He thinks the crop this year, which has been a favorable one, will yield, in well-managed plantations a net interest of from fifteen to twenty-five percent on the investment; making no allowance, of course, for the time and skill of the master. This will be a clear return to planters like Mr. C⸺ who do not eat up their profits by interest on advances, and have no mortgages, and require no advances from the merchants.
But the risks of the investment are great. The cane fields are liable to fires, and these spread with great rapidity, and are difficult to extinguish.2 Last year Mr. C⸺ lost $7,000 in a few hours by fire. In the cholera season he lost $12,000 in a few days by deaths among the Negroes.
According to the usual mode of calculation, I suppose the value of the investment of Mr. C⸺ to be between $125,000 and $150,000. On well-managed estates of this size, the expenses should not exceed $10,000.
The gross receipts, in sugar and molasses, at a fair rate of the markets, cannot average less than between $35,000 and $40,000. This should leave a profit of between eighteen and twenty-two percent. Still, the worth of an estimate depends on the principle on which the capital is appraised. The number of acres laid down to cane, on this plantation, is about three hundred. The whole number of Negroes is one hundred, and of these not more than half, at any time, are capable of efficient labor; and there are twenty-two children below the age of five years, out of a total of one hundred Negroes.
Beside the engineer, some large plantations have one or more white assistants; but here an intelligent Negro has been taught enough to take charge of the engine when the engineer is off duty. This is the highest post a Negro can reach in the mill, and this Negro was mightily pleased when I addressed him as maquinista. There are, also, two or three white men employed, during the season, as sugar masters. Their post is beside the cauldrons and defecators, where they are to watch the work in all its stages, regulate the heat and the time for each removal, and oversee the men. These, with the engineer, make the force of white men who are employed for the season.
The regular and permanent officers of a plantation are the mayoral and mayordomo. The mayoral is, under the master or his administrador, the chief mate or first lieutenant of the ship. He has the general oversight of the Negroes, at their work or in their houses, and has the duty of exacting labor and enforcing discipline. Much depends on his character, as to the comfort of master and slaves. If he is faithful and just, there may be ease and comfort; but if he is not, the slaves are never sure of justice, and the master is sure of nothing. The mayoral comes, of necessity, from the middle class of whites, and is usually a native Cuban, and it is not often that a satisfactory one can be found or kept. The day before I arrived, in the height of the season, Mr. C⸺ had been obliged to dismiss his mayoral, on account of his conduct to the women, which was producing the worst results with them and with the men; and not long before, one was dismissed for conniving with the Negroes in a wholesale system of theft, of which he got the lion’s share.
The mayordomo is the purser, and has the immediate charge of the stores, produce, materials for labor, and provisions for consumption, and keeps the accounts. On well regulated plantations, he is charged with all the articles of use or consumption, and with the products as soon as they are in condition to be numbered, weighed, or counted, and renders his accounts of what is consumed or destroyed, and of the produce sent away.
There is also a boyero, who is the herdsman, and has charge of all the cattle. He is sometimes a Negro.
Under the mayoral, are a number of contra-mayorales, who are the boatswain’s mates of the ship, and correspond to the “drivers” of our southern plantations. One of them goes with every gang when set to work, whether in the field or elsewhere, and whether men or women, and watches and directs them, and enforces labor from them. The drivers carry under the arm, at all times, the short, limber plantation whip, the badge of their office and their means of compulsion. They are almost always Negroes; and it is generally thought that Negroes are not more humane in this office than the low whites. On this plantation, it is three years since any slave has been whipped; and that punishment is never inflicted here on a woman. Near the Negro quarters, is a penitentiary, which is of stone, with three cells for solitary confinement, each dark, but well ventilated. Confinement in these, on bread and water, is the extreme punishment that has been found necessary for the last three years. The Negro fears solitude and darkness, and covets his food, fire, and companionship.
With all the corps of hired white labor, the master must still be the real power, and on his character the comfort and success of the plantation depend. If he has skill as a chemist, a geologist, or a machinist, it is not lost; but, except
