Reputation and 'reputational entrepreneurship' in the colonial South and early republic: the case of plantation overseers



Sandy, Laura ORCID: 0000-0002-2054-8159 and Phillips, Gervase
(2021) Reputation and 'reputational entrepreneurship' in the colonial South and early republic: the case of plantation overseers. HISTORICAL RESEARCH, 94 (263). pp. 96-116.

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Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Overseers were essential both to the profitability of North American slave plantations and to maintaining white racial hegemony. Yet they and their families were frequently condemned by planters as shiftless, incompetent, dishonest and brutal. Drawing on the sociology of reputation, and in particular the concept of ‘reputational entrepreneurship’, this article argues that the damning claims made by planters, and the responses of overseers and their wives, reveal an ongoing and significant social conflict within white colonial society between wealthy, but insecure, planter ‘patriarchs’ and their free, ambitious and independently minded employees.</jats:p>

Item Type: Article
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 11 Jan 2021 10:53
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 23:04
DOI: 10.1093/hisres/htaa033
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3112722