slavery?!???????

Question

I am trying to figure out what this quote from walden means: "It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave driver of yourself."

what's the difference between a southern and a northern overseer? was it more brutal in the south or something?

Answer 1

It means that you have no where to run whether in the South or the North you are still a slave and one is always a slave to ones own moral, weaknesses and sins.

God Bless You and Our Southern People.

Answer 2

Even over 150 years after the ratification of the 13th Amendment, it's almost impossible to study and discuss slavery with any real objectivity. If the answers I've seen on these boards are any indication, the public school system is teaching political spin in place of real history on this subject.

Whitman's laments the inability of so many in a "free country" to find true freedom, but among the inalienable rights of man is the one to sell himself into servitude.

Whitman used the "Southern overseer" describe chattel slavery.

It was not uncommon for a Southern planter to hire a Northern overseer, however, the Northern overseer in this poem is the factory village system, as started in New England.

The factory paid only in factory script which could only be used at the factory store, and to purchase coal for heat. Workers lived in factory housing, and rent was deducted from their wages. The factory kept the workers in debt until they couldn't work anymore, whereupon they would be evicted. There was no welfare system at the time.

Slavery ended in the North because of economic reasons, not the altruism of the Northern population. The cradle to grave respsonsibilities of a slaver owner to a slave is just one of the reasons slaves were a poor choice for labor. The factory village system used people only when they were fit to work, and gave them incentive to work. A slave had no incentive beyond doing just enough work to not get punished.

Answer 3

Northern slaves were called 'indentured servants', and since their position was 'voluntary', there was little attachment or affection wasted on them (especially the Irish at the time). Southern slaves were at least considered something of value in places, and southerners in general were considered less brutal and cold as people go. Owning people in the south was a part of life and business, and the better overseers were aware of the value of not overworking their horses or their slaves. Northern teamsters were brutal by nature, because there were always more immigrants wanting to work and replace any they destroyed.
It was brutal all around in the name of Big Business, but easier to bury it in the big cities of the north.

Answer 4

Yes, there was White slavery. The British used the Irish as slaves up until the 1920s in the coal mines in Britain (often children). Today there are modern day White slaves from Eastern Europe who are trafficked into brothels in the US and Canada and Western Europe (including children). In the past, many indentured servants (brought to places like Georgia chained to boats) were Irish. 95% of them died in slavery. You'll need to do your own research. Use your textbook, legitimate websites, a library book, and ask your librarian for any old documents they may have. You can also email an international relations professor (for ex: google in "Purdue University" then click "international relations" and find the professor's email) about modern day slavery. You can compare and contrast what you find, and make sure to cite your sources and do a bibliography at the end. Also, see if you can find any DVDs from PBS or the History Channel. Finally, "orphan" British children after WWI and WWII were sent to Australia as "domestic servants"

Answer 5

Of all of the answers above mine, Southron 98's comes closest to getting toward what Thoreau was trying to say. But I would wager that everyone here has missed the point of this "riddle" by Thoreau (it is not really a riddle, but it looks like one).

Let me try to paraphrase the quotation for you:

1. If one has a Southern overseer, then one would be a black slave, living without any rights or self-determination whatsoever.

2. If one has a Northern overseer, then one is actually "free" (as opposed to being a black slave in the South). The reason this situation is "worse" is that the working people in the North live their lives under the illusion that they are free -- but in fact they CHOOSE their own "enslavement" by choosing to be part of an economy that controls their lives, desires, and potentials as much as the system of black slavery in the South. At least the slaves in the South have no choice, but the "choices" made by the people in the "free" North are fully to be blamed upon the individuals themselves, not on the slavery system.

3. The worst situation, along this line of reasoning, occurs when a person is so totally invested in an economy that the individual thinks of himself or herself as a unit of production (or in some other dehumanizing terms like that). When a person opts to ignore his or her humanity enough to think of the self as a piece of the economic machine, and when that person has to discipline the self to fit the economy, that person truly has lost all perspective on what it means to be human.

Thoreau's point is that although enforced Southern black slavery is a terrible thing, it is not as bad as the voluntary Northern ideals of an industrial economy that most people think they want. Really Thoreau is not comparing North and South; instead, he is talking about people who have choices but choose to confine themselves to working for an economy that dehumanizes them.

Answer 6

It varied from plantation to plantation but some of the most brutal plantations were located on the gulf coast. But there were exceptions. I can't remember word for word but Frederick Douglass's memoirs give pretty vivid descriptions of all the different places he's lived. The book Uncle Tom's Cabin also manifests the differences of owners and overseers from location to location. While all slavery is obviously immoral it was true that certain slaveowners were friendlier than others and gave relatively decent living conditions.

Answer 7

I think he's saying that no matter what, slavery is bad. Historically, northern slave owners allowed their slaves to work inside, but they were no less brutal. In all likelihood, the northern overseer is the boss at a "factory".

Answer 8

Yes - typically the northern slaves were treated more like family and were taken care of. Southern slaves did not have that sort of treatment.

Answer 9

if u knew anything abt anything u would know tht yes....slavery in the south was MUCH worse than the small amount of slavery in the north....

he was sayin it is worse to have a nothern one bc in the north u are soo close to freedom yet ur are still bein treated like s.hit....

Answer 10

Your question made me think. I am researching my families genealogy and found to my satisfaction and graditude that my forefather freed his slaves. What a wierd world we live in. It would be hard to be a slave to anyone, including oneself.