isure comparative or complete, while delegating the field supervision to
an overseer, aided perhaps by one or more slave foremen. When an estate
was inherited by minor children or scattered heirs, or where a single
proprietor had several plantations, an overseer would be put into full
charge of an establishment so far as the routine work was concerned; and
when the plantations in one ownership were quite numerous or of a great
scale a steward might be employed to supervise the several overseers. Thus
in the latter part of the eighteenth century, Robert Carter of Nomoni Hall
on the Potomac had a steward to assist in the administration of his many
scattered properties, and Washington after dividing the Mount Vernon lands
into several units had an overseer upon each and a steward for the whole
during his own absence in the public service. The neighboring estate of
Gunston Hall, belonging to George Mason, was likewise divided into several
units for the sake of more detailed supervision. Even the 103 slaves of
James Mercer, another neighbor, were distributed on four plantations under
the management in 1771 of Thomas Oliver. Of these there were 54 slaves on
Marlborough, 19 on Acquia, 12 on Belviderra and 9 on Accokeek, besides 9
hired for work elsewhere. Of the 94 not hired out, 64 were field workers.
Nearly all the rest, comprising the house servants, the young children, the
invalids and the superannuated, were lodged on Marlborough, which was of
course the owner's "home place." Each of the four units had its implements
of husbandry, and three of them had tobacco houses; but the barn and
stables were concentrated on Marlborough. This indicates that the four
plantations were parts of a single tract so poor in soil that only pockets
here and there would repay cultivation.[1] This presumption is reinforced
by an advertisement which Mercer published in 1767: "Wanted soon, ... a
farmer who will undertake the management of about 80 slaves, all settled
within six miles of each other, to be employed in making of grain."[2] In
such a case the superintendent would combine the functions of a regular
overseer on the home place with those of a "riding boss" inspecting the
work of the three small outlying squads from time to time. Grain crops
would facilitate this by giving more frequent intermissions than tobacco in
the routine. The Mercer estate might indeed be more correctly described
as a plantation and three subsidiary farms than as a gr