The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana's Cane World, 1820--1860

by Richard J. Follett

Focusing on the master-slave relationship in Louisiana's antebellum sugarcane country, The Sugar Masters explores how a modern, capitalist mind-set among planters meshed with old-style paternalistic attitudes to create one of the South's most insidiously oppressive labor systems. As author Richard Follett vividly demonstrates, the agricultural paradise of Louisiana's thriving sugarcane fields came at an unconscionable cost to slaves.
Thanks to technological and business innovations, sugar planters stood as models of capitalist entrepreneurship by midcentury. But above all, labor management was the secret to their impressive success. Follett explains how in exchange for increased productivity and efficiency they offered their slaves a range of incentives, such as greater autonomy, improved accommodations, and even financial remuneration. These material gains, however, were only short term.
According to Follett, many of Louisiana's sugar elite presented their incentives with a "facade of paternal reciprocity" that seemingly bound the slaves' interests to the apparent goodwill of the masters, but in fact, the owners sought to control every aspect of the slaves's lives, from reproduction to discretionary income. Slaves responded to this display of paternalism by trying to enhance their rights under bondage, but the constant bargaining process invariably led to compromises on their part, and the grueling production pace never relented. The only respite from their masters' demands lay in fashioning their own society, including outlets for religion, leisure, and trade.
Until recently, scholars have viewed planters as either paternalistic lords who eschewed marketplace values or as entrepreneurs driven to business success. Follett offers a new view of the sugar masters as embracing both the capitalist market and a social ideology based on hierarchy, honor, and paternalism. His stunning synthesis of empirical research, demographics study, and social and cultural history sets a new standard for this subject.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[LA · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 15 year old is doing his Eagle Scout Project about the lives of the enslaved families who were once situated at our local state park. Just when you think you're a know-it-all about the terrors of slavery, then ya learn one worse.

Plantation banks used to accept enslaved individuals as collateral on the mortgages of various sugar plantations. When the financial Panic of 1837 hit and lasted through the early 1840s, thousands of enslaved were 'repossessed' by the banks. In Louisiana, there was a law that children aged 10 and under could not be separated from their mothers in acts of 'sale' but in other states? That age limit was only 5.

Banking on Slavery by Dr. Sharon Ann Murphy is one of the most interesting and vile papers I've ever read. This book, The Sugar Masters, was a helpful add on.

[Charles Heath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sugar slave society confined to a small region of the Louisiana river parishes, even New Orleans was...distant across the half-century before the Civil War. Interesting insight into plantation management: inhumane resources, so to speak, along with technical innovation, and an explanation into the production of the world's finest sugar. STILL SUBSIDIZED BY REPUBLICANS SOCIALISTS! lol

The WPA slave narratives are all we've got, for better or worse. They are valuable sources, but for historians, "troubled waters." This editor has made the unfortunate choice to publish in "dialect" as if we have agreed on some orthography. It almost feels like (imported) scholarly minstrelsy.

For this millennium, NO.

To read about THAT AMERICA remains almost UNBELIEVABLE the UNSPEAKABLE violence perpetrated on a people.

Highly recommended.

[James Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally good and informative, though it seems that Follett seemed to use only the English language plantation diaries when most of the sugar producing regions in Louisiana were Francophonic. He does cite the Plantation Diary of Valcour Aime but only the abridged 1878 translation.

[Bruce Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some interesting information, especially about how industrially advanced the sugar farming industry was in the mid-1800's. However, the author's condemnation of the planters includes too many assumptions and added opinions.