That the freedman’s supposed unwillingness to work, and the employer’s poverty occasioned by the war, were not the reasons why he was to be paid less than half the wages he earned when hired out as a slave, I had abundant evidence. One illustration will suffice. Visiting the tobacco factories of Richmond, I found them worked entirely by freedmen under white superintendents. I never saw more rapid labor performed with hands than the doing up of the tobacco in rolls for the presses; nor harder labor with the muscles of the whole body than the working of the presses. The superintendents told me they had difficulty in procuring operatives. I inquired if the freedmen were well paid; and was informed that good workmen earned a dollar and a half a day.
“If the negroes will not engage in the business, why not employ white labor?”
“We tried that years ago, and it wouldn’t answer. White men can’t stand it; they can’t do the work. This press-work is a dead strain; only the strongest niggers are up to it.”
Those putting up the tobacco in rolls,—three ounces in each, though they rarely stopped to place one on the scales,—showed a skill which could have resulted only from years of practice. I learned, from conversing with them, that they were dissatisfied with their pay; and the superintendents admitted that, while the negroes worked as well as ever, labor was much cheaper than formerly. On further investigation I ascertained that a combination between the manufacturers kept the wages down, that each workman had to employ a “stemmer,” who made the tobacco ready for his hands; and that his earnings were thus reduced to less than five dollars a week, out of which he had himself and his family to support.[[8]]
The Bureau labored to break up these combinations, and to secure for the freedmen all the rights of freemen. Colonel Brown, the Assistant-Commissioner for Virginia, divided the State into districts, and assigned a superintendent to each. The districts were subdivided into sub-districts, for which assistant superintendents were appointed. Thus the Bureau’s influence was felt more or less throughout the State. It assisted the freedmen in obtaining employment, regulated contracts, and secured to them fair wages. It had a general superintendence of freedmen’s schools. It used such powers as it possessed to scatter the negroes, whom the exigencies of the war had collected together in great numbers at places where but few could hope for employment. It fed the destitute, the aged, the orphan, the infirm, and such as were unable to find work,—who, in that period of transition, must have perished in masses without such aid. It likewise established courts for the trial of minor cases of litigation or crime in which persons of color were concerned. Each court was originally presided over by an officer of the Bureau; but in order to secure impartial justice to all, there were associated with him two agents, one chosen by the citizens of the sub-district in which it was located, and the other by the freedmen.
There is in every community a certain percentage of its members that look to get a living without honest toil. I am not aware that the negro has any more love for work than another man. Coming into the enjoyment of freedom before they knew what freedom meant, no wonder that many should have regarded life henceforth as a Christmas frolic. The system which had held them in bondage had kept them ignorant. Having always been provided for by their masters, they were as improvident as children. They believed that the government which had been their Liberator would likewise be their Provider: the lands of their Rebel masters were to be given them, and their future was to be licensed and joyous. They had the vices of a degraded and enslaved race. They would lie and steal and shirk their tasks. Their pleasures were of a sensuous character; even their religion was sensuous; the sanctity of the marriage-tie, so long subject to the caprices of the master-race, was lightly esteemed. Under these circumstances the proportion of those who have shown a persistent determination to lead lives of vice and vagrancy, appears to me surprisingly small. Their number still decreases as their enlightenment increases. The efforts of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Northern missionary and educational labors among them, have contributed greatly towards this desirable result. Still more might be done if additional discretionary powers were granted the Assistant-Commissioner. Vagrants, whether white or black, should be treated as vagrants; and I thought it would have been a wholesome measure for the Bureau to make contracts for those freedmen who refused to make contracts for themselves, and were without any visible means of support.
There are in Virginia half a million negroes. Those appear most thriving and happy who are at work for themselves. I have described the freedmen’s farms about Hampton. In other portions of Southeast Virginia, where the Federal influence has been longest felt, they are equally industrious and prosperous. Captain Flagg, the superintendent at Norfolk, whose district comprises seven counties, told me that he was not issuing rations to a hundred persons, besides orphan children. In Northampton and Accomack counties every negro owns his boat, and earns with it three dollars a day at oystering, in the oyster season. There are perhaps eighteen thousand freedmen in those counties, all engaged in oystering, fishing, and the cultivation of lands which they own or hire. In Norfolk, Princess Anne, and other counties adjacent, planters were very generally renting or selling lands to the freedmen, who were rapidly becoming a respectable, solid, tax-paying class of people. Many colored soldiers were coming back and buying small farms with money earned in the service of the government. Captain Flagg, a man of sense and discretion, said to me deliberately, and gave me leave to publish the statement:—
“I believe the negro population of the seven counties of my district will compare favorably, in respect to industry and thrift, with any laboring white population of similar resources at the North.” Adding, “I believe most thoroughly in the ability of these people to get a living even where a white man would starve.”
The freedmen in other parts of the State were not doing as well, being obliged generally to enter into contracts with the land-owners. Many of these, impoverished by the war, could not afford to pay them more than seven or eight dollars a month for their labor; while some were not able to pay even that. Their fences destroyed, buildings burned, farming implements worn out, horses, mules, and other stock consumed by both armies, investments in Confederate bonds worthless, bank-stock gone, without money, or anything to exchange for money, they had often only their bare lands on which to commence life anew; and could not therefore give much encouragement to the freedman, whatever may have been their disposition towards him.
The legislative and local affairs of the State had very generally fallen under the influence, or into the hands, of those who had given aid and sympathy to the Rebellion. Indeed, Governor Pierpoint told me that there were not unquestionably loyal men enough in Virginia to form a government. “In many counties,” said he, “you will not find one.”