Enslavers discussed tone of voice as a management technique

Evidence

Bodies and tasks were optimized with rigorous exactitude. In trade magazines, owners swapped advice about the minutiae of planting, including diets and clothing for those they enslaved, as well as the kind of tone of voice an enslaver should use. In 1846, one Alabama planter advised his fellow enslavers to always give orders “in a mild tone and try to leave the impression on the mind of the negro that what you say is the result of reflection.” The devil (and his profits) were in the details. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 575

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence that slave management self-consciously adopted ‘scientific’ person-management techniques — supports the Taylorism-before-Taylor reframing.
• CANDY: The 1846 advice to speak in a mild, reflective tone is a sharply quotable snippet.