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in practical mariners, might be taught, and eſtabliſhed by cuſtom. If overſeers were better inſtructed than they generally are; and would addreſs the negroes with propriety of language, and treat them as human creatures, not as brutes, their commands would be more chearfully, and better performed. If the worſt of treatment cannot render them vindictive,[1] how docile might they be made by gentle conduct?
I am aware that creoles are often taxed with inhumanity, as if they alone were the inſtruments of oppreſſion. The conduct of a plantation is left to the overſeer, and in his abſence to the book-keepers[2] under him; and as they have the command and direction of
- ↑ Although negroes of a particular country, ſuch as the Coromantees, may harbour a ſullen, and perhaps a dangerous diſpoſition upon their firſt removal from the ſhip to a plantation, yet their ſpirit is ſoon broken, and they bend to obedience without any ſeeming reſentment in their minds.
- ↑ Book-keepers are in ſubordinate command to the Overſeers, they attend the ſtill-houſes in crop, and out of crop, the the field. There are many ſo little deſerving the name they bear, that ſo far from being able to calculate accounts they cannot many of them even read; and yet from this ſituation, from being frequently indented ſervants they become overſeers, and have the conduct of a plantation.
the
