Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865 (22 page)

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Authors: Midori Takagi

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BOOK: Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction: Slavery in Richmond Virginia, 1782–1865
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methods that varied as much as the working conditions themselves. Sometimes the controls of owners and employers proved redundant, sometimes they conflicted. But more often than not, the urban industrial milieu created a gap between the reach of owner and employer a space where neither proved able to control certain elements of slave life. It was in this space that slaves found opportunities to shape their own working and living conditions.
For some slaves this gap provided an opportunity to choose their own lodgings and their meals. For others, such as hired factory hands, it allowed them to accumulate small sums of cash from their wages and to spend these funds at their own discretion. The gap also gave slaves the chance to live with their families and friends and to create a separate, insulated space away from owners and employers. While these privileges may seem small, they significantly aided slave residents in their attempts to gain more "control" over their lives and to defy absolute owner control.
The Privilege of "Losing Time"
By law and custom every free person, particularly white residents, had power over slave workers. Owners held ultimate control and could discipline, hire out, or sell a bond laborer at any time. Under hiring contracts, hirers shared some of this authority and were able to discipline slave hands in their employment. Shopkeepers, manufacturers, and city watchmen all enjoyed privileges and power denied slaves (and many free blacks), such as the right to vote, own property, testify in court, and sue. Furthermore, according to the political and racial ideology that supported slavery, slaves were powerless, mentally less capable than, and subservient to, every free person. Richmond slave residents, however, like slaves elsewhere, acted in ways that belied such ideas and continually fought attempts at full control or domination. Most of the methods and weapons in this struggle were borrowed from the plantation setting, where disgruntled slaves had long practiced techniques such as feigning sickness, breaking tools, or escaping. But over time, urban slave workers discovered a few new tactics made possible by their new environment.
Slave workers soon discovered that city working and living conditions often left them "unattended to." Frequently there were periods of the day and night when no authority appeared to govern their actions. Naturally the opportunities to evade one's owner depended on a slave's occupation and position; but they existed for nearly every slave, from the female domestic who slipped away from the owner's house late at night, to the slave drayman who stopped to chat or share a brandy while making deliveries. Constant, strict control was not possible. The city of-
 
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fered an increasing number of places a slave worker could blend in and hide, such as a corner shop, a crowded marketplace, or even a busy intersection. In 1800 when there were about 2,000 slaves it might have been more difficult to go unnoticed. But by 1840 when there were more than 7,000 slave residents and 20,000 Richmonders altogether, a slave could hide temporarily with little effort. Monitoring slaves' activities would have required constant supervision, something few owners were willing to provide.
Given these circumstances, then, it is not surprising that slave workers took to "losing time," that is, they simply walked away from their jobs when no one was watching. One hired slave laborer, Carter, made it a frequent habit to "lose time" when running errands.
36
Isham similarly took advantage of the working hours he spent alone to hide from his employers, but for almost two weeks.
37
Some slaves seized the opportunity to ''lose time" permanently. Lewis, a slave worker from Goochland County, ran away during the year he was hired to the Washington Tavern in Richmond. Ned Robinson, also a slave, waited until he was lodged in the city far from his owner before running away.
38
And these men were not the only ones to take advantage of their time as hired slaves to escape; Richmond newspapers throughout the antebellum years were filled with advertisements offering rewards for the capture of slaves who had run away from local businesses.
Owners were not oblivious to the effects of the city and devised a number of ways to thwart such ploys and to prevent runaways. Philip Nelson sent instructions to each new employer of his slave Carter, advising them to watch him constantly. Other owners sought employers who were known to monitor slave workers closely. Edmund Taylor, who was concerned about his slave William Giles, requested that Giles be hired to "a stranger; the
stricter
the manager the
better.
" It appears Taylor believed that a stranger, rather than a friend, would be tough and uncompromising when dealing with Giles. Some owners went so far as to appoint acting masters whom they considered to be more conscientious than employers. Samuel Bailey of Hanover County, for example, allowed his slave Peter White to work in the city under the condition that Jesse Franklin of Richmond "act as master" during his stay. Sarah Clayton made similar arrangements for her slave, Nancy Read, when Read went to the city. Clayton asked David Hardy to "stand as master for her" while "she is at work in part of your house." Billy, a slave belonging to George Major of Charles City County, was similarly supervised while working in Richmond by Cornelius Crew, an old friend of Major's.
39
Many other slave owners, however, recognized that no acting master or strict employer could prevent slaves from "losing time" or, worse,
 
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escaping; there were still too many opportunities for bond men and women to avoid supervision. So many owners attempted to gain control of slave workers by using rewards as incentives not to "lose time." A good number of owners, for example, tried to use hiring out and some of the unusual privileges to encourage slaves to work hard and not escape. Self-hiring was considered a significant privilege to most slaves because it gave them greater control over their labor. Bob and Will, two slave men described earlier, for example, were dispatched unsupervised to Richmond with few instructions other than to give their pay to their owners. Where they lived or what they did during their nonworking hours was up to them.
Court records indicate that owners also gave slaves the chance to pursue their own entrepreneurial ventures as incentives or rewards for good behavior. W.B. Mahan allowed his slave Lucy, while employed by John Chevallie, to sell fruit "out of the cellar that she now lives in" to earn extra money. Piter (Peter), another Richmond slave, was not only able to earn extra money but to run his own craft shop.
40
Not all owners were so generous, but many tried to encourage good behavior by allowing slaves to have some role in the hiring process and to negotiate the terms. Frequently this meant accommodating a slave's employment preference. When Edmund Taylor sent his slave William to Richmond for work, he gave explicit instructions to hiring agents Hill and Dabney that they should heed William's request to "get a situation at the Exchange [Hotel]." Owner John Scott gave similar instructions to his agent demanding that Isaac, the slave to be hired out, should be "consulted" as to his "inclination." Maria, on the other hand, did not get to choose her employer, but her owner requested that her "happiness and comfort" had to be taken into account when placing her in a new job.
41
Owners were not the only ones using incentives. Employers experimented with similar tactics, especially after learning that tough disciplinary action or coercion might not produce the intended effect. Although hiring contracts implicitly gave employers the ability to punish negligent workers, hirers were afraid of developing a reputation for being harsh taskmasters. Such a reputation would cause owners to cease leasing hands for fear their property would be in danger. James Brooks and Francis Markam, the two hirers who employed Isham the slave who "lost" twelve days of work certainly took no chances. Rather than disciplining Isham for running away, Brooks and Markam merely deducted the days missed from the pay owed to his owner.
42
The courts added additional pressure on employers not to abuse hired workers. Slave owners' successful negligence suits, such as
Ran-
 
Page 49
dolph v. Hill
in 1836, served as potent reminders that employers were liable for damages to hired slaves. In this case, physical abuse was not even the issue. The employer, Hill, was found guilty of improperly using Randolph's slave hand by sending him into a coal mine that was filled with poisonous gas.
43
This does not mean, however, that employers treated all slave workers well. Employers often beat and neglected workers. As the earlier example concerning the two young slave boys working in the tobacco factory indicates, industrialists often cared more about production than the welfare of their workers. But during this period there were relatively few reported cases of severe abuse.
Instead, employers increasingly chose to use incentives such as liquor and cash bonuses. The James River Company books often list rum among their grocery items, as did the books of the coal mines and other construction companies. Though much of this liquor probably went to sick workers (it was thought to be medicinal), it also was used as a reward for good work. Officials at the Dismal Swamp Company, for example, plied their slave workers with liquor in this fashion as company officer Richard Blow indicates in this letter: "I have sent up some spirits last week . . . some for the purpose of giving the hands a dram in the morning, this is contrary to former usage, but I wish them encouraged if they behave well, a gill a day in the winter, is not too much provided they behave well, but if delinquent in duty [they] should be debard of their allowance."
44
Cash bonuses appear to have been even more common. Records from various companies show that employers paid their slave workers, most of them men, anywhere from 50 cents a week to $5.00 a month for working extra hours. Davidson and Garnett, a tobacco and wheat shipping firm, which included a warehouse, cooper's shop, and mill, often paid their hands for extra work. In their account books entries such as the following appear frequently between 1816 and 1822:
1818, August 1
M[ill] Exp[enses] paid mill hands for extra work this day
$8.00
1818, September 4
M[ill] Exp[enses] paid Ben, Sam & Dick for extra work
$1.25.
45
Slave tobacco hand Lott Cary, who later became a preacher and one of the first Richmonders to emigrate to Liberia, often received five-dollar bonuses and "the privilege to sell the waste tobacco" for extra cash as a reward for good work.
46
While owners and employers experimented with self-hiring and cash

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