“I don’t know. They’ve no confidence in us; but they imagine the Yankees will do wonders by ’em. The Southern people are really their best friends.” At which stereotyped bit of cant I could not forbear a smile.
The usual terms proposed by the planters were one hundred and fifty dollars, for a full hand, payable at the end of the year; together with doctors’ bills, two hundred pounds of pork, and a peck of meal a week.
The terms most approved by Colonel Thomas were as follows: Fifteen dollars a month, with food, including flour, sugar, and molasses; a little patch of ground for each family, and Saturday afternoon, for the raising of their own vegetables; the freedmen to clothe themselves.
The planters insisted on furnishing all needful supplies, and charging the blacks for them when not stipulated for in the contract. The alleged reason for this was that the negroes, if allowed to buy their own supplies, would spend half their time in running about the country for knick-knacks. But the better class of planters admitted that the system was liable to gross abuse. “I have neighbors,” said one, “who keep stores of plain goods and fancy articles for their people; and, let a nigger work ever so hard, and earn ever so high wages, he is sure to come out in debt at the end of the year.”
Those who had given the free-labor system a fair trial admitted that the negro would work as well as ever before, while in the field,—some said better; but he would not work as many hours.
“How many hours did he formerly work?” I inquired; and received the following statement with regard to what was done on a well-regulated Mississippi plantation.
“Mr. P——’s niggers were in the field at daylight. It was so in the longest days of summer, as at other times of the year. They worked till six o’clock, when their breakfast was carried to them. They had just time enough allowed them to eat their breakfast; then they worked till noon, when their dinner was carried to them. They had an hour for their dinner. At six o’clock their supper was carried to them. Then they worked till dark. There were cisterns in the field, where they got their water. Nobody was allowed to leave the field from the time they entered it in the morning until work was over at night. That was to save time. The women who suckled babies had their babies carried to them. A little nigger-boy used to drive a mule to the field with a cart full of nigger babies; and the women gave the brats their luncheon while they ate their own. So not a minute was lost.”
And this was the plantation of a “liberal” owner, worked by a “considerate and merciful overseer.” It appeared, according to the planters’ own statements, that their slaves used to work at least sixteen hours a day in summer,—probably more, for they had chores to do at home after dark. That they should not choose to keep up such a continual strain on their bodily faculties, now that they were free, did not appear to me very unreasonable,—but that was perhaps because I was prejudiced.
Under the old system, many plantations were left entirely to the management of overseers, the owners living in some pleasant town where they enjoyed the advantages of society for themselves and of schools for their children. The overseer who could produce the most cotton to the hand was in great request, and commanded the highest wages. The natural result was that both lands and negroes were often worked to a ruinous excess. But the occupation of these best overseers was now gone. Not a freedman would hire out to work on plantations where they were known to be employed. Some managed, however, to avoid being thrown out of business by attaching themselves to other plantations, and changing their title. With the negroes a name is imposing. Many would engage cheerfully to work under a “superintendent,” who would not have entered the field under an “overseer.”
But it is easier to change an odious name than an odious character. Said a candid Southern planter to me, “I should get along very well with my niggers, if I could only get my superintendent to treat them decently. Instead of cheering and encouraging them, he bullies and scolds them, and sometimes so far forgets himself as to kick and beat them. Now they are free they won’t stand it. They stood it when they were slaves, because they had to. He can’t get the notion out of his head that they are still somehow slaves. When I see things going right badly, I take him, and give him a good talking to. Then for about three days he’ll use ’em better, and everything goes smooth. But the first I know, there’s more bullying and beating, and there’s more niggers bound to quit.”