Absentee-owner managers ran most large sugar plantations through corrupt intermediaries

Evidence

Philipeau’s letters highlight the paradoxes of life on the plantations of absentee owners. Although such plantations were not the majority—in the north, where they were most numerous, slightly less than half of those producing processed sugar were owned by absentees—they were among the largest and wealthiest. Absentee owners generally had a procureur in the colony to whom they had given their power of attorney to oversee their plantations, and who hired the gérants, or managers. The procureurs rarely visited the plantations, leaving the managers with enormous autonomy, which many exploited. One planter opined that of 100 plantations being run by managers, 95 were in ruins, while their managers had grown rich. Managers could steal plantation commodities, use the slaves for their own profit, and often get away with it. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 136

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Absentee ownership created a managerial chain in which abuses flourished (similarity 0.92)
• Absentee ownership gave managers brutal autonomous power over slaves (similarity 0.89)
• Absentee owners’ salaried managers brutalized slaves to maximize profit (similarity 0.80)