Slavery was first of all a labor system, and the primary concern
of the owner was getting work out of his slaves. As the work was
basically agricultural, the vast majority of slaves worked on cotton
plantations. Many plantations were small units using only a few
slaves, where slaves and owners worked together in the fields at
various tasks, but when the number of slaves owned included thirty
or more field hands, an overseer was usually employed. There has
been a tendency to identify slaveholders as planters when they
owned this number or more working hands and employed an
overseer to direct the work. One overseer directing fifty or more
Negroes was thought to be a good balance. If the number reached
one hundred or more, another overseer might be employed and the
force divided to operate more than one plantation. ¹

The census returns for 1860 list 468 overseers directing the work
of slaves on Florida plantations. It is fairly certain that most of the
plantations of average size (1,500-2,500 acres) using thirty or more
field laborers, and certainly the larger ones, were managed by over-
seers. Nearly half of the slave population of the South was owned
by slaveholders operating plantations of these dimensions. It was

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