In Gone with the Wind, Ashley appeared to be a refined gentleman, even though he was the son of a Southern plantation owner. Scarlett, too, had been raised as a "lady."
In short, plantation owners' sons would not stand in the cotton fields with whips like overseers, watching slaves work. Overseers came from all sorts of backgrounds; perhaps some were immigrants who had received no education and could do no other kind of work.
"Lawyers" like Jim could continue their old profession after arriving in the New World. After all, American law still had many similarities to British law.
Then there were clergymen, doctors, and so on. Even if Southerners abolished property restrictions, these illiterate people still could not become officials. Instead, they had to follow all sorts of rules on the plantations.
Being an overseer was also "going to work." Every day, they had to rise at dawn and sound the wake-up call to gather the slaves. Why couldn't they leave that to the roosters?
Overseers got up even earlier than the slaves and could not nap during the day. Once the slaves had finished their work, they still had to inspect it. By then, it was usually around noon, and they had to stand beneath the blazing sun to see whether all the cotton had been picked. If the slaves made a mistake, the overseer had to make them pick the remaining cotton, but he could not hide beneath a tree to escape the sun either. During working hours, he could not speak to passersby. The plantation owners who made these rules believed such behavior was disgraceful for someone "serious about his work."
Going west to pan for gold was different. If luck was bad, there would be no income at all, but if luck was good, even