Letters from the South/Letter 1
Letters from the South
NO. I.
THE SEA ISLANDS AND FREE LABOR.
[FROM A REGULAR CORRESPONDENT.]
While the steamer was approaching Hilton Head, I
was sitting on deck engaged in conversation with a
rebel officer who had been spending several months on
Johnson's Island as a prisoner of war, and was now on
his way to his Southern home. He was a fine, stalwart
fellow, in the very bloom of manhood, of pleasant
address and an intelligent expression of countenance.
The conversation was soon turned upon his personal
situation and prospects. I would not attach much value
to what was said, had I not heard the same sentiments
expressed by a number of other Southern men, and
had I not reasons to believe that they are indicative
of the way of thinking of a large and influential
class of people.
He was glad to get home again, very glad. He had entered the army in 1861, and had not been home since. For many months he had not heard a word from his family.
“I am a planter,” said he, “or rather I was a planter before the war. My plantation is in Georgia, south of Savannah, not far from Darien. I have 4000 acres of land and about ninety negroes. I was well off, I assure you. But what am I now? My slaves are all gone; I am sure they are. Whether my house is still standing I do not know, but I am sure every thing about my plantation is gone to wreck and ruin.”
“Well, what are you going to do when you get home?”
“Do? I don't know, sir, no more than the man in the moon. May be some of my negroes, when they hear that I have come home, will come back to me. They were always faithful to me. I treated them well; lost but one in four years by death, of congestive fever.”
“Well, then, if some of them come back to you, you will make contracts with them, give them fair wages, and go to work again, will you not?”
He looked surprised. “How so, make contracts with them?”
“Well,” said I, “you know slavery is abolished, and if you want the negroes to work for you at all, you will have to make agreements with them, as with free laborers.”
“Yes,” said he, “I have heard of this. I know that's the intention. But now, really, do you think this is a settled thing? Now, niggers won't work when they are not obliged to. A free nigger is never good for any thing. I know the thing won't work. No Southern man expects it will. No use trying.”
He grew quite animated. I endeavored to convince him in as forcible language as I could command that the emancipation of the slave was indeed a settled thing, and that the Southern people would be obliged to try.
He still remained incredulous. “Yes, yes,” said he, “I know that's the intention. But I tell you I know the nigger. I know him, sir. He isn't fit for freedom, sir. President Johnson is a Southern man, and he knows the nigger too, sir. He knows him as well as I do, sir. He knows that the niggers must be made to work somehow. You can't make a contract with any of them. They do not know what a contract is. They won't keep a contract.”
I remarked that the system which he deemed impossible was carried out at a great many places, and that where the military power of the government saw to it that the contracts were fairly made, the system worked well.
“Yes,” said he, “as long as the Federal troops are there, the thing may work. But the troops will soon be withdrawn, won't they? And the people of the Southern States will manage their own affairs again, won't they?”
“May be, by and by,” said I, meeting his anxious eye with a smile.
“Well, isn't that the policy of the administration? You see, then, the thing won't work.”
I tried once more to convince him that he would have to make up his mind to treat the negro as a free laborer, and suggested that if he thought he could not, he ought to sell part of his land and keep only as much as he could cultivate himself. The idea struck him as absolutely inadmissible.
“Sell my land?” said he. “What shall I do if I sell my plantation? I have not learned any thing with which I could make a living.”
“You might cultivate a small farm yourself, and make a living in that way.”
“Why, I can't work. I know how to manage a plantation with slaves on it. But I can't work; never did a day's work in my life, sir.”
“Then sell the whole of your land, and invest the money in some other profitable business. What is land worth down your way?”
“Why, I don't know. Land won't sell where I am at home. I haven't got the remotest idea what land may be worth there. There never was an acre of land sold in that neighborhood, that I can remember.” He meditated a while in silence. “No,” said he, at last, “I can't sell my plantation. We must make the nigger work somehow.”
I have now heard a good many Southern people speak about this subject, some of them very emphatic in their protestations that they accept things as they are, without any mental reservation, — restoration of the Union, abandonment of the right of secession, abolition of slavery and all, — but whenever you question them about particulars as to their future course, you will always find this to be the burden of the song. “The nigger is free, to be sure, but he will not work unless compelled to work; we must make him work somehow; we understand the matter, and we will see about that as soon as the control of the political power in the States is restored to us.” I believe every intelligent Southern man must have come to the conclusion that slavery is gone and cannot be restored, but he deplores this fact most sincerely. If the negroes were not so “demoralized” as to render every attempt to restore the old form of slavery dangerous, I have no doubt the attempt would be made. But the “demoralization” of the colored race does not permit it. On the other hand, the introduction of a bona fide system of free labor is a thing wholly foreign to the Southerner's ideas. He does not know what free labor is. The problem he feels him himself at present called upon to solve is, how to impose as many duties upon, and grant as few rights to, the negro as possible. These are impressions I have received from my conversations with Southern people, and shall soon be able to speak more advisedly from personal observation, and shall then go more fully into the subject.
Hilton Head presents the appearance of a busy little town, although it is nothing but a creation of military necessity. But one house stood there when our forces first took possession of the place. The Hilton Head expedition and the subsequent occupation of Beaufort are still remembered as one of the first cheering successes of the war. Since then a considerable number of neat houses, large and small, has been built for the accommodation of military and naval officials. A business street, Merchants' Row, have sprung up, giving evidence of the commercial enterprise of our army sutlers. Extensive piers and wharves afford the necessary accommodations for the shipping, and clusters of naval and military workshops and storehouses are scattered on the islands inclosing the spacious bay. The harbor is said to be superior in depth and security to those of Charleston and Savannah, and if, as seems to be the intention, the government workshops and magazines remain there permanently, Hilton Head is likely to become one of the chief commercial towns on the Southern coast. A city has been laid out on one of the islands; considerable sums of money have already been invested in lots, and if Northern energy and enterprise take hold of the chances presented here, the result can hardly be doubtful. All that is necessary to secure the future development of the place is a railroad connection with Branchville. Here is the spot for a Northern colony in South Carolina.
An hour's ride on a steambrig took us across the bay to Beaufort. The appearance of the town disappointed my expectations. When our troops took possession of it in the early part of the war, it was described by the newspaper correspondents as composed of the most elegant mansions in which the wealthy planters of this region led a luxurious life. There are indeed some large houses in the place, but they are clumsy, sober-looking, square structures, with nothing of that ornamental elegance which we are accustomed to find in the country houses of the North. The town is at present almost exclusively inhabited by colored people; I saw but very few white faces there. An ambulance ride to a plantation in the neighborhood was far more interesting.
Our way led us through fields cultivated by freedmen, mainly refugees who had arrived but a short time before. It would be unreasonable to expect that the first attempts of the emancipated slave to set up for himself, attempts made under unfavorable circumstances, should in all cases prove perfectly successful. Some of the cotton and cornfields through which we passed were in a decidedly bad state of cultivation, others better, but hardly any quite satisfactory until we reached the plantation to which our journey was directed. Then the appearance of the crops suddenly changed; the fields were free from weeds, the cotton plants healthy and the corn fields promising a heavy yield. Every thing bespoke thrift and industry. We passed through a most beautiful grove of live oaks with its graceful festoons of gray moss — under the shadow of the trees a roomy log cabin in which a colored preacher was addressing an audience of devout negroes, — for it was Sunday, — until at last we found the “mansion” surrounded with live oaks and magnolia trees. The estate had, before the war, belonged to one of the wealthiest planters of that region, who had gone to parts unknown as soon as the blue jackets threatened their decent upon Beaufort. It struck me as singular that a man of such wealth as he was reputed to possess should have lived in a house so small and unpretending as in the North would be considered as belonging to a forty-acre farm, — but such was the case.
The plantation had been taken possession of by the government, and then leased to a gentleman from Massachusetts, who is now working it with the same negroes who formerly belonged to the place, and some who had subsequently congregated there as refugees. I have heard it frequently repeated by Southerners that Northern men do not understand the negro, and do not know how to manage him. A short conversation with the lessee of that plantation, together with the evidences of thrift and prosperity all around, convinced me that a sensible, practical Yankee, brought up under the influences of free-labor society, is better calculated to solve the great labor problem in the South in a practical manner than a quondam slaveholder, whose every step will be guided by his former prejudices.
The system followed by the lessee is simply this: His negroes work, and are paid by the task. Certain kinds of work requiring a higher skill, for instance ploughing, are better remunerated than others which can be performed by a less skilful laborer. Each family has a certain patch of ground for itself, on which vegetables and sometimes cotton are raised. The only incentive to faithful labor is self-interest, and the lessee considers it sufficient. He assured me that all he had to do was to ride over his plantation once in two days, and to spend with each gang of laborers about five minutes, long enough to give directions and to inspect the work going on. No coercive measures were necessary; he had met with only one instance of refractory conduct; he threatened the delinquent with having him arrested by the provost-marshal of the nearest military post, when the delinquent took to his heels, disappeared, and was never again seen on the plantation. Aside from this every thing had gone on smoothly. The negroes are living well, are saving something from their earnings, have their schools and meeting-houses, and the lessee is doing an excellent business. He assured us that he as well as his negroes considered the enterprise a perfect success.
Here is a man who is in possession of land and capital; he wants other men to labor for him. As an inducement he offers a fair remuneration. If he wants the work well done, he knows that he must pay well for it. There are other men who want to make a living by the labor of their hands. They know that in order to earn something they must work for it. The contract is made; it is based upon a calculation by the employer how much he can afford to pay, and a calculation by the laborer how much he can justly demand for his labor under existing circumstances. It is a free transaction, in which neither coercion nor protection is necessary. I admit that in other instances similar attempts have not so well succeeded, and the lessee, indeed, observed that his colored people were a rather remarkably good set. But, where success was less complete, it may have been owing partly to the want of practical sense in the directing spirit, partly to the incongruity of the elements he had to deal with. But the success in some instances proves that the thing can be done if undertaken in good faith and with a sincere determination. Those who go at the solution of the free labor problem in the South with the assumption that the negro will not work unless forced to work, are likely to succeed in making the negro unwilling to work. I am confident the problem will be solved as soon as the school house occupies the place where once the whipping post stood.
The means which are to be adopted for the purpose of bringing about such a happy result all over the vast area of the South I will reserve for future discussion. I will add, however, that it would be vain to close our eyes against the extent of the reforms to be effected. I will give an instance. While we were conversing with the lessee we observed a negro woman with two children leaning against the railing of the verandah. Her countenance wore so sad a look that we asked for the cause. The story was mournful enough. She had been sick. Another woman had come into her house to attend to her work. Her husband, Tony, had taken a fancy to the other woman. After a while he had gone away and “married her.” She had insisted upon his remaining with her. He had done so for some time, and then gone off again to live with the other wife. Where was her husband? “He was in the meeting house yonder, praying.” Of course, they had been slaves and but recently left the “old plantation,” where such things were little more than matters of course. The vices of the negro are the vices of the slave. When “Tony” will know what it is to be a freeman, he will know also that it will not do to have two wives and to go praying while one of his wives, with her and his children, are standing by the side of the meeting house weeping over his inconstancy.