Life and public services of Martin R. Delany / Sub-Assistant Commissioner Bureau Relief of Refugees, Freedmen, and of Abandoned Lands, and late Major 104th U.S. Colored Troops

by Frank A. Rollin

In his report to the Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau concerning the school system, the reform which he advocated was not without deliberation, as demonstrated by a circumstance in his own experience. After his failures in authorship, the Central American expedition project, and railroad improvement, in consequence of all being attempted at the same time, as if to redeem that unsuccessful period of his singularly active life of its appearance of uselessness, a position entirely new in his rôle presented itself.

The principalship of a colored school was offered to him by a committee of the seventh ward. At first he declined, as he contemplated resuming the practice of medicine, his legitimate and choice profession. But the board insisting, as the school by law was compelled to open within a week, and no teacher had been secured, he accepted on conditions that he should be relieved in one month, or so soon as a teacher could be obtained.

He took charge at once, and organized what was then one of the most unmanageable schools, a great portion of the pupils being large boys and girls. The rules laid down by the board allowed whipping, while they forbade suspension or dismissal of the pupils from school. To flog a pupil, he alleged, was an evidence of the incapacity for governing on the part of the teacher, and that when it was evident a pupil could not be restrained without resorting to such measures, he was unfit to be among the others.

He notified the directors of his objections to their rule. He regarded it as barbarous, rendering the school-house repulsive and objectionable, instead of being associated with pleasant and profitable memories. Therefore, if they desired him to take the school, he would conduct it in his own way.

They yielded to him in the manner of government. This resulted in binding the pupils to him by ties of sincere devotion, and he remained for thirteen months instead of the one month agreed upon at first. When he resigned, it was a source of regret among both pupils and directors. Teaching, though he loved it as a continual medium of imparting knowledge to the young, yet it was confining him to a sphere too limited for the grasp of his desires. In this capacity he will be remembered by some of the now adult inhabitants of Pittsburg, and his excellent assistant, now the wife of one of the professors of the College of Liberia.

We here insert a portion of his report bearing upon his observation of the schools of his district, and an extract from his last annual report, made to headquarters of the assistant commissioner, for the year 1867, ending the last of August, the close of the planting season. The report is replete with suggestions, and equal to the demands of the time. If the suggestions made be carried out, there would accrue a vast amount of good, rendering the laborer less dependent on others, and more frugal, whereas, in pursuing his former line of labor, he was kept at disadvantage on account of the expenses to be kept up before the sale of cotton, the staple, in the cultivation of which the freedmen use all their time, money, and labor.

Even to make this an effective and self-sustaining measure, the local habits of the occupants must be essentially changed. Instead of the former old plantation people remaining on the places as a local preference, which generally allows but an average of five (5) acres to the family, the lands must be let in portions of not less than twenty (20) acres to each family before they can be made available to their support. This would necessitate a general scattering, or greater division of the people, causing at first quite a change of places with many. To do justice to the people as an available, sociable, or domestic element, no one hundred acres of farming land should be occupied by more than five (5) families, thus allowing twenty (20) acres to the family, which, in the light of domestic or political economy, is little enough. Less than this is to place them in a position of hazardous uncertainty and anxiety, and encourage idleness and improvidence, by inducing the thriftless to settle under circumstances which must make them burdensome to the thrifty and provident. By this course the aged and otherwise needy and deserving helpless could be easily aided by their neighbors, without, as now, being over-burdensome.

It is very evident that the entire system of cultivation will have to be changed, both in the method of doing it, and more especially the produce raised, to suit and meet the change in the social system and the demands and status of these new possessors and permanent residents of small farms or gardens. Every month in the year but one (December) may be made productive of some vegetable for provision, or family use, whereby the people may be independent in subsistence. It is a settled matter that in this country cotton can only be profitably produced by extensive cultivation and large capital, under favorable circumstances; consequently it is a loss of time and labor for the freedmen to plant cotton with their limited means of land and materials, as the ground to them can be put to a much more useful and profitable purpose.

I am preparing the people in this sub-district to this end, and believe that against the approaching leasing year they will be quite willing and ready to enter into the new system of habitation and occupancy.

During the current year there have been no rations issued in this sub-district, except two hundred (200) bushels of corn from the Southern Relief Association, and five hundred (500) bushels of corn, and one thousand (1000) pounds of bacon, of the Congressional appropriation; assigned through the Commissary of Subsistence Bureau, Charleston.