We passed a field in which there were several women at work. As they had no mule, they did everything by hand, chopping up the turf and weeds with their great awkward hoes, and scraping them, with the surface soil, into little ridges, on which cotton or corn was to be planted. This process of preparing the ground is called “listing”; it answers the purpose of ploughing, and the refuse stuff scraped together, rotting, serves instead of manure.
My companion inquired on what terms they would consent to give up their forty-acre lot. One of them, poising her formidable hoe, replied in accents that carried conviction with them:
“Gov’ment drap we here. Can’t go ’till Gov’ment take we off.”
As we were now proceeding to a more remote part of the island, our colored guard walked proudly on to protect us from danger. “Dey can’t make no raid on you, widout dey makes raid on me fus’!”
He evidently felt himself vastly superior to these low-down plantation niggers. And I noticed that when we stopped to talk with any of them, and my friend recorded their names and numbers, and I also took notes, this shining black fellow in blue likewise produced a piece of card and a pencil, and appeared to be writing down very interesting and amusing memoranda.
A mile or so from head-quarters we found negro men and women working in the fields.
“Is this your farm?” my friend inquired of one of them.
“I calls it mine. General Saxton told me to come and stake out my forty acres, and he’d give me a ticket for it.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for you to contract for good wages, than to work in this way?”
“No, I don’t want to contract. I’ll eat up my corn and peas fus’.”