Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field: Southern Adventure in Time of War. / Life with the Union Armies, and Residence on a Louisiana Plantation

by Thomas Wallace Knox

Receiving no compensation for his services, beyond his necessary support, the negro occasionally sought to compensate himself. He was fond of roasted pork, but that article did not appear on the list of plantation rations. Consequently some of the negroes would make clandestine seizure of the fattest pigs when the chance of detection was not too great. It was hard to convince them that the use of one piece of property for the benefit of another piece, belonging to the same person, was a serious offense.

"You see, Mr. K----," said a negro to me, admitting that he had sometimes stolen his master's hogs, "you see, master owns his saddle-horse, and he owns lots of corn. Master would be very mad if I didn't give the horse all the corn he wanted. Now, he owns me, and he owns a great many hogs. I like hog, just as much as the horse likes corn, but when master catches me killing the hogs he is very mad, and he makes the overseer whip me."

Corn, chickens, flour, meal, in fact, every thing edible, became legitimate plunder for the negroes when the rations furnished them were scanty. I believe that in nine cases out of ten the petty thefts which the negroes committed were designed to supply personal wants, rather than for any other purpose. What the negro stole was usually an article of food, and it was nearly always stolen from the plantation where he belonged.

Sometimes there was a specially bad negro--one who had been caught in some extraordinary dishonesty. One in my employ was reported to have been shot at while stealing from a dwelling-house several years before. Among two hundred negroes, he was the only noted rascal. I did not attribute his dishonesty to his complexion alone. I have known worse men than he, in whose veins there was not a drop of African blood. The police records everywhere show that wickedness of heart "dwells in white and black the same."

With his disadvantages of position, the absence of all moral training, and the dishonesty which was the natural result of the old system of labor, the negro could not be expected to observe all the rules prescribed for his guidance, but which were never explained. Like ignorant and degraded people everywhere, many of the negroes believed that guilt lay mainly in detection. There was little wickedness in stealing a pig or a chicken, if the theft were never discovered, and there was no occasion for allowing twinges of conscience to disturb the digestion.

I do not intend to intimate, by the above, that all were dishonest, even in these small peculations. There were many whose sense of right and wrong was very clear, and whose knowledge of their duties had been derived from the instructions of the white preachers. These negroes "obeyed their masters" in every thing, and considered it a religious obligation to be always faithful. They never avoided their tasks, in the field or elsewhere, and were never discovered doing any wrong. Under the new system of labor at the South, this portion of the negro population will prove of great advantage in teaching their kindred the duties they owe to each other. When all are trained to think and act for themselves, the negroes will, doubtless, prove as correct in morals as the white people around them.

Early in the present year, the authorities at Davies' Bend, below Vicksburg, established a negro court, in which all petty cases were tried. The judge, jury, counsel, and officers were negroes, and no white man was allowed to interfere during the progress of a trial. After the decisions were made, the statement of the case and the action thereon were referred to the superintendent of the Government plantations at that point.

It was a noticeable feature that the punishments which the negroes decreed for each other were of a severe character. Very frequently it was necessary for the authorities to modify the sentences after the colored judge had rendered them. The cases tried by the court related to offenses of a minor character, such as theft, fraud, and various delinquencies of the freed negroes.

The experiment of a negro court is said to have been very successful, though it required careful watching. It was made in consequence of a desire of the authorities to teach the freedmen how to govern themselves. The planters in the vicinity were as bitterly opposed to the movement as to any other effort that lifts the negro above his old position.

At the present time, several parties in Vicksburg have leased three plantations, in as many localities, and are managing them on different plans. On the first they furnish the negroes with food and clothing, and divide the year's income with them. On the second they pay wages at the rate of ten dollars per month, furnishing rations free, and retaining half the money until the end of the year. On the third they pay daily wages of one dollar, having the money ready at nightfall, the negro buying his own rations at a neighboring store.