Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War PDF Author: Frances Butler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781447708353
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"One of the most valuable contributions yet made to our knowledge of the state of the South." - Saturday Review Frances Butler Leigh (1838-1910) was the daughter of Pierce Mease Butler and famous English actress Frances Anne "Fanny" Kemble, who owned cotton, tobacco and rice plantations on Butler Island, among the largest in Georgia, just south of Darien, Georgia, and the hundreds of slaves who worked them. The family visited Georgia during the winter of 1838-39, where they lived at the plantations at Butler and St. Simons islands, in conditions primitive compared to their house in Philadelphia. Kemble was shocked by the living and working conditions of the slaves and their treatment at the hands of the overseers and managers, which led to her divorcing Pierce. In 1863, Kemble published "Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839," which included her observations of slavery and life on her husband's Southern plantation in the winter of 1838-39. After the divorce Frances Butler Leigh sided with her father on the plantations and later inherited them after the Civil War. Based on her experience, Leigh published "Ten Years on a Georgian Plantation since the War (1883)," as a rebuttal to her mother's account. Leigh notes that after the Civil War "the whole country had of course undergone a complete revolution... our slaves had been freed; the white population was conquered, ruined, and disheartened, unable for the moment to see anything but ruin before as well as behind, too wedded to the fancied prosperity of the old system to believe in any possible success under the new." After the war the plantation fields had not been cultivated in four years and the former slaves agreed to work, but they would now have to be paid. Regarding the productivity of hired help, Leigh writes critically: "The prospect of getting in the crop did not grow more promising as time went on. The negroes talked a great deal about their desire and intention to work for us, but their idea of work, unaided by the stern law of necessity, is very vague, some of them working only half a day and some even less. I don't think one does a really honest full day's work, and so of course not half the necessary amount is done and I am afraid never will be again, and so our properties will soon be utterly worthless, for no crop can be raised by such labour as this."

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War PDF Author: Frances Butler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781447708353
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"One of the most valuable contributions yet made to our knowledge of the state of the South." - Saturday Review Frances Butler Leigh (1838-1910) was the daughter of Pierce Mease Butler and famous English actress Frances Anne "Fanny" Kemble, who owned cotton, tobacco and rice plantations on Butler Island, among the largest in Georgia, just south of Darien, Georgia, and the hundreds of slaves who worked them. The family visited Georgia during the winter of 1838-39, where they lived at the plantations at Butler and St. Simons islands, in conditions primitive compared to their house in Philadelphia. Kemble was shocked by the living and working conditions of the slaves and their treatment at the hands of the overseers and managers, which led to her divorcing Pierce. In 1863, Kemble published "Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839," which included her observations of slavery and life on her husband's Southern plantation in the winter of 1838-39. After the divorce Frances Butler Leigh sided with her father on the plantations and later inherited them after the Civil War. Based on her experience, Leigh published "Ten Years on a Georgian Plantation since the War (1883)," as a rebuttal to her mother's account. Leigh notes that after the Civil War "the whole country had of course undergone a complete revolution... our slaves had been freed; the white population was conquered, ruined, and disheartened, unable for the moment to see anything but ruin before as well as behind, too wedded to the fancied prosperity of the old system to believe in any possible success under the new." After the war the plantation fields had not been cultivated in four years and the former slaves agreed to work, but they would now have to be paid. Regarding the productivity of hired help, Leigh writes critically: "The prospect of getting in the crop did not grow more promising as time went on. The negroes talked a great deal about their desire and intention to work for us, but their idea of work, unaided by the stern law of necessity, is very vague, some of them working only half a day and some even less. I don't think one does a really honest full day's work, and so of course not half the necessary amount is done and I am afraid never will be again, and so our properties will soon be utterly worthless, for no crop can be raised by such labour as this."

Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839

Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 PDF Author: Fanny Kemble
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Georgia
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War (1883)

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War (1883) PDF Author: Frances Butler Leigh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781093881059
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
"One of the most valuable contributions yet made to our knowledge of the state of the South." - Saturday Review Frances Butler Leigh (1838-1910) was the daughter of Pierce Mease Butler and famous English actress Frances Anne "Fanny" Kemble, who owned cotton, tobacco and rice plantations on Butler Island, among the largest in Georgia, just south of Darien, Georgia, and the hundreds of slaves who worked them. The family visited Georgia during the winter of 1838-39, where they lived at the plantations at Butler and St. Simons islands, in conditions primitive compared to their house in Philadelphia. Kemble was shocked by the living and working conditions of the slaves and their treatment at the hands of the overseers and managers, which led to her divorcing Pierce. In 1863, Kemble published "Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839," which included her observations of slavery and life on her husband's Southern plantation in the winter of 1838-39. After the divorce Frances Butler Leigh sided with her father on the plantations and later inherited them after the Civil War. Based on her experience, Leigh published "Ten Years on a Georgian Plantation since the War (1883)," as a rebuttal to her mother's account. Leigh notes that after the Civil War "the whole country had of course undergone a complete revolution... our slaves had been freed; the white population was conquered, ruined, and disheartened, unable for the moment to see anything but ruin before as well as behind, too wedded to the fancied prosperity of the old system to believe in any possible success under the new." After the war the plantation fields had not been cultivated in four years and the former slaves agreed to work, but they would now have to be paid. Regarding the productivity of hired help, Leigh writes critically: "The prospect of getting in the crop did not grow more promising as time went on. The negroes talked a great deal about their desire and intention to work for us, but their idea of work, unaided by the stern law of necessity, is very vague, some of them working only half a day and some even less. I don't think one does a really honest full day's work, and so of course not half the necessary amount is done and I am afraid never will be again, and so our properties will soon be utterly worthless, for no crop can be raised by such labour as this, and no negro will work if he can help it, and is quite satisfied just to scrape along doing an odd job here and there to earn money enough to buy a little food." Regarding the wages to be paid, Leigh relates: "On Wednesday, when my father returned, he reported that he had found the negroes all on the place, not only those who were there five years ago, but many who were sold three years before that. Seven had worked their way back from the up country. They received him very affectionately, and made an agreement with him to work for one half the crop, which agreement it remained to be seen if they would keep." The former slaves were given "in the meantime necessary food, clothing, and money for their present wants (as they have not a penny) which is to be deducted from whatever is due to them at the end of the year. This we found the best arrangement to make with them, for if we paid them wages, the first five dollars they made would have seemed like so large a sum to them, that they would have imagined their fortunes made and refused to work any more." Leigh hired Irish immigrants to dig and maintain the plantation's irrigation ditches, and described them as "faithful" workers. She also imported English workers, but fired them after two years because they were "troublesome ... constantly drunk, and shirked their work so abominably."

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War PDF Author: Frances Butler Leigh
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3385338123
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War PDF Author: Frances Butler Leigh
Publisher: Literary Licensing, LLC
ISBN: 9781498158930
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
This Is A New Release Of The Original 1883 Edition.

Fanny Kemble's Journal

Fanny Kemble's Journal PDF Author: Frances Anne Kemble
Publisher: Bandanna Books
ISBN: 9780942208894
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
A personal indictment of the institute of slavery in the Southern United States, as witnessed directly by Fanny Kemble, a British actress in 1838 and 1839. Her husband, the heir to the plantations in Georgia, however, forebade her to publish this material on pain of never seeing her daughters again. She complied, until the two daughters had reached the age of 21, and then allowed the journal to be published in 1863, when the Northern troops were already present along the coast near the Altamaha River, where the plantations were located. In a very personal way, she relates her many varied experiences, efforts to make life easier for the slaves despite her husband's stubborn resistance. As an English citizen, she had seen the total end of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833, just a few years before her journey to Georgia. She ends her account with a stirring defense of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which had raised such a storm of controversy in the United States. Like Stowe, Kemble sees all sides of the situation, with her eyes and with her heart.

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation

Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation PDF Author: Frances Butler Leigh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780243716128
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Masters of Violence

Masters of Violence PDF Author: Tristan Stubbs
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611178851
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
From trusted to tainted, an examination of the shifting perceived reputation of overseers of enslaved people during the eighteenth century. In the antebellum southern United States, major landowners typically hired overseers to manage their plantations. In addition to cultivating crops, managing slaves, and dispensing punishment, overseers were expected to maximize profits through increased productivity—often achieved through violence and cruelty. In Masters of Violence, Tristan Stubbs offers the first book-length examination of the overseers—from recruitment and dismissal to their relationships with landowners and enslaved people, as well as their changing reputations, which devolved from reliable to untrustworthy and incompetent. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, slave owners regarded overseers as reliable enforcers of authority; by the end of the century, particularly after the American Revolution, plantation owners viewed them as incompetent and morally degenerate, as well as a threat to their power. Through a careful reading of plantation records, diaries, contemporary newspaper articles, and many other sources, Stubbs uncovers the ideological shift responsible for tarnishing overseers’ reputations. In this book, Stubbs argues that this shift in opinion grew out of far-reaching ideological and structural transformations to slave societies in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia throughout the Revolutionary era. Seeking to portray slavery as positive and yet simultaneously distance themselves from it, plantation owners blamed overseers as incompetent managers and vilified them as violent brutalizers of enslaved people. “A solid work of scholarship, and even specialists in the field of colonial slavery will derive considerable benefit from reading it.” —Journal of Southern History “A major achievement, restoring the issue of class to societies riven by racial conflict.” —Trevor Burnard, University of Melbourne “Based on a detailed reading of overseers’ letters and diaries, plantation journals, employer’s letters, and newspapers, Tristan Stubbs has traced the evolution of the position of the overseer from the colonial planter’s partner to his most despised employee. This deeply researched volume helps to reframe our understanding of class in the colonial and antebellum South.” —Tim Lockley, University of Warwick

Remaking Wormsloe Plantation

Remaking Wormsloe Plantation PDF Author: Drew A. Swanson
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820343773
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Why do we preserve certain landscapes while developing others without restraint? Drew A. Swanson’s in-depth look at Wormsloe plantation, located on the salt marshes outside of Savannah, Georgia, explores that question while revealing the broad historical forces that have shaped the lowcountry South. Wormsloe is one of the most historic and ecologically significant stretches of the Georgia coast. It has remained in the hands of one family from 1736, when Georgia’s Trustees granted it to Noble Jones, through the 1970s, when much of Wormsloe was ceded to Georgia for the creation of a state historic site. It has served as a guard post against aggression from Spanish Florida; a node in an emerging cotton economy connected to far-flung places like Lancashire and India; a retreat for pleasure and leisure; and a carefully maintained historic site and green space. Like many lowcountry places, Wormsloe is inextricably tied to regional, national, and global environments and is the product of transatlantic exchanges. Swanson argues that while visitors to Wormsloe value what they perceive to be an “authentic,” undisturbed place, this landscape is actually the product of aggressive management over generations. He also finds that Wormsloe is an ideal place to get at hidden stories, such as African American environmental and agricultural knowledge, conceptions of health and disease, the relationship between manual labor and views of nature, and the ties between historic preservation and natural resource conservation. Remaking Wormsloe Plantation connects this distinct Georgia place to the broader world, adding depth and nuance to the understanding of our own conceptions of nature and history.

Slave Life in Georgia

Slave Life in Georgia PDF Author: John Brown
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description