Of the war he said: “Slavery was really what we were fighting for, although the leaders didn’t talk that to the people. They saw the slave interest was losing power in the Union, and trying to straighten it up, they tipped it over.”
A Louisiana planter, from Lake Providence,—and a very intelligent, well-bred gentleman,—said: “Negroes do best when they have a share of the crop; the idea of working for themselves stimulates them. Planters are afraid to trust them to manage; but it’s a great mistake. I know an old negro who, with three children, made twenty-five bales of cotton this year on abandoned land. Another, with two women and a blind mule, made twenty-seven bales. A gang of fifty made three hundred bales,—all without any advice or assistance from white men. I was always in favor of educating and elevating the black race. The laws were against it, but I taught all my slaves to read the Bible. Each race has its peculiarities: the negro has his, and it remains to be seen what can be done with him. Men talk about his stealing: no doubt he’ll steal: but circumstances have cultivated that habit. Some of my neighbors couldn’t have a pig, but their niggers would steal it. But mine never stole from me, because they had enough without stealing. Giving them the elective franchise just now is absurd; but when they are prepared for it, and they will be some day, I shall advocate it.”
Another Louisianian, agent of the Hope Estate, near Water-Proof, in Tensas Parish, said: “I manage five thousand acres,—fourteen hundred under cultivation. I always fed my niggers well, and rarely found one that would steal. My neighbors’ niggers, half-fed, hard-worked, they’d steal, and I never blamed ’em. Nearly all mine stay with me. They’ve done about two thirds the work this year they used to, for one seventh of the crops. Heap of niggers around me have never received anything; they’re only just beginning to learn that they’re free. Many planters keep stores for niggers, and sell ’em flour, prints, jewelry and trinkets, and charge two or three prices for everything. I think God intended the niggers to be slaves; we have the Bible for that:” always the Bible. “Now since man has deranged God’s plan, I think the best we can do is to keep ’em as near a state of bondage as possible. I don’t believe in educating ’em.”
“Why not?”
“One reason, schooling would enable them to compete with white mechanics.”
“And why not?”
“It would be a disadvantage to the whites,” he replied,—as if that was the only thing to be considered by men with the Bible in their mouths! “In Mississippi, opposite Water-Proof, there’s a minister collecting money to buy plantations in a white man’s name, to be divided in little farms of ten and fifteen acres for the niggers. He couldn’t do that thing in my parish: he’d soon be dangling from some tree. There isn’t a freedman taught in our parish; not a school; it wouldn’t be allowed.”
He admitted that the war was brought on by the Southern leaders, but thought the North “ought to be lenient and give them all their rights.” Adding: “What we want chiefly is to legislate for the freedmen. Another thing: the Confederate debt ought to be assumed by the government. We shall try hard for that. If we can’t get it, if the North continues to treat us as a subjugated people, the thing will have to be tried over again,”—meaning the war. “We must be left to manage the nigger. He can’t be made to work without force.” (He had just said his niggers did two thirds as much work as formerly.) “My theory is, feed ’em well, clothe ’em well, and then, if they won’t work, d—n ’em, whip ’em well!”
I did not neglect the deck-passengers. These were all negroes, except a family of white refugees from Arkansas, who had been burnt out twice during the war, once near Little Rock, and again in Tennessee, near Memphis. With the little remnant of their possessions they were now going to seek their fortunes elsewhere,—ill-clad, starved-looking, sleeping on deck in the rain, coiled around the smoke-pipe, and covered with ragged bedclothes.
The talk of the negroes was always entertaining. Here is a sample, from the lips of a stout old black woman:—