As with any group, there were differing personalities, some deciding  
on work motivations for one reason, some for another. Resignation, or  
knowing which side their bread was buttered on [trying to be  
practical], a subservient personality, a generous personality  
determined to rise above their circumstances in a moral sense, or one  
who resisted with every last fiber of their being. Many overseers,  
tho, seemed to have been especially brutal men who, it is my guess,  
had deeper issues they took out on their captive charges. The type  
still exists today [see: Abu Ghraib, rogue cops, the rape of the  
Iraqi girl and murder of her and her entire family].

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Mar 1, 2007, at 10:21 AM, Basil Forest wrote:

> I am surprised that many historians writing on the slave period in  
> America
> fail to acknowledge the existence of these narratives as evidence  
> of the other
> side of slavery.  I will have to reread John Hope Franklin's work  
> to see if
> he mentions it.
>
> Let us not forget the possibility that slaves were conscientious  
> and worked
> hard out of a sense of duty and gratitude rather than fear.  I  get  
> this sense
> from Ira Berlin's Generations of Captivity.  Moreover, three   
> squares and a
> place to live is some incentive as well.  The true story is  obviously
> somewhere between Heaven and Hell.
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