The freedmen on the other plantations of the island represent other qualities of the race. Besides the Home Farm there are five thousand acres divided into farms and homesteads, cultivated by the negroes on their own account, and paying a large rent to the government. On these little farms twenty-five hundred bales of cotton were raised last year, besides large quantities of corn, potatoes, and other produce. Many of the tenants had only their naked hands to begin with: they labored with hoes alone the first year, earning money to buy mules and ploughs the next. The signal success of the colony perhaps indicates the future of free labor in the South, and the eventual division of the large plantations into homesteads to be sold or rented to small farmers. This system suits the freedman better than any other; and under it he is industrious, prosperous, and happy.
There were about three thousand people at the Bend. Some worked a few acres, others took large farms, and hired laborers. Fifty had accumulated five thousand dollars each during the past two years; and one hundred others had accumulated from one to four thousand dollars. Some of these rising capitalists had engaged Northern men to rent plantations for the coming year, and to take them in as partners,—the new black code of Mississippi prohibiting the leasing of lands to the freedmen.
The colony is self-governing, under the supervision of the sub-commissioner. There are three courts, each having its colored judge and sheriff. The offender, before being put on trial, can decide whether he will be tried by a jury, or have his case heard by the judge alone. Pretty severe sentences are sometimes pronounced; and it is found that the negro will take cheerfully twice the punishment from one of his own color that he will from a white court.
Some sound sense often falls from the lips of these black Solomons. Here is a sample. A colored man and his mother are brought up for stealing a bag of corn.
Judge: “Do you choose to be tried by a jury?”
Culprit (not versed in the technicalities of the court): “What’s dat?”
Judge: “Do you want twelve men to come in and help me?”
Culprit, emphatically: “No, sah!”—for he thinks one man will probably be too much for him.
Judge, sternly: “Now listen you! You and your mother are a couple of low-down darkies, trying to get a living without work. You are the cause that respectable colored people are slandered, and called thieving and lazy niggers; when it’s only the likes of you that’s thieving and lazy. Now this is what I’ll do with you. If you and your mother will hire out to-day, and go to work like honest people, I’ll let you off on good behavior. If you won’t, I’ll send you to Captain Norton. That means, you’ll go up with a sentence. And I’ll tell you what your sentence will be: three months’ hard labor on the Home Farm, and the ball and chain in case you attempt to run away. Now which will you do?”
Culprit, eagerly: “I’ll hire out, sah!” And a contract is made for him and his mother on the spot.