ABSTRACT
The overseer served as a vital intermediary between the owner and the enslaved, between the big house and the fields, and between the core and the periphery of the plantation landscape. In Virginia and South Carolina, those seeking employment as an overseer also placed advertisements in newspapers suggesting that at least some were literate and enterprising. Members of the plantocracy remained constantly on the prowl for overseers. The planter’s principal expectation was that the overseer would “make a large and good crop.” In general, the criteria applied by a planter when recruiting and contracting an overseer reflected the plantation on which he was to be employed: its size, its workforce, the type of crops planted, and the labour methods employed in production. The overseer was, where possible, expected to diagnose illnesses, administer treatment and medicine, and prevent the spread of sickness among the enslaved.
