10

638 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

features, such as bulging eyes, unruly hair, and large mouths. Because of this exaggeration,
the picanniny image was used for comedic effect in everything from post
cards to early motion pictures. Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and
Bucks: Interpretive History of'Blacks in American Films, 4th ed. (New York, 2002),
7-9.
5.34-35 of every shade...the master race] Sexual relationships between enslaved
men and women and slave owners were not uncommon in the South and often produced
offspring of mixed race. Estimates based on 1850 and 1860 census slave schedules
suggest that individuals of mixed race, or "mullatoes," made up at least 4.5 to 7.7
percent of the slave population in 1850 and 10 percent in 1860. Some historians believe
the numbers may have been as high as 13 to 15 percent of the slave population.
Although relationships did exist between slave mistresses and their male slaves, sexual
unions between male slaveholders and female slaves were more common. A pregnancy
resulting from such a relationship led to tension between slaves and slaveholders, and
the birth of a light-skinned child raised troublesome questions in the slave quarters as
well as in the big house. Plantation mistresses. who often acted as midwives to their
slaves, could be particularly upset by the birth of mixed-race children, often knowing
that their husbands or sons were likely to have fathered them. In most plantation communities,
the birth of a light-skinned baby was not celebrated by the slaves. In fact,
identifying the white fathers of mixed-race children could lead to punishment, and
some enslaved women avoided confirming paternity in hopes of shielding their children
from reprisal. As in Douglass's case, many mixed-race children never knew their
fathers' identities. Ann Patton Malone, Sweet Chariot: Slave Family and Household
Structure in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), 218-24;
Schwartz, Born in Bondage, 44-45; Berlin, Generations of Captivity, 182-83.
5.35 overseers] On the larger slave plantations, the job of overseer was a midlevel
managerial position typically occupied by men under forty. They were expected to
remain at their posts supervising slave activity and were discouraged from developing
familial relationships. The tenure of an overseer was generally short. Both owners and
slaves viewed them with disdain. Planters often sought to replace them with candidates
who increased profitability, while most overseers were looking for a short-term
financial gain in order to launch their own farms. The overseer's primary duties were
to implement the owner's policies, discipline slaves, and to ensure steady crop production.
The overseer was compensated financially and was supplied lodging, provisions,
and sometimes one or more servants. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll:
The World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974), 13-20; Randall M. Miller and John
David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (Westport, Conn., 1997),
553-55.
5.35-36 negro Doctor learned in the science of roots and herbs] Rather than subject
themselves to nineteenth-century "scientific" medical treatments, slaves would
often self-medicate with their own treatments handed down over generations. This
practice was a source of tension, since slave owners placed little confidence in using