The Freedmen’s Bureau was created March 3, 1865, for the care and supervision of negroes in Federal lines. Branches were rapidly established throughout the South and invested with almost unlimited powers in matters concerning freedmen. An agency’s efficiency depended upon the agent’s personality. If he were discreet and self-respecting, its influence was wholesome; if he were the reverse, it was a curse. If he were inclined to peculate, the agency gave opportunity; if he were cruel—well, negroes who were hung up by the thumbs, or well annointed with molasses and tied out where flies could find them had opinions.
I recall two stories which show how wide a divergence there might be between the operations of two stations. A planter went to the agent in his vicinity and said: “Captain, I don’t know what to do with the darkeys on my place. They will not work, and are committing depredations on myself and neighbours.” The agent went out and addressed the negroes: “Men, what makes you think you can live without work? The Government is not going to support any people in idleness on account of their complexions. I shall not issue food to another of you. I have charged this planter to bring before me any case of stealing. If you stay on this plantation, you are to work for the owner.”
In a week, the planter reported that they still refused to labour or to leave; property was disappearing, wanton damage was being done; but it was impossible to spot thieves and vandals. The agent, a man of war, went up in a hurry, and his language made the air blue! “If I come again,” was his parting salutation, “I’ll bring my cannon, and if you don’t hoe, plow, or do whatever is required, I’ll blow you all to pieces!” They went to work.
A gentleman of Fauquier tells me: “When I got home from prison, July, 1865, I found good feelings existing between whites and their former slaves; everything was going on as before the war except that negroes were free and received wages. After a while there came down a Bureau Agent who declared all contracts null and void and that no negro should work for a white except under contract written and approved by him. This demoralised the negroes and engendered distrust of whites.”
“If a large planter was making contracts,” I heard Mr. Martin, of the Tennessee Legislature, relate, “the agent would intermeddle. I had to make all mine in the presence of one. These agents had to be bribed to do a white man justice. A negro would not readily get into trouble with a gentleman of means and position when he would make short work of shooting a poor white. Yet the former had owned slaves and the latter had not.”
Planters, making contracts, might have to journey from remote points (sometimes a distance of fifty miles over bad roads), wherever a Bureau was located, whites and blacks suffering expense, and loss of time. Both had to fee the agent. A contract binding on the white was not binding on the negro, who was irresponsible. If the Bureau wrought much mischief, it also wrought good, for there were some whites ready to take advantage of the negro’s ignorance in driving hard bargains with him; sorrowfully be it said, if able to tip the agent, they would usually be able to drive the hard bargain.
After examination for the Government into Bureau operations, Generals Fullerton and Steedman reported, May, 1866: “Negroes regard the Bureau as an indication that people of the North look upon the whites here as their natural enemies, which is calculated to excite suspicion and bad feeling. Only the worthless and idle ask interference, the industrious do not apply. The effect produced by a certain class of agents, is bitterness and antagonism between whites and freedmen, a growing prejudice on the part of planters to the Government and expectations on the part of freedmen that can never be realised. Where there has been no such interference or bad advice given, there is a growing feeling of kindness between races and good order and harmony prevail.” They condemned the “arbitrary, unnecessary and offensive interference by the agents with the relations of the Southern planters and their freedmen.”
General Grant had reported (Dec. 18, 1865) to President Johnson, after a Southern tour: “The belief widely spread among freedmen that the lands of former owners will, at least in part, be divided among them, has come through agents of this Bureau. This belief is seriously interfering with the willingness of the freedmen to make contracts.”
Whether agents originated or simply winked at the red, white and blue stick enterprise, I am unable to say. Into a neighborhood would come strangers from the North, seeking private interviews with negroes possessing a little cash or having access to somebody else’s cash; to these would be shown, with pledges of secrecy, packages of red, white and blue sticks, four to each package. “Get up before light on such a date, plant a stick at the four corners of any piece of land not over a mile square, and the land is yours. Be wary, or the rebels will get ahead of you.”
Packages were five dollars each. One gentleman found a set for which he had lent part of the purchase money planted on his land. If a negro had not the whole sum, the seller would “trust” him for the balance till he “should come into possession of the land.”