Draft posting of episodes from the Plantation Letters

[John Lee]

Post here drafts of essays on historical episodes emerging from inquiries using the Plantation Letters. These essays will be submitted to the History Engine at http://historyengine.richmond.edu

[Charley Norkus]

ROUGH DRAFT: The Shawshank Plantation, or Nowhere to Run but Back to Cameron

In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, an old convict named Brooks is finally paroled, but he is extremely upset at the thought of having to leave Shawshank Penetentiary. This dehumanizing institution has nevertheless been his home for almost 50 years, and he threatens to murder a fellow inmate just so he can stay in prison and not have to try and make it in the unfamiliar world outside the walls. Regrettably, Brooks is released; after a few months of trying to readjust to his new freedom, he gives up and hangs himself. (1) Written 150 years earlier, letters from the Cameron Plantations in North Carolina and Alabama may reveal a similar attitude and behavior experienced back then, not by prisoners, but by slaves.

Two slaves, Juber and Milton, had been part of a large group of slaves relocated in November 1844 from their original plantation in Stagville, North Carolina to a then recently purchased plantation in Greene County, Alabama (2). The work was hard, apparently different and harder than their previous work in NC, and the weather was extremely rainy, the climate having an effect on many of the slaves, causing fever and chills for several weeks, and even death (3). Six months later (May, 1845), Juber ran away (4). In August of 1846, Milton came down with the chills and was reported sick for the next five months; in January 1847, he too ran away… but where did Juber and Milton go? Alabama was 1,400 miles from North Carolina but not very far at all from either the Mississippi River or the swamps of Louisiana. Another destination for runaways was out West via Texas. Both Juber and Milton, however, chose instead to return to North Carolina. Juber was stopped in Greensboro, NC and Milton captured while still in Alabama (5), but both slaves told their captors that they were headed back to their old plantation in Stagville.

One could infer from reading the Plantation Letters that life for a slave varied from state to state, plantation to plantation. For these slaves, it appears that the overseer Lewellyn treated them at least fairly (6), and seemed to be very much concerned with their health and welfare (7), but the weather and climate of Alabama was so disagreeable relative to North Carolina to cause some to flee their situations. Extracting evidence from these letters for dissatisfaction with their lot as slaves is difficult, especially since none of the letters are from the slaves themselves. Their own unhappiness may also have been masked by the disorientation slaves felt when considering how they might cope in the world outside of the plantation. Just as at Shawshank there was nothing in the prisoners’ daily routine designed to rehabilitate them or prepare them for life outside the walls, so also life on the plantation was designed to profit the plantation, not the individual slave. If given the chance to leave or stay, many slaves would choose just as did Juber and Milton. The fact that thousands of newly freed slaves chose to stay on the plantations as sharecroppers after the Civil War proves this point. They obviously were not happy in Alabama (8), but not so unhappy with being slaves as to keep them from returning to their original plantation in North Carolina, their Shawshank, where life may not have been great, but at least it was predictable.

Footnotes:
1 Sobol, James J. The Shawshank Redemption: A Review, Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 4(1) (1996) 15-17, University at Albany: http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcpc/vol4isl/sobol.html

2 from letter 10/12/1844 from Paul to father Duncan: "I shall now make every effort to be in readiness for the departure of our people to the South. We should have 2 large tents made for the women and children…and it would be nice to get a few (unintelligible) of smaller size for children…”

3 from letter 12/7/1844 Paul to Duncan: “I got our people into the gate of their new house about an hour by [unintelligible] last evening, just in time to escape a most tremendous fall of rain. I regret to say that I do not find the cabins equal to what I had expected from their external appearances as well as representations, nor was I permitted to go into the best, as I thought I had been promised… it is too late to look back, I could not have rented an other than what is regarded as a sickly river plantation had I desired that course…”

4 from letter of Charles. “[Juber] started for North Carolina a few days ago and was caught in Greensboro. He is now at home. “

5 from W.F. Wade to Charles Lewellyn, February 5th, 1847: “There was a negro man committed to the jail of our county on the 2nd of February who calls himself Milton and says he belongs to a man living in North Carolina by the name of Cameron. He also states his master has got a plantation in Greene County, Alabama, which he state was his home and that he left there about a month ago and was making his way on to his master in NC when he was apprehended as a runaway slave. He also states his overseer is Charles Lewellyn, and I thought proper to write to you.”

6 In a letter to his father almost a year later 11/18/1845: “(Lewellyn) has made a very [accided] impression upon the habits, manners, and customs of our people, improving their capacity and disposition to labor, making the rude orderly and respectful, and the idle uniform and attentive in their efforts… The negroes fear him a little more than I wish, but they regard him kind in the main and just, at least to the portion of the family who are disposed to do well.”


7 The only lapse in this impression is where the child of a slave named Diley dies after having been sick for at least three weeks, and it is not clear whether or not a doctor was ever called in: from letters written by Lewellyn to Paul Duncan, first 5/1/1847: “Diley’s child is sick, but I hope better this morning than it has been…” and then May 21, 1847: “Diley has lost his youngest child, the Doctor was not sent for to it, nor I have not sent for a doctor but once since you left; when sent for, Doctor Ring (King?), my reason for sending for him is I wanted a doctor as soon as he could get here or not at all.”

8 from letter 12/7/1844 from Paul Cameron to his father: “I will never consent to hire a negro of mine out in this country whilst he shall call me master.”

[Aaron Munz]

Fall Illness on the Greene County Plantaion - Flu or Yellow Fever?

In the “Cameron Plantation Letters” there are numerous references to the health of the slaves living on the Greene County Alabama plantation. In the hundred or so letters in the University of North Carolina collection that are catalogued on http://plantationletters.com/ I found thirty-five that directly referenced the health of specific slaves or mentioned their ability to perform work. Of the thirty-five letters, twenty-seven addressed poor health or illness while eight mentioned the overall good health of the slaves. Sickness and illness, especially the “chills” of fever seem to be most prevalent in the winter months. An obvious inference is that more slaves became ill during the fall flu season, however tropical diseases may have been the cause.

According to the statistics compiled by http://genealogytrails.com/ala/epidemics.html Alabama experienced a yellow fever epidemic every year from 1841-1849 with outbreaks first reported between August and September each year. This corresponds with the highest mention of sickness in letters from Charles Lewellyn, the overseer of the Cameron Plantation in Greene County Alabama, to Paul Cameron the owner which occurred in the fall of 1846 and 1847. Lewellyn mentioned nineteen sick slaves on October 11, 1846, twenty-two on September 28, 1847 and seventeen sick on October 26, 1847. Lewellyn reported that three slaves died of chills in his letter on September 28, 1847. There were 78 recorded deaths attributed to yellow fever in 1847 in Alabama.

The theory that mosquitoes were vectors for yellow fever was not proposed until 1899. Prior to 1899 no measures were taken to reduce the propagation of mosquito populations. According to the World Health Organization, yellow fever begins suddenly after an incubation period of three to six days.
Most cases only cause a mild infection with fever, headache, chills, back pain, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting. In these cases the infection lasts only three to four days. 15% of cases enter a second, toxic phase of the disease with recurring fever, this time accompanied by jaundice due to liver damage, as well as abdominal pain which can result in death. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs100/en/ The medical knowledge in the mid 1800’s consisted of knowing that yellow fever was a tropical did ease that usually originated in the Caribbean and was transmitted to coastal southern United States. The primary form of preventing the spread of the disease was to quarantine the affected geographic area until after the first frost of the fall which was believed to kill off the disease which we now know to include the mosquito population.

Lewellyn’s reports of major illness amongst the slave population end in early November of both 1846 and 1847. There is only one mention of health after the November letters which was written on January 7, 1847 and mentioned the good health of the slave family. This could be due to the end of the yellow fever epidemic or to the break in field work over the holidays following the completion of the cotton harvest. It seems that Charles Lewellyn did not have a sufficient knowledge of yellow fever to adequately attend to the health of the slaves in Alabama. I was unable to differentiate between possible yellow fever and influenza or common colds in the descriptions of the health of slaves.

[Jonathan S. List]

Here is a rough draft of my idea. I look forward to any comments you might have. I plan to replace the references herein listed with connections (somehow) to the links we can make of references. I will then put the final references as links to the original documents.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The attitude of plantation owners and caretakers towards slaves is an obscure idea at best. Sometimes, the plantation owners seem to be deeply concerned about their slaves (ref 1). Other times, they seem to be only concerned that the slaves are able to do their work. The best way to explain this dichotomy is through the concept of casual affection.
Casual affection is the idea that the slave owners are concerned for their property, but care more about their property than one might care for a tea-cup or rocking chair. This concept at once allows for demeaning slaves as mere property (ref 2), as well as treating slaves with humanitarian conditions in illness (ref 3). Obviously, slaves were not all treated the same (ref 4), but the treatment of individual slaves should help us to formulate some concrete ideas about the institution of slavery.
To explain this idea a little more fully, I use the example of a dog-sled team running a race. To the driver of the sled, and the owner of the team, the dogs are tools used to win or lose a race. They are generally treated with respect and given medical attention when required. These animals are not like the family pet that you might have, they are highly trained and skilled in their tasks. Many racers will despair if a dog falls ill, but it would be difficult to say that the concern was for the animal instead of for the race.
Charles Lewellyn, the Plantation caretaker from whom we have many letters, displays this kind of concern when he reports the illness of the slaves on his plantation. Slaves are expensive to purchase, and sometimes difficult to train (ref: 5 and ref 2). The easiest way for these men to express their concerns for their investment is by making sure that everything runs smoothly. This can be done by instituting a relationship of casual affection. The slaves know they are cared for, and they know their needs are met.
A view that calls Paul Duncan a truly humanitarian slave-owner is difficult, because he continues owning slaves. It would seem, logically, that if here were truly a humanitarian slave-owner, he would release his slaves from the bonds and not have them beaten for running away (ref: 6). If he held true to the modern idea of slavery, as the distant and cold slave owner, he would not talk of ensuring safe transportation for his slaves from north Carolina to Alabama (ref 7) ; he would simply sell off his lot in one place and purchase a new bunch for the new location.
Overall, the concept of casual-affection accounts for these seemingly opposite representations of slavery and allows for the slave owner and caretakers to be at once feeling humanitarians and cruel task-masters.

Reference 1: Author: P. C. Cameron
Recipient: Hon Duncan Cameron
Date: October 28, 1846
Text pertaining to slaves:
Page 2 - This morning about ½ after 2 o’clock our faithful old friend Aunt Easter breathed her last. Through out her illness she has exhibited surprising submission and patience. We shall miss her much. For 10 years we have given her the key of the house in our absence and never found the first article out of place: was watchful over our little ones to keep them out of harms way. Such a good guard over every thing about the [unintelligible]. With but little mind she has acted well her part.

Reference 2: 12-18-1847

Frances Cameron to Duncan Cameron

“A man servant who formerly belonged to my mother is about to be sold, and has applied me to buy him. He is not be sold for any fault, because his master wants money. He has been valued at $700, but to favour him, as he is anxious that I should get him, I am told I can have him for $550. I am particularly desirous of purchasing him, as I shall not only get a valuable servant at a price below his real value, [lest] I have just been deprived of the man we have hired for the past 3 years.”… “But a good male servant in my establishment, is indispensable, and when hiring day, as its called has passed, it’s extremely difficult to [purchase] one. I am entirely without a servant, except for one woman, the only servant I own, and though I assist her as much as I can, ‘tis impossible to get along without a man or a boy” (page 1 and 2).

Reference 3: Series 1.3.3, box 40, folder 939, date: 1844-12-7
P.C. Cameron to D. Cameron

I met Mr. Laws here….with or people all in good condition with the exception of Edmund, who was quite sick during the night, but I left him better we thought this morning, in my bedroom at the plantation. –page 1

Reference 4: 1-18-1845

Paul Cameron to Duncan Cameron

He has made a very [accided] impression upon the habits, manners, and customs of our people, improving their capacity and disposition to labor, making the rude orderly and respectful, and the idle uniform and attentive in their efforts… The negroes fear him a little more than I wish, but they regard him kind in the main and just, at least to the portion of the family who are disposed to do well.” (page 4)

Reference 5:
Date: February 9, 1847
Author: Charles Lewellyn
Recipient: Paul Cameron
Letter: Page 1:“There is no complaining but Delphy and Peggy and they are not sick. I have not heard from Milton since he left the plantation, and I expect he is on his way to North Carolina for he had no notion of working here. If you hear anything of him, please let me know.”

Reference 6:
“I have not had to whip Milton but once since he got home and that was for coming very near and being the death of Paul through carelessness and laziness.”
May 21, 1847, Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron, page 2.

Reference 7:
Series 1.3.3, box 40, folder 939, date: 1844-12-7
P.C. Cameron to D. Cameron

I met Mr. Laws here….with or people all in good condition with the exception of Edmund, who was quite sick during the night, but I left him better we thought this morning, in my bedroom at the plantation. –page 1

[Lauren Ward]

The good health of a slave was essential to a plantation owner. Without healthy slaves, there would be no successful plantation, and in turn no successful owner. This idea was only further confirmed after continued research into the Cameron family letters. From the information gathered it seems that the Cameron family genuinely wished for their slaves to remain healthy. The jury is out on whether this is for selfish reasons, such as maintenance of a successful estate, or for more selfless reasons, such as truly wishing that they remain in the best conditions.

The information provided to historians by way of the Cameron family personal letters has proved to be very enlightening in this debate. There are numerous references to a Dr. Ring attending to the slaves on different accounts. The first mention of this is in a letter from Dr. Ring himself to Mr. Cameron. In this letter Ring relays his work on a hearty slave named Limon. Mr. Charles Lewellyn, overseer of the Cameron plantation, sent for Ring to come and care for Limon after he fell very ill. Ring tells Cameron that he found Limon dying but that he could not attribute the reason to anything Lewellyn had done. We can speculate that perhaps Ring was checking up on Lewellyn’s work as the overseer as well as checking up on the ill slaves. As the letter continues the reader learns that Lewellyn may have served as a temporary physician to the slaves when a doctor could not, or would not, come to the estate. Ring tells Cameron that Lewellyn administered aid to Limon and had seemed to heal him before Limon took a turn for the worst. Ring was at the plantation less than 24 hours when Limon died.

The death of a reputable slave was cause for concern for Cameron and it seems that more letters were exchanged as Mr. Cameron searched for the real reason of Limon’s untimely death since it occurred at the end of cotton season when a strong slave would certainly be useful in harvesting cotton. In the next few letters between Lewellyn and Cameron, Lewellyn reports on Dr. Ring’s whereabouts and his role in helping the slaves. There are also mentions of other doctors treating slaves in letters between Mr. Cameron and Thomas Bennehan. There is a reference to a Dr. Haywood, who resides in Raleigh, as he is concerned that his care for a very ill slave, Mildred, was perceived as unprofessional since Mildred is later taken to Philadelphia for better care. More doctors are mentioned in later letters as other sources of medical information for the vast amount of slaves who fell ill in the years of 1846 and 1847.

As we can infer from multiple letters, the Cameron family did genuinely wish for the best care for their slaves. The letters tell the readers that not all care served its purpose, such as Dr. Ring’s work with Limon or Dr. Haywood’s attention to Mildred, which in turn led the Camerons to seek aid elsewhere. Although we cannot officially confirm the motive behind their kind treatment of their ill slaves but we can infer that the Cameron family wished for the best in these instances.

Letters:
1. 1846-09-23, Letter from Dr. Ring to Mr. Paul Cameron
2. 1846-10-11 Letter from Charles Lewellyn to Mr. Paul Cameron
3. 1846-10-22 Letter from Thomas Benehan to Mr. Paul Camero

[Lindsey Dowling]

Rough Draft of Plantation Letters Episode--Middle Passage

The second stage of the transatlantic slave trade was also called the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage was a horrifying experience for slaves headed to the Americas. Slaves were quartered on ships for up to two months and treated as cargo. They were often chained in shackles and kept below deck where they had to lay down because there was less than three feet of height. There was never enough food or fresh air for the slaves. Many of the slaves died of starvation and disease. Some were so tortured by the trip that they threw themselves overboard. The floors where the slaves were kept were usually covered with excrement and blood. Sometimes the slaves were given exercise on nice days. This exercise included being made to dance, jump and sing by the sailors using whips. The sailors took out their frustration on female slaves. Due to all of these and more circumstances there was an 11% mortality rate of slaves on these ships.

Around the mid 1800’s tobacco had drained all the nutrients out of the soil and plantation owners like the Cameron’s moved west with the expansion of cotton. Most of the slaves that were sent west were did so with slave traders. Very rarely did slaves travel west with their families and owners. Most slaves were forced to walk across the south, chained together. They were devoid of human interaction. The death rate was lower on this second middle passage than it was on the passage across the Atlantic but it was still higher than the death rate at that time. The slaves were not fed enough, they were not given clean water nor were they allowed to rest enough on their long journey. Once they arrived in this new land they had to farm a new crop. They were working longer hours with more back breaking labor. They had lost all semblance of a life they had had back east.

Through the Cameron letters we can see that Paul Cameron purchased land in Greene County, Alabama and he chose to move his slaves west instead of purchasing slaves once he reached the new plantation. A man named Mr. Laws was hired to transport the slaves and they each cost between 6 and 7 dollars to move [1]. Paul had to convince his father that moving the slaves would be beneficial [2]. The party would travel with tents and wagons [3]. Paul Cameron would travel part of the way with his slaves and then continue on alone. The slaves would travel as a group with Mr. Laws [1]. All of the slaves besides one, Edmond survived the trip. Paul told his father in a letter sent after their arrival that they could not have rented any slaves better than their own and he would not buy any slaves from that part of the country. He also told his father that according to Mr. Laws, no other slaves had been brought to Alabama under better circumstances [4].

Despite Paul Cameron’s best attempts to move his slaves humanely and to make sure that they had proper living quarters the slaves were still negatively affected by the move [4]. Not only were the slaves constantly fighting diseases but they were working hours they had never been forced to do before. The slaves wanted to go back to North Carolina. One slave, Milton, actually did run away from Greene County and head back to his home in North Carolina. During this second middle passage more slaves choose to steal away in the night than face the hard travel and work. Due to the late hours the slaves were working they no longer had time to cultivate their own vegetables and livestock therefore their diet changed. In another letter from Paul Cameron to his father his discusses the change in the slaves. The older slaves seemed to have withered away [5]. Paul Cameron also told his father about how the slaves were hoping for some extra rest at the holidays. The slaves usually celebrated the holidays in North Carolina by frolicking at festivities but in Alabama the work exhausted them so much that while they would like to frolic they preferred to rest [6].

The Camerons were an exception to the rule during this passage. They choose to move their slaves rather than buy new ones. Paul Cameron may have thought no better slaves would be found in Alabama than his own. He may also have figured that despite the amount it cost to transport his slaves west he would have saved time and money when setting up the new plantation. However, the slaves were negatively affected by this trip. Their health was diminished, their quality of life was worse and their new lives were drastically different from their old ones. The work was harder and the pay out was smaller. While the trip and the experiences directly relating to this transfer, was not as devastating for the slave population as the original middle passage had been the men, women and children who were forced to walk from North Carolina to Alabama would never be the same.

References:
[1] Letter from Paul Cameron to his father Duncan Cameron on October 25th 1844
[2] Letter from Paul Cameron to his father Duncan Cameron on September 5th 1844
[3] Letter from Paul Cameron to his father Duncan Cameron on October 12th 1844
[4] Letter from Paul Cameron to his father Duncan Cameron on December 7th 1844
[5] Letter from Paul Cameron to his father Duncan Cameron December 1st 1846
[6] Letter from Paul Cameron to his father Duncan Cameron December 19th 1845
[7] www.understandingslavery.com
[8] www.wikipedia.org/wiki/slavery_in_the_united_states#second_middle_p...

[John Jackson]

Here's my rough attempt at an episode on the death of Diley's child. The numbers in parentheses are for citations that I will include in the final draft. I have a secondary source that I am currently looking at so that I may include some more numerical statistics in my final draft.


Child Mortality on the Plantation

Disease was rampant among the slave population in the antebellum south. Poor diet, less than adequate clothing, and exposure to the elements, caused the immune systems of the over-worked laborers to break down, making them susceptible to contracting a variety of illnesses. A demographic particularly at risk were children age nine and under. Fully 45 out of every 10,000 slave children aged 9 or younger would die of disease in the late 1840s, compared to 11 out of every 10,000 white children of the same age. (1) Dropsy, congestive chill, pneumonia, and fever are diseases that slaves would often battle in the antebellum south. While doctors were often called in to give aid to sick slaves on plantations, medicine in the 1840s was lacking in its effectiveness, and slaves were not given the same levels of treatment as whites. The Cameron family of North Carolina and Alabama detail in their correspondence with one another, the sicknesses and diseases of their slaves, many of whom are children.

Sick children are mentioned at least nine times in the Cameron family letters, with several more instances of sickness among the adults mentioned on both the Stagville and Greene County, Alabama plantations. Diley was a slave on the Cameron’s Alabama plantation in the 1840s. He is mentioned several times in various letters written from Charles Llewellyn, the overseer of the Cameron’s Alabama operations, and Paul Cameron, owner of the Stagville plantation. Diley has a child, whose name is unknown, that is first mentioned as being sick on June 25, 1846.(2) During the summer, slaves on cotton plantations would spend time chopping the cotton plants, and keeping the middles of the cotton rows free from weeds and other unwanted vegetation. This meant spending countless hours outside in the fields, with exposure to the elements and disease carrying insects. Children often worked alongside the adults in the cotton fields, assisting with these duties. While the cause of sickness is officially unknown, it is likely that Diley’s child fell ill due to insect-born disease. In a letter from Charles Llewellyn to Paul Cameron on May 21 1847, Llewellyn writes that “Diley has lost his youngest child, the Doctor was not sent for to it, nor I have not sent for a doctor but once since you left; when sent for, Doctor Ring, my reason for sending for him is I wanted a doctor as soon as he could get here or not at all.”(3) This death occurs nearly one year after the first case of sickness among Diley’s children is mentioned. One could assume that this death is that of the preciously mentioned sick child, though this cannot be certain. This is just one of several cases of child fatalities mentioned in the letters. There are several other slaves sick on the Greene county plantation, so a child with a compromised immune system exposed to sick adults who have endured a hard winter themselves, would easily fall ill. Illness on plantations often meant death.

[Shannon Hines]

Draft: 1847 Yellow Fever Epidemic

In 1847 the Mississippi River basin had to deal with an outbreak of Yellow Fever. Transmitted by mosquitoes, the symptoms commonly associated with Yellow Fever are fevers, chills, headaches and nausea. In the later months of 1847 the letters that Charles Lewellyn sent to Paul Cameron about the condition of his plantation was fraught with the names of slave that were ill, recovering or had passes. Many of the symptoms that Lewellyn describes to Paul Cameron are commonly associated with Yellow Fever. The illness that was affecting many of the people on the plantation came during the harvesting season a devastating time in Antebellum South for an illness to plague the plantations.


In the letter sent to Paul Cameron on October 20, 1847, Lewellyn writes that somewhere between 15-40 slaves are sick with fever and chills. In that same letter Lewellyn mentions that the neighboring plantations seem to fairing worse than they are when it comes to the illness among their slaves. Though there is no specific mention of Yellow Fever as the illness that is affecting the slaves in Charles Lewellyn’s letters one can infer that this is what was affecting many of the plantation in the areas. With widespread illness in the same area and symptoms that are commonly associated with Yellow Fever it seems likely that the 1847 epidemic was the cause of the illness that Charles Lewellyn had to deal with in the later months of 1847.


This threat of Yellow fever could have been enhanced by the increase of rain fall in 1846. As seen is the letter dated April 30, 1846, Lewellyn discusses the impact of the increased rain on harvesting the cotton. In this letter he discusses how the rain was so heavy he was going to need to replant some of the fields that had already been planted because the rain washed away what had been there. Both the corn and cotton crops were affected by the rain. Excessive rain would lead to more water to build up in places’ becoming stagnated which is where mosquitoes like to lay their eggs. This potentially could have help fuel the 1847 Yellow Fever epidemic only a few months later.


According to the World Health Organization only approximately 15% of current cases of Yellow Fever reach the second more deadly stage of the virus that is deadly. Though there is no concrete data that suggests what the mortality rate of Yellow Fever was in 1847, limited medical knowledge about the treatment of the virus probably led to more deaths then is witnessed today. The Yellow Fever epidemic likely affected many of the plantations around Paul Cameron’s in Alabama. Slaves spent countless hours outside during the harvest seasons increasing their exposure to the virus carrying mosquitoes. Charles Lewellyn would have been fighting a losing battle against Yellow Fever during the harvest months because of this. Though even a Yellow Fever epidemic would not stop the harvesting on plantation of countless amounts of money in crops.


http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs100/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_fever

[Kyle Moore]

Most people would disagree with the notion of a benevolent overseer in the deep American South in the first half of the nineteenth century, I myself being one of them. Slavery in todays world has been deemed an injustice, no matter the circumstance. To suggest otherwise would be a major untruth, with today’s logic. I am suggesting however, that there were a wide range of systems and methods practiced when it comes to plantations (1). Lewellyn would be an example of an alternative style of treatment, concerning the enslaved population on the Cameron plantation than we would normally think of. Reading through the letters concerning the Cameron plantation, he seems to be a fairly benign overseer. He sees the slaves as livestock, but his compassion can be seen in his attention and care he gives to the sick.

It is obvious Lewellyn cares for the welfare of his charges, but it is important to remember the dichotomy of his relationship with the slaves. He is the “master,” and they are his farming instruments. Just the same as a farmer would hope his livestock would get well, Lewellyn seems to have the same concern. He might hope they get well (3, 4), but they are still just livestock in his eyes. The best example of this, is when he he mentions the death of a slaves child, and a mule, within the same sentence. “Molly’s child died on Wednesday last it was only sick about four hours after it was taken, and one mule died since I wrote to you last” (5). He might mention them by name, but the deaths still only require a minor contribution to his letters (6, 7).

In terms of slave treatment though, the Cameron family slaves received above average care, when compared to the Manigault family’s slaves in Georgia, who took profit margins into greater consideration than slave care (1). Lewellyn however, seems to have taken more care and consideration for the slaves under his charge, even providing them with extra attention if the need arose (8). The owner of the property himself, Paul Cameron, even seemed to take notice of Lewellyn’s attention to slave care. Lewellyn might have been too sympathetic for the owners preferences, when it came to the doctors’ care of the slaves, making Cameron worry that his doctor bill might end up being too expensive (9). Further evidence of Lewellyn’s concern for slave health and welfare, can be seen in the overall reading of the letters we have of his. Fourty-four out of fifty-one of the letters written from Lewellyn to Cameron in some way reference slave health or sickness.

So to say overseers were cold and heartless, is forgetting individual differences across humans, and plantations. The Cameron family estate is a prime example of this, with Lewellyn as its overseer. He might have seen the slaves as if they were livestock, but he still treated them humanely, and with great care, when it concerned their health.

References:

(1) Christopher Morris, “The Articulation of Two Worlds: The Master-Slave Relationship Reconsidered,” The Journal of American History 85 (1998)

(3) Letter from Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron, 12-5-1847

(4) Letter from Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron, 05-20-1847

(5) Letter from Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron, 06-01-1845

(6) Letter from Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron, 11-28-1847

(7) Letter from Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron, 10-11-1846

(8)Letter from Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron, 10/11/1846

(9) Letter from Paul Cameron to Duncan Cameron, 11/18/1845

[Chris Touch]

There are numerous life situations featured in the letters of the Cameron Plantation. The focus of interest here is the life of the enslaved people as seen through the eyes of the Cameron family. Of course because of this we must interpret based on what we see in the letters. There are real human issues. These include affection, sickness, disease, travel, and home life just to name a few. The goal of this essay is to interpret a focused episode from the letters of the Cameron plantation.
Specifically in this essay is the issue of disease and sickness, as well as the primitive medical care at the time, especially in regards to the enslaved families. For example, in the letter addressed October 22, 1846 addressed to Duncan Cameron sickness of one of the enslaved is described:
….On Monday last we had the pleasure of receiving yours and Margaret’s letters…..15 by Virgil who came up from Raleigh with them. It is with much regret and pain I learn from your letters that our Mildred’s condition remains so little improved since I parted from her. We can only trust I hope that Dr. Jackson with divine assistance will be able to find some remedy which will relieve her from her severe sufferings.

[Jason Bolchalk]

Here is the re-edited, rough draft of my essay. I will be adding the footnotes and finishing my 4th paragraph shortly but wanted to put something up before class. Let me know your thoughts if you wish.

In the “Cameron Family Letters,” http://plantationletters.com/, many themes arise in the correspondence between the owners of the plantation, the people who worked there, and other friends or partners associated with it’s operation. In most cases, readings dealt with how many slaves were “in the house”1 because of some illness or sickness. However, there are also quite a few entries that made mention of the weather and it’s affect on the crops. I felt there had to be something more behind all the conversations about weather, so I decided to look deeper into the readings and the transcriptions, investigating the weather patterns.

The weather was mentioned in at least 27 letters that I read through. In some instances, it is blamed for not being able to travel or plant crops2, and in some others, it is simply stated that it rained for a portion of the day3. However it was presented, it is important to note the significance it is having on the plantation. What happened when there was foul weather and no work could be done? The crops would obviously be affected, but what were the slaves to be doing in this down time?

It was no secret that the slaves were expected to do the work that was required of them whenever they were told to do it. We cannot safely assume that the workers were forced into the fields in less than ideal conditions though. Given the day and age when these letters were written, where little attention was paid to the medical needs of slaves, and the less than perfect conditions of the living quarters the slaves were in4, it is no wonder that the slaves were constantly being held “inside the house” with some kind of illness. Thus crop production would see a drastic decrease due to the lack of able-bodied workers to tend the fields.

After only being able to gather so much information from the Plantation Letters, I decided to look into the weather patterns in Alabama and North Carolina around the time these letters were written.

Through all of this though, the weather seems to be mentioned far too many times to be ignored. Even today, we look to blame the weather for delayed flights, cancelled outdoor events, and even farmers with bad crops. The Plantation Letters provide a very good way for us to think about and question out past in many different ways. In my mind, we don’t have to look much further than the local weatherman to figure out what may have been a leading cause in problems with the crop production on this plantation.

[Michael Dykema]

One of the more striking aspects of the Cameron plantation letters is the account they offer of the exportation of slave life from the areas of initial settlement on the Atlantic seaboard beyond the Appalachian mountains into the old Southwest and the Mississippi. Ira Berlin's Many Thousands Gone, this development is traced to the period of the American Revolution, when British promises of freedom to runaway slaves in Virginia and the Carolinas led to the evacuation of many slaves to the west, with predictable disruption to slave families and communities (Berlin, 264-265). After the war, natural increase in the slave population created a surfeit of unfree labor, which augmented this flow of slaves to places like Greene County, Alabama, where the Camerons established a second plantation.

Throughout the autumn of 1844, Paul Cameron steadily makes plans to establish a new presence for his family business in Alabama. He contracts to purchase shoe leather in Petersburg, Virginia (series: 1.3.3, box: 40, folder: 934, date: 1844-9-5) and discusses his plans to acquire tents, buttons, and wagons (series: 1.3.3, box: 40, folder: 935, date: 1844-10-12) in anticipation of the march of his "people" from Person County, North Carolina to the planned new plantation to the southwest (series: 1.3.3, box: 40, folder: 936, date: 1844-10-20). By November, Paul has set the contingent off on its journey to Alabama (series: 1.3.3, box: 40, folder: 937, date: 1844-11-5), where he contracts to purchase plantations at both Candy's Landing and in Greene County (series: 1.3.3, box: 40, folder: 937, date: 1844-11-2, series: 1.3.3, box: 41, folder: 940, date: 1845-1-4). Cameron is quite meticulous about the preparations for the move. He is clearly a businessman of a conscientious nature. However, for all the pains he takes to ensure the smooth running of the westward march, Paul makes sure to travel to Alabama in as luxurious a manner as one can in the 1840s. While his slave Edmund becomes seriously ill during the journey (series: 1.3.3, box: 40, folder: 939, date: 1844-12-7), Cameron's main objection to his journey was the presence of blacks in his stage-coach (series: 1.3.3, box: 41, folder: 970, date: 1845-11-8). The brutal inequalities of the slave system could not be more starkly illustrated. The move to Alabama is a traumatic rupture for the slaves, while Cameron sees it as an opportunity.

Once in Alabama, the disruption of slave lives occasioned by the move is exemplified by the attempt of a slave named Milton to return to North Carolina in 1847 (series: 1.3.3, box: 43, folder: 1002, date: 1847-2-9). While it seems counterintuitive that a slave would flee a plantation to return to another plantation, Berlin argued that most runaway slaves did not seek freedom, but rather absconded in order to visit family or otherwise maintain the bonds of community which the caprice of slave masters sometimes severed. Milton's flight to North Carolina likely demonstrates the need that slaves had to maintain their communities.

[Anisha Andrews]

Here is my draft, might I add "rough" draft ;)


When we learn about slavery and the slaves’ masters we often get a picture of an evil cold hearted man, who would whip and torment slaves, while they worked in weather conditions that made it impossible to get any work done. We also often assume that their (slaves) masters would force them to work whether they were sick or even near death. Using the plantation letters from the Cameron Family we can create a different interpretation. Through these letters we can use the weather as an indicator to determine how well slaves were being treated and cared for on the plantation. This is not to downplay the immoral act of slavery or to say that there were not slave masters who treated slaves poorly because they did exist. Rather, the theme of weather and its patterns, across the letters, can give us a better understanding of how slaves were cared for and treated.

Between the years of 1845 and 1847, there are several instances where Lewellyn (the overseer of the plantation) gives his accounts of the weather conditions and his inability to get work done on the field. “The Negroes will make an effort to get out the crop by the 25th if the weather will permit it being done- but I fear they will not do so.” Even with good weather and the opportunity to get things done, illness has stopped their progress. “The weather here is very warm today, more like July than November, and yet we have a great deal of disease in our Negro family.” Regardless of the weather, if it was too hot or too cold, and without consideration for the slaves’ health, Lewellyn could have easily demanded that the slaves “weather the storm” and worked under any condition. Mr. Cameron, as well, could have ordered Lewellyn to put the slaves to work under any circumstance to ensure the production of his crops. The fact that they did not resort to those measures suggests that the overall health and wellness of their slaves were important. Productive, healthy slaves seems to be Mr. Cameron’s priority when he requested “the overseer to keep the [unintelligible] in the house as I [unintelligible] suffer more cold.” We can assume that Mr. Cameron’s request pertains to keeping the slaves inside to protect them from getting sick and to keep them healthy.
One may think that the Lewellyn’s or Paul Cameron’s intentions were for the good of the plantation and the production of the crop and not so much about the health and well-being of the slaves. Wilkins and Wilson suggest, with regards to the treatment of slaves, that most slave masters were not as brutal or sadistic as one is lead to believe. “The Slave Narratives are overwhelmingly favorable in the judgment of slave masters as ‘good men.’” They found that out of the 331 narratives that had a reference to a master, 86% suggested that their masters were “good” or “kind.” Some of those references also suggested that the master did not allow whippings and a number of them only allowed whippings while they were present. Wilkins and Wilson also suggest that slave masters did not want slaves who were defiant and lazy. They wanted hardworking and responsible slaves. “Such attitudes cannot be beaten into slaves. They had to be elicited.”
It is easy to believe that slave masters and overseers treated slaves as less than human or measured their importance to the amount of labor they contributed to. We can use the weather as an indication of how slaves were treated. From what we learn about, we would believe that slaves were constantly placed in situations that jeopardized their health and well-being, in order to produce and gather crops. These letters help paint a different picture. Slaves were relieved from working in the fields when weather conditions prohibited them from doing so. With numerous amounts of “rain days” many would assume that an overseer or a plantation owner would over work their slaves to make up for the loss production of their crops. At least in this case, by analyzing weather patterns and conditions we can determine the treatment of slaves and the relationship between slave master and slave.

Primary Source: Cameron Family Letters, Plantatiton letters.
Secondary Source: Wilkins, Steve, and Wilson, Douglas. Southern Slavery As It Was. Idaho: Canon Press, 1996. http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/slavery/southern_slavery_as_it_was.htm#The%20Treatment%20of%20Slaves Retrieved on November 5, 2009.