Imprisoned in Authority: James Henry Hammond

James Henry Hammond was born in South Carolina on November 15th, 1807 and died on November 13th, 1864. Not only was Hammond a very wealthy plantation owner, but he was also a very successful politician. From 1835 to 1836, he served as a United States Representative. He also served as South Carolina’s Governor from 1842 to 1844. In his later years, he served as United States Senator from 1857 to 1860.
Hammond’s voice was very loud when it came to the issue of slavery. He was not ashamed to let everyone know how much he supported it. In 1831, Hammond became the owner of a cotton plantation called Silver Bluff. There were 147 slaves at Silver Bluff when Hammond arrived to take possession of it. They were eager to meet their new master. “Hammond had acquired seventy-four females and seventy-three males, a population with a median age of twenty-five. He would certainly have noted that forty-six, nearly a third of these slaves, were not yet fifteen, too young to be much use in the fields but a good foundation for a vigorous future labor force. Undoubtedly, too, he observed that sixty-four of the slaves were between fifteen and forty-five, the prime work years. These were the individuals upon whom Hammond would rely to plant, cultivate, and harvest the cotton and corn that would generate most of his yearly income” (Faust, 71). The rest were older slaves that couldn’t really do a lot of hard labor in the field, but they could do chores that didn’t require such demanding work ethics like watching over the children whose parents are out working in the fields.
Hammond had a longing for complete power and authority over his slaves. He wanted “total domination” (Faust, 72). He tried to control the way they thought, worshiped; everything. In time, Hammond created a “carefully designed plan of physical and psychological control intended to eliminate the foundations of black solidarity” (Faust, 72). Obviously the slaves did not like this. They weren’t used to a master being so obsessed with power and authority. The slaves rebelled and acted up. Some of them even tried to run away. Hammond decided that he needed to “break in” these slaves. “Those who performed unsatisfactory labor, left the plantation without permission, or in any other way challenged Hammond’s authority were lashed, in a public display of the consequences of refusal to comply with the master’s will” (Faust, 73).