For example, they write "Plantations not only brought a larger share of the population into the labor force, but they were also able to move closer to 'full capacity' utilization of the labor potential than was true of the free economy." (Fogel and Engerman 283) Fogel and Engerman describe the system similar to that of an assembly line, stating, "Field hands were divided into two groups: the hoe gang and the plow gang. The hoe hands chopped out the weeds which surrounded the cotton plants[and] the plow gangs followed behind, stirring the soil" They believed that this system was successful because "No aspect of slave management was too trivial to be omitted from consideration or debate." (Fogel and Engerman 279).
In contrast, other historians refer to slaves as lazy and unwilling to work hard, but Fogel and Engerman believed ".[others] failed to appreciate the significance of slave team-work, coordination, and intensity of effort" (281) They believed that the drivers effectively motivated their slaves, be it with a reward or punishment system. Slaves sometimes had important jobs in the plantation. Some could even become drivers or gang foremen or even overseers or general managers. "When acting as overseers, slaves were responsible not only for the overall direction of the labor force but for various entrepreneurial decisionssuccess or failure of the entire productions side of plantation operations rested on these slaves." (Fogel and Engerman 284).
Fogel and Engerman were also insistent upon the fact that previous historians, "based their conclusions on a biased sample of evidence, on a relatively small group of plantations which were unrepresentative of the whole" (285) thus, making their arguments unreliable. Fogel and Engerman also claim that other historians incorrectly believed that "white overseer[s are] are assumed to have been an ubiquitous figure, present on virtually all plantations of one hundred or more slaves" (284).
