to imagine some slaves rejoicing inside when a particularly unpleasant or obnoxious co-worker, who had angered them, or committed some crime against them, was punished by the master or overseer.There were six white people on the average Southern plantation.[xxxiii] Adult slaves outnumbered adult white males on 100-slave plantations by a ratio of about 30 to 1.[xxxiv] Outnumbering their owners by large margins, slaves on antebellum plantations possessed psychological and negotiating strength. While the master held the real power, the psychological effect and potential physical consequences of being outnumbered 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 had to have had an effect on the mindset of planters, overseers and the white plantation families. The planters may not have even been aware of the unconscious or intangible crowd pressure, but modern social psychology literature proves the power of numbers in social interaction, decision-making, negotiation and thought patterns. Clearly, the slaves might have overthrown the slaveholding regime on numerous plantations if they had been so inclined. During the War, slaves had an even greater chance to rebel because the white men were away, but there were few extended slave revolts during the War.[xxxv] Slaves negotiated, directly or indirectly, verbally or non-verbally, for better working and living conditions. Reciprocal obligations arose in antebellum slavery.[xxxvi][i] Jerry Boykins, Texas Slave Narratives, Vol. XVI, Part 1, pg 122.[ii] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pg 177.[iii] Anthony Abercrombie, Alabama Slave Narratives, pg 7.[iv] Franklin & Moss From Slavery to Freedom, supra, pg 161.[v] Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 1, pg 105.[vi] Alabama Slave Narratives – pg 283.[vii] Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, supra, pg 194.[viii] Franklin & Moss From Slavery to Freedom, supra, pg 161.[ix] Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, supra, pg 194.[x] Davis, Inhuman Bondage, supra, pg 45.[xi] Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, supra, pgs 193-196.[xii] Id., pg 195.[xiii] That phrase is from: James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven: Yale Univ. Press (1985).[xiv] The Life & Times of Frederick Douglass, Ch. V @ docsouth.unc.edu, pgs 52-53.[xv] Franklin & Moss From Slavery to Freedom, supra, pg 204.[xvi] Id.[xvii] Corporal Octave Johnson, 1863 Deposition, in Slave Testimony, John W. Blassingame, Editor, Baton Rouge, LSU Press, 1977, pgs 394-395.[xviii] Franklin & Schweninger, Runaway Slaves, supra, pg 106.[xix] Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom, supra @ pg 121.[xx] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pgs 212-213.[xxi] My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass (1855) @ gutenberg.org, pg 74.[xxii] Richard Toler, Ohio Slave Narratives, pg 98.[xxiii] Narrative of William W. Brown, an American Slave. Written by Himself: (1849) @ docsouth.unc.edu, pgs 16-17.[xxiv] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pgs 212-213.[xxv] Uncle William Baltimore, Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 1, pg 97.[xxvi] Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 1, pg 30.[xxvii] Richard Crump, Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II., Part 2, pg 63.[xxviii] Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 2, pg 337.[xxix] Alice Alexander, Oklahoma Slave Narratives, Vol. XIII, pg 7.[xxx]Armstrong, Old Massa’s People, supra, pgs 177-180.[xxxi] Id., pgs 177-180.[xxxii] Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution, pg 101.[xxxiii] Fogel & Engerman, Time on the Cross, supra, pg 242.[xxxiv] Id., pg 242.[xxxv] Eugene D. Genovese, In Black and Red, pg 139.[xxxvi] Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, supra, pg 5.Selection from Prison & Slavery - A Surprising Comparison eBook (names of former slaves given in bold).

Practical Remedies for Oppression. Slaves were not helpless victims on the job. Slaves usually outnumbered the whites on the plantation itself and had multiple opportunities to kill their masters, mistresses, overseers and drivers. On one very large Georgia plantation, “De marster done all de whippin’,” Jerry Boykins said, “‘cause dey had been two overseers killed on de plantation for whippin’ slaves till de blood run out dey body.”[i] If things got too bad on the plantation, the slaves could kill the offending white person, often without detection. Slaves injured or killed many overseers.[ii] As one ex-slave said, “Marse Jim had ‘bout three hundred slaves, and he had one mighty bad overseer. But he got killed down on de bank of de creek one night. Dey never did find out who killed him, but Marse Jim always b’lieved de field han’s done it.”[iii] The field hands, male and female, teenagers and older slaves, were in superb physical condition, better than their masters and overseers. Slaves had ready access to knives, blades, tools, wood, stones, axes, saws, hoes, fire and any number of other potentially deadly instruments. Many slaves used firearms to hunt deer, turkey, raccoons, o’possum, squirrels, wild hogs, bear, foxes, birds and other game. Slaves were intimately familiar with the habits of those who lived on the plantation. Southern newspapers carried stories of masters and overseers being killed in the woods or in the fields.[iv] Murder in the woods and fields helped conceal the identity of the slayer, and the slave community tightened in mutual support when a cruel oppressor was eliminated. “If a good nigger killed a white overseer,” Henry Banner believed, “they wouldn’t do nothin’ to him. . . It was just like a mule killing a man.” [v] If religion did not make the slave owners kindly, believable threats of murder might. Slaves had plenty of opportunity to kill whites, and most whites were not interested in supplying the motive. Some slaves were so strong and mean that white and black people steered clear of them. Still, Old South slaves killed very few masters, a tiny percentage of all the whites killed, which supports the Plantation Myth a great deal more than any abolitionist myth.Isaam Morgan worked on a plantation where there were no runaways: “No’m none of our slaves ever tried to run a way. Dey all knowed dey was well off. We didn’t have no oberseer but once. He was a mean un too. He tried to fight an’ whup us slaves, an’ one night six big nigger men jumped on him an’ scairt him mos’ to death. Atter dat de massa wouldn’t never have no mo’ oberseers. He tended to dat business himself.” [vi] That master would not eagerly jail, kill or even punish six prime field hands worth about $250,000.00 in today’s money – and those six men knew it.Because slaves were involved in the preparation of meals, they had every opportunity to poison the plantation owners.[vii] Arsenic, other poisons, and ground glass were used.[viii] Arson and poisoning were the main fears of whites on the plantation.[ix] Unlike the Roman Republic and Empire, Southern states did not have a law that all household slaves were to be killed if the master was murdered by a household slave.[x] Slaves had extremely detailed knowledge of every aspect of the plantation and knew the other slaves well. Slaves did not have to “case the joint” in preparation for a crime. While patrols rode the surrounding roads at night, the plantation itself was extremely quiet in the middle of the night. Proving who performed the plantation murder or arson might be difficult, especially if the master or overseer was unpopular.Slave owners were constantly worried about slave uprisings, though not usually on their own plantations.[xi] Mary Boykin Chestnut expressed no fear of being the only white person within 20 miles of her plantation, even after slaves strangled her nearby cousin.[xii]The possibility of murder or arson, perhaps by a mentally ill slave, maybe in reaction to physical or unjust punishment, or for some other motive, attracted planters to the use of positive rewards, which are more productive and effective than punishment in encouraging productive behavior. Diabolic possibilities and the greater physical strength of many slaves acted as a check and balance upon the severity of slave masters and overseers. The premature death of a cruel overseer witnessed by Frederick Douglass may have been caused by poison – we’ll never know.More common than murder were a number of other “weapons of the weak.” [xiii] An appeal process was available. “[W]hen a slave had nerve enough to go straight to his master with a well-founded complaint against an overseer, though he might be repelled and have even that of which he at the time complained repeated, and though he might be beaten by his master, as well as by the overseer, for his temerity, the policy of complaining was, in the end, generally vindicated by the relaxed rigor of the overseer's treatment. The latter became more careful and less disposed to use the lash upon such slaves thereafter. The overseer very naturally disliked to have the ear of the master disturbed by complaints; and, either for this reason or because of advice privately given him by his employer, he generally modified the rigor of his rule after complaints of this kind had been made against him. For some cause or other, the slaves, no matter how often they were repulsed by their masters, were ever disposed to regard them with less abhorrence than the overseer.” [xiv]Another grievance procedure was the “lie out” – a tactic whereby the disgruntled slave or slaves would leave the plantation by a few miles and send complaints or demands for better treatment back to the owners.[xv] “Lying out” worked because it was usually undertaken at planting or harvest time, when the planter desperately needed the labor and the slaves knew they had bargaining power.[xvi] Of course, slaves could live in the woods, swamps, or caves and cease all communication with their owners, while receiving food from other slaves. Corporal Octave Johnson was treated “pretty well,” but one day he thought an overseer would whip him unjustifiably for not getting up on time, so he hid out in the Louisiana woods for a year and a half.[xvii] The faked lie out worked, too. Slaves could change masters with the connivance of the new, more humane master, who bought the escaped-but-concealed slave for a fraction of the slave’s value. After the sale, the “fugitive slave” would show up at his old master’s plantation and be informed that he had been sold to the more humane master.If a slave greatly disliked his or her master, they could obtain a new master by running away, getting jailed, and refusing to tell the authorities the name or address of their true owner. After the statutory period, the slave would then be sold at auction, and would take the chance that their new owner was better than their old owner. Runaways were frequently sold after re-capture, passing the risk of escape to the next purchaser and removing the slave from the disfavored work environment. Some slaves ran away to remain in the same general location, rather than be sold out of state.[xviii]Feigned illness was a way slaves avoided work. “I was on a plantation where a woman had been excused from any sort of labour for more than two years,” Frederick Law Olmsted wrote, “on the supposition that she was dying of phthisis. At last the overseer discovered that she was employed as a milliner and dressmaker by all the other coloured ladies of the vicinity; and upon taking her to the house, it was found that she had acquired a remarkable skill in these vocations.”[xix]Some slaves, particularly strong ones, physically resisted all whippings, or threatened to run away or stop working if they were whipped, and their masters accepted this resistance.[xx] Frederick Douglass understood the dynamic: “The old doctrine that submission is the very best cure for outrage and wrong, does not hold good on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest, who is whipped easiest; and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself against the overseer, although he may have many hard stripes at the first, becomes, in the end, a freeman, even though he sustain the formal relation of a slave.” [xxi] Richard Toler didn’t like slavery, but he was not mistreated, “And ah jus’ tell them – if they whipped me, ah’d kill ‘em, and ah nevah did get a whippin’. If ah thought one was comin’ to me, Ah’d hide in the woods; then they’d send aftah me, and they say, ‘Come, on back – we won’t whip you.’” [xxii] Escaped slave and abolitionist William Wells Brown wrote of one strong slave, Randall, who was eventually whipped, but who resisted it for many years.[xxiii] A very strong slave was physically intimidating, and the master and overseer could never be sure the slave would not harm them in a fit of anger, which happened many times.[xxiv] A fistfight or other physical altercation might end up permanently injuring the white person who angered the slave. Strong slaves could resist physical punishment at the hands of overseers. Uncle William Baltimore’s master “Dr. Waters had a good heart. He didn’t call us ‘slaves’. He call us ‘servants’. He didn’t want none of his niggers whipped ‘ceptin when there wasn’t no other way. I was grown up pretty good size. Dr. Waters liked me cause I could make wagons and show mules. Once when he was going away to be gone all day, he tole me what to do while he was gone. The overseer wasn’t no such good man as old master. He wanted to be boss and told me what to do. I tole him de big boss had tole me what to do and I was goin’ to do it. He got mad and said if I didn’t do what he said I’d take a beating. I was a big nigger and powerful stout. I tole the overseer fore he whipped me he’s show himself a better man than I was. When he found he was to have a fight he didn’t say no more about the whipping.”[xxv]Women also stood up to overseers. Fannie Alexander relates her mother-in-law’s story that “One day the overseer was going to whoop one of the women ‘bout sompin or other and all the women started with the hoes to him and run him clear out of the field. They would killed him if he hadn’t got out of the way. She said the master hadn’t put an overseer over them for a long time.”[xxvi] One woman with a hoe could intimidate an overseer: “The overseer couldn’t whip my old mother anyhow because she was a kind of bully and she would git back in a corner with a hoe and dare him in. And he wouldn’t go in neither.”[xxvii] Leonard Franklin’s mother was no pushover: “My mother had about three masters before she got free. She was a terrible working woman. Her boss went off deer hunting once for a few weeks. While he was gone, the overseer tried to whip her. She knocked him down and tore his face up so that the doctor had to ‘tend to him. When Pennington came back, he noticed his face all patched up and asked him what was the matter with it. The overseer told him that he went down in the field to whip the hands and that he just thought he would hit Lucy a few licks to show the slaves that he was impartial, but she jumped on me and like to tore me up. Old Pennington said to him, ‘Well, if that is the best you could do with her, damned if you won’t just have to take it.’”[xxviii] Alice Alexander’s aunt whipped an overseer half to death, and the master fired the overseer because he didn’t want an overseer who could be whipped by a woman.[xxix]Women who had babies regularly were “special people” on the plantation, and whipping them was not often accomplished, especially when they worked as a group and had hoes in their hands.[xxx] Slaveholders had special regard for prolific mothers, did not work them as hard, and were extra good to them.[xxxi] Little did their masters know that, from about 1838 forward, this prized investment in newborn slaves would be destroyed by the War and an 1865 amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The year 1838 is based on Drs. Fogel & Engerman’s calculations that individual slaves paid for their upbringing and investment, and started making money for their owners at age 27.A work slow-down would harm the master, and unjust cruelty to one of their slave brothers or sisters could encourage such behavior. Slaves could slow work down when one of them received unfair punishment. They were known to become very solemn, saying nothing. This sent the message to the slave drivers, overseers or owners that the slave group disapproved of the punishment, that the slaves were united in their thoughts, and if many slaves acted together, the psychological effect was significant.[xxxii] On the other hand, it is not hard to imagine some slaves rejoicing inside when a particularly unpleasant or obnoxious co-worker, who had angered them, or committed some crime against them, was punished by the master or overseer.There were six white people on the average Southern plantation.[xxxiii] Adult slaves outnumbered adult white males on 100-slave plantations by a ratio of about 30 to 1.[xxxiv] Outnumbering their owners by large margins, slaves on antebellum plantations possessed psychological and negotiating strength. While the master held the real power, the psychological effect and potential physical consequences of being outnumbered 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 had to have had an effect on the mindset of planters, overseers and the white plantation families. The planters may not have even been aware of the unconscious or intangible crowd pressure, but modern social psychology literature proves the power of numbers in social interaction, decision-making, negotiation and thought patterns. Clearly, the slaves might have overthrown the slaveholding regime on numerous plantations if they had been so inclined. During the War, slaves had an even greater chance to rebel because the white men were away, but there were few extended slave revolts during the War.[xxxv] Slaves negotiated, directly or indirectly, verbally or non-verbally, for better working and living conditions. Reciprocal obligations arose in antebellum slavery.[xxxvi]Angry slaves could easily defame their masters or overseers in the larger community, and there is no reason they could not conspire to defame their masters to make the slander more believable. Angered slaves might destroy or steal the property of their owners,[xxxvii] damage or theft that would often be impossible to prove. One coordinated work slow-down could destroy an entire crop of cotton, financially ruining a planter. And of course, there was the chance to spit in the white folks’ soup when no one was looking, too.The folklore of slavery contains numerous instances of trickery by the slaves, which they loved to remember and embellish.[xxxviii] Slaves loved to recollect these “slave tales,” many of which had to do with obtaining additional food from the master’s supply.[xxxix] Slaves often named the trickster in these tales “John.”[xl] Tales reflect widespread theft by the slaves, as well as other tactics to avoid work and punishment, fake injuries, or otherwise outwit their masters.[xli]Physical and human factors limited the power of slaveholders to extract labor from their servants. A slaveholder and overseer could not simultaneously watch all the workers on a 300-acre or 600-acre plantation.[xlii] Slaves intentionally limited their work and masters usually had to acknowledge those limits by imposing lower standards.[xliii]The moral and spiritual power of a true Christian conversion, by the master, by the slave, or both, would also provide a powerful instrument to check the evil impulses of the master. Masters would not always want their spiritual equals – slaves they expected to meet in Heaven – to see them play the hypocrite by acting contrary to Christian doctrine or tradition.[xliv] Slaves could communicate with their masters regarding spiritual matters. Whites and blacks worshipped together in the Prayer Houses built on many plantations and in Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. In communal church settings, especially in the eighteenth century, slave church members could bring criticism against white church members, as if in a court.[xlv] Fans of Gone With The Wind remember that Mammy exercised considerable moral authority over Scarlett O’Hara. Whites and blacks together started new Baptist and Methodist churches, although as the nineteenth century arrived, the races separated more in their worship and church lives.[xlvi] Even after the races had segregated themselves more in church activities, the effect of their earlier interaction had a profound effect on both races.[xlvii]A prevailing theme in some literature about slavery is that slaves resented the control of their masters, were miserable, spent their time planning escapes to the North and longed to leave their plantations. None of these was true for the majority of slaves. Most slaves accepted the authority of their masters, were reasonably happy, did not plan to head to a free state and liked their plantation community, friends, and family. In 1825, for example, Ohioans repeatedly urged Josiah Henson to free himself, his family and 25 slaves under his control when the boat he commanded docked at Cincinnati. Black Ohioans assured him and his boatload of slaves they could be free simply by stepping ashore. Josiah Henson, although he would later regret it, insisted his boatload of slaves proceed to their new Kentucky plantation.[xlviii]Modern abhorrence with the idea of slavery is often projected onto all slaves, to characterize them as hating slavery, too. Modern writers look for slave rebel heroes. The slave rebel was most commonly a criminal, mentally ill, young and irresponsible or anti-social. The longing for freedom became stronger with the approach of the Union Army, but before that realistic hope of freedom, most slaves accepted their bondage as the only thing they knew. The psychic cost of being miserable was greater than simply accepting the inevitable. Yes, there was resistance in the slave labor-planter management relationship, just as there is now and always has been tension in any labor-management relationship; but that resistance was most often a form of negotiation, not a rebellion to the entire idea of slavery. The many voices of ex-slaves who longed for the richness of their slave life after it was over refute the blanket concept of resistance. Some slaves rebelled, and some did not. Most thought freedom would be good, but for many or most, it was not.While Frederick Douglass was “accustomed to consider white men as my bitterest enemies,” he was an exception, not the norm.[xlix] The autobiography of Frederick Douglass weighs us down with constant oppression until the day Frederick Douglass fights his overseer Covey. He bests Covey in physical combat, intimidates him, is freed from Covey’s physical tyranny, and can then hold his head up with pride. After that, Covey chose not to flog Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass performed this act of defiance at great risk to himself, because striking a white man in antebellum Virginia subjected a slave to the death penalty. Covey, fortunately for Frederick Douglass, had a reputation as a slave-breaker to uphold, and thus was not inclined to let the world know that a slave had whipped him in a fight. This made Frederick Douglass’ triumph all the more glorious. Frederick Douglass’ owner would not have wanted Douglass scarred heavily, disabled or killed, though that stated preference may have been a secret. But, Frederick Douglass was an extraordinary individual, one of the few to transition from slavery to the upper middle class before Emancipation.Unlike most new age slaves, antebellum slaves typically possessed admirable qualities, including industriousness, sensitivity, cheerfulness, reliability, religious faith and a sense of humor. Humility was the most common trait learned, practiced and exhibited by slaves, though this was more common in the presence of the masters and overseers. Humility translates into excellent manners. Slaves had every incentive and right to have two different faces depending upon the master’s presence. Suffering often produces humility. Success and pride can produce hubris or vanity, which causes humans to err. At the same time, the Sambo image of slaves is not accurate. All humans are more intricate than the stereotypes we place on them. Slaves were just like any other people; they acted rationally within the given system to make their lives as comfortable as possible.Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley wrote about the “false dichotomy” between the stereotypical polar images of the docile Sambo and the slave rebel.[l] The slave rebel image has been a favorite of the victim school. By honoring slaves who fought, escaped and offended, we send a mixed message to young people. Dr. Stanley Elkins pioneered the psychological description of the Sambo stereotype. The comparison of antebellum slavery to a concentration camp is highly inaccurate and misleading. American military schools may, with equal justice, be compared to concentration camps.Many are loathe to admit that slaves were reasonably happy, contented, and adapted to their lot in life. In liberal circles, this is sacrilege. Because we all know the story of Emancipation and most Americans regard it as right, just and inevitable, as I do, it is easy to deny the reality of the slave lifestyle. Abolitionists – and we all think we are against slavery today – naturally reasoned that the slaves thought as we now think. But the slaves had few non-plantation comparisons with others of their race, condition of servitude and community, and they were denied knowledge of the world as a whole. Therefore, slaves did the most rational thing they could do: they accepted their circumstances and made the best of it. Those circumstances and thoughts changed markedly with the onset of the War, but before the War, there was acceptance. Acceptance of things one cannot change is a key to happiness. No one can blame the slaves for wanting to be happy. Free blacks in the North and South did not always live well, which reduced the value of freedom to slaves.[li] Many do not accept or recognize historical facts and instead project their own outrage about slavery onto slaves who were not outraged. Increasing anger is reflected in the N-word. Slaves and ex-slaves used this word very casually and without disparagement to refer to themselves. It became pejorative through use, after the Surrender, and not due to its original meaning.[i] Jerry Boykins, Texas Slave Narratives, Vol. XVI, Part 1, pg 122.[ii] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pg 177.[iii] Anthony Abercrombie, Alabama Slave Narratives, pg 7.[iv] Franklin & Moss From Slavery to Freedom, supra, pg 161.[v] Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 1, pg 105.[vi] Alabama Slave Narratives – pg 283.[vii] Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, supra, pg 194.[viii] Franklin & Moss From Slavery to Freedom, supra, pg 161.[ix] Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, supra, pg 194.[x] Davis, Inhuman Bondage, supra, pg 45.[xi] Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, supra, pgs 193-196.[xii] Id., pg 195.[xiii] That phrase is from: James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven: Yale Univ. Press (1985).[xiv] The Life & Times of Frederick Douglass, Ch. V @ docsouth.unc.edu, pgs 52-53.[xv] Franklin & Moss From Slavery to Freedom, supra, pg 204.[xvi] Id.[xvii] Corporal Octave Johnson, 1863 Deposition, in Slave Testimony, John W. Blassingame, Editor, Baton Rouge, LSU Press, 1977, pgs 394-395.[xviii] Franklin & Schweninger, Runaway Slaves, supra, pg 106.[xix] Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom, supra @ pg 121.[xx] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pgs 212-213.[xxi] My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass (1855) @ gutenberg.org, pg 74.[xxii] Richard Toler, Ohio Slave Narratives, pg 98.[xxiii] Narrative of William W. Brown, an American Slave. Written by Himself: (1849) @ docsouth.unc.edu, pgs 16-17.[xxiv] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pgs 212-213.[xxv] Uncle William Baltimore, Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 1, pg 97.[xxvi] Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 1, pg 30.[xxvii] Richard Crump, Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II., Part 2, pg 63.[xxviii] Arkansas Slave Narratives, Vol. II, Part 2, pg 337.[xxix] Alice Alexander, Oklahoma Slave Narratives, Vol. XIII, pg 7.[xxx]Armstrong, Old Massa’s People, supra, pgs 177-180.[xxxi] Id., pgs 177-180.[xxxii] Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution, pg 101.[xxxiii] Fogel & Engerman, Time on the Cross, supra, pg 242.[xxxiv] Id., pg 242.[xxxv] Eugene D. Genovese, In Black and Red, pg 139.[xxxvi] Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, supra, pg 5.[xxxvii] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pg 211.[xxxviii] Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness – Afro-American Folk Thought From Slavery to Freedom, Oxford Univ. Press, 1977, pgs 122-133.[xxxix] Id., pgs 122-133.[xl] Id., pg 127.[xli] Id., pg 122.[xlii] Blassingame, The Slave Community (1972), supra, pg 172.[xliii] Id., pg 180.[xliv] Mechal Sobel, The World They Made Together, Princeton Univ. Press (1987), pg 226.[xlv] Id., pg 191.[xlvi] Id., pgs 189, 207.[xlvii] Id., pg 213.[xlviii] Josiah Henson (intro. By Harriet Beecher Stowe), Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life, Chapter VI, pgs 51-53.[xlix] Frederick Douglass, from Ayr (Scot.) Advertiser, 26 March 1846. Reprinted in John Blassingame et al., eds., The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One—Speeches, Debates, and Interviews, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1979), p. 195. Digital document: Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition @ yale.edu/glc/.Selections from Prison & Slavery - A Surprising Comparison (used with permission; names of former slaves in bold).