Laura R. Sandy is a lecturer in American history at the University of Liverpool and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of International Slavery.

• Introduction 1. One Plantation World: Overseers and Plantation Management in Eighteenth-Century Virginia and South Carolina 2. "But Where Shall We Find a Careful Overseer?": Recruitment and Duties 3. The Overseeing Class? Status, Skill, and Experience 4. "Respecting Wages & Privileges": Contracts, Terms and Conditions 5. "Unmerciful Overseers" and Conflicts of Power: Violence, Defiance, and the Practice of Authority 6. A "Good Overseer" and an "Excellent Leader": Enslaved Overseers and the Plantation Enterprise 7. "Clever Active" Women and "Mad Bitches": Overseeing Wives and Female Supervisors of Slavery 8. "The Tyranny and Villainy of Overseers": Slavery, Overseers, and the American Revolution 9. Professionals, Pragmatists, and "Horrid Hellish Rogues": Challenges, Opportunities, and Prospects of Overseeing. Conclusion: Overseers Reassessed