| “Statement of —— —— C——, of Oglethorpe County, leading planter of that county. | ||
| “Good hands in county will work 8½ acres in cotton—2 bales | $300 00 | |
| 8½ acres in corn—85 bush. | 85 00 | |
| Gross Income, | $385 00 | |
| “Expenses. | ||
| 3 lbs. bacon a week, 60 cts. } | ||
| 1 peck meal, 25 cts. } | ||
| Board of hand for year | $44 20 | |
| Rent of Cabin | 10 00 | |
| Fuel | 25 00 | |
| Wages | 144 00 | |
| Total Expenses, | $223 20 | |
| Nett Income from each hand, | $161 80.” | |
“Here,” said General Tillson, “the profits of the labor are placed as low, and the expenses as high, as Mr. C—— could figure them, after considerable study. From the labor of a hundred freedmen, on his two plantations, he would clear, according to his own account, upwards of sixteen thousand dollars,—sufficient to cover all risks, and all other expenses of the plantation, and leave him a little fortune at the end of the year.”
Mr. C—— had repeated to General Tillson his statement to me, regarding the dishonest contracts made with the freedmen in his county. “The truth is,” said the General, “he wants to hire them himself for about half what they are worth, and he is indignant because others have hired them for less. He can really afford to pay his help twice what I demand, and then make two hundred dollars a year from the labor of each freedman. The other day some leading planters from South-western Georgia made the same complaint with regard to wages. ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘if you can’t pay twelve dollars a month, give your laborers a part of the crops.’ They thought one seventh of the cotton was more than they ought to give, declaring that the negro would get rich on that. ‘If sixty freedmen,’ I said, ‘can get rich on one seventh of a crop, the planter, I am sure, can get rich on six sevenths.’
“The trouble is, these men wish to make everything there is to be made, and leave the freedman nothing. They resort to the meanest schemes to cheat him. They tell the negroes that if they go with the agents of the Bureau to other places, the able-bodied among them will be carried off and sold into Cuba, and the women and children drowned in the Mississippi.[[18]]
“I have not yet sent a thousand negroes out of the State,” continued General Tillson. “But I have sent off enough to alarm the people, and raise the rate of wages. I told the planters on the coast of Georgia, that they must pay the women twelve dollars a month, and the men fifteen, or I would take the colored population out of their counties. That brought them to terms, after all their talk about wanting to get rid of the niggers.
“The freed people in most parts of the State are still so ignorant of their condition, that they are glad to make contracts to work for only their food and clothes. There are many, however, who will live vagrant lives, if permitted. It is necessary to compel such to enter into contracts.” Firmly convinced of this necessity, General Tillson had issued an order directing his agents to make contracts for all freedmen without other means of support, who should neglect to make contracts for themselves after a given time. The Commissioner at Washington disapproved the order, for what reason I cannot divine, unless it was feared that the over-zealous friends of the negro at the North might be alarmed by it. No contracts were made for the vagrant blacks under it; but its effect, in inducing them to make contracts for themselves, was immediate, wholesome, and very gratifying.
The officers of the Bureau were everywhere subject to the temptation of bribes; and I often heard planters remark that they could do anything with the Bureau they pleased, if they had plenty of money. General Tillson said, “I could make a million dollars here very shortly, if I chose to be dishonest. Only to-day I was offered a thousand dollars for one hundred freedmen, by a rich planter.” He had made it a rule of the Bureau to receive no personal fees whatever for any services.
Over three thousand dollars had been paid in fines by the people of Georgia for cruelties to the freedmen during the past three months. “It is considered no murder to kill a negro. The best men in the State admit that no jury would convict a white man for killing a freedman, or fail to hang a negro who had killed a white man in self-defence.”
The General added: “As soon as the troops were withdrawn from Wilkes County, last November, a gang of jay-hawkers went through, shooting and burning the colored people, holding their feet and hands in the fire to make them tell where their money was. It left such a stigma on the county that the more respectable class held a meeting to denounce it. This class is ashamed of such outrages, but it does not prevent them, and it does not take them to heart; and I could name a dozen cases of murder committed on the colored people by young men of these first families.”
General Tillson, by his tact, good sense, business capacity, freedom from prejudice for or against color, and his uniform candor, moderation, and justice, had secured for the Bureau the coöperation of both the State Convention and the Legislature, and was steadily winning the confidence and respect of the planters. The most serious problem that remained to be solved was the Sea-Island question, of which I shall speak hereafter.