In the white counties there had been little hope or desire for alien immigration. The people and the country were so desperately poor that the stranger would never think of settling there. Many of the whites in moderate circumstances, living near the Black Belt, took advantage of the low price of rich lands, and acquired small farms in the prairies, but there was no influx of white labor to the Black Belt from the white counties.[2050] Nearly every man, woman, and child in the white districts had to go to work to earn a living. Many persons—lawyers, public men, teachers, ministers, physicians, merchants, overseers, managers, and even women—who had never before worked in the fields or at manual occupations, were now forced to do so because of losses of property, or because they could not live by their former occupations.[2051]
While the number of white laborers had increased somewhat, negro labor had decreased. Several thousand negro men had gone with the armies; for various reasons thousands had drifted to the towns, where large numbers died in 1865-1866. The rural negro had a promising outlook, for at any time he could get more work than he could do; the city negro found work scarce even when he wanted it.[2052]
Attempts to organize a New System
Several attempts were made by the negroes in 1865 and 1866 to work farms and plantations on the coöperative system, that is, to club work, but with no success. They were not accustomed to independent labor, their faculty for organization had not been sufficiently developed, and the dishonesty of their leading men sometimes caused failures of the schemes.[2053]
In the summer of 1865 the Monroe County Agricultural Association was formed to regulate labor, and to protect the interests of both employer and laborer. It was the duty of the executive committee to look after the welfare of the freedmen, to see that contracts were carried out and the freedmen protected in them, and, in cases of dispute, to act as arbitrator. The members of the association pledged themselves to see that the freedman received his wages, and to aid him in case his employer refused to pay. They were also to see that the freedman fulfilled his contract, unless there was good reason why he should not. Homes and the necessaries of life were to be provided by the association for the aged and helpless negroes, of whom there were several on every plantation. The planters declared themselves in favor of schools for the negro children, and a committee was appointed to devise a plan for their education. Every planter in Monroe County belonged to the association.[2054] An organization in Conecuh County adopted, word for word, the constitution of the Monroe County association. In Clarke and Wilcox counties similar organizations were formed, and in all counties where negro labor was the main dependence some such plans were devised.[2055] But it is noticeable that in those counties where the planters first undertook to reorganize the labor system, there were no regular agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau and no garrisons.
The average negro quite naturally had little or no sense of the obligation of contracts. He would leave a growing crop at the most critical period, and move into another county, or, working his own crop “on shares,” would leave it in the grass and go to work for some one else in order to get small “change” for tobacco, snuff, and whiskey. After three years of experience of such conduct, a meeting of citizens at Summerfield, Dallas County, decided that laborers ought to be impressed with the necessity of complying with contracts. They agreed that no laborers discharged for failure to keep contracts would be hired again by other employers. They declared it to be the duty of the whites to act in perfect good faith in their relations with freedmen, to respect and uphold their rights, and to promote good feeling.[2056]
Development of the Share System
At first the planters had demanded a system of contracts, thinking that by law they might hold the negro to his agreements. But the Bureau contracts were one-sided, and the planters could not afford to enter into them. General Swayne early reported[2057] a general breakdown of the contract system, though he told the planters that in case of dispute, where no contract was signed, he would exact payment for the negro at the highest rates. The “share” system was discouraged, but where there were no Bureau agents it was developing. And so bad was the wage system, that even in the Bureau districts, share hiring was done. The object of “share” renting was to cause the laborer to take an interest in his crop and to relieve the planter of disputes about loss of time, etc. Some of the negroes also decided that the share system was the proper one. On the plantations near Selma the negroes demanded “shares,” threatening to leave in case of refusal. General Hardee, who was living near, proposed a plan for a verbal contract; wages should be one-fourth of all crops, meat and bread to be furnished to the laborer, and his share of crop to be paid to him in kind, or the net proceeds in cash; the planter to furnish land, teams, wagons, implements, and seed to the laborer, who, in addition, had all the slavery privileges of free wood, water, and pasturage, garden lot and truck patch, teams to use on Sundays and for going to town. The absolute right of management was reserved to the planter, it being understood that this was no copartnership, but that the negro was hired for a share of the crop; consequently he had no right to interfere in the management.[2058]
On another plantation, where a share system similar to Hardee’s was in operation, the planter divided the workers into squads of four men each. To each squad he assigned a hundred acres of cotton and corn, in the proportion of five acres of cotton to three of corn, and forty acres of cotton for the women and children of the four families. The squads were united to hoe and plough and to pick the cotton, because they worked better in gangs. Wage laborers were kept to look after fences and ditches, and to perform odd jobs. A frequent source of trouble was the custom of allowing the negro, as part of his pay, several acres of “outside crop,” to be worked on certain days of the week, as Fridays and Saturdays. The planter was supposed to settle disputes among the negroes, give them advice on every subject except politics and religion, on which they had other advisers, pay their fines and get them out of jail when arrested, and sometimes to thrash the recalcitrant.[2059]
Several kinds of share systems were finally evolved from the industrial chaos. They were much the same in black or white districts, and the usual designations were “on halves,” “third and fourth,” and “standing rent.” The tenant “on halves” received one-half the crop, did all the work, and furnished his own provisions. The planter furnished land, houses to live in, seed, ploughs, hoes, teams, wagons, ginned the cotton, paid for half the fertilizer, and “went security” for the negro for a year’s credit at the supply store in town, or he furnished the supplies himself, and charged them against the negro’s share of the crop. The “third and fourth” plan varied according to locality and time, and depended upon what the tenant furnished. Sometimes the planter furnished everything, while the negro gave only his labor and received one-fourth of the crop; again, the planter furnished all except provisions and labor, and gave the negro one-third of the crop. In such cases “third and fourth” was a lower grade of tenancy than “on halves.” Later it developed to a higher grade: the tenant furnished teams and farming implements, and the planter the rest, in which case the planter received a third of the cotton, and a fourth of the corn raised. “Standing rent” was the highest form of tenancy, and only responsible persons, white or black, could rent under that system. It called for a fixed or “standing” rent for each acre or farm, to be paid in money or in cotton. The unit of value in cotton was a 500-pound bale of middling grade on October 1st. Tenants who had farm stock, farming implements, and supplies or good credit would nearly always cultivate for “standing rent.” The planter exercised a controlling direction over the labor and cultivation of a crop worked “on halves”; he exercised less direction over “third and fourth” tenants, and was supposed to exercise no control over tenants who paid “standing rent.” In all cases the planter furnished a dwelling-house free, wood and water (paid for digging wells), and pasture for the pigs and cows of the tenants. In all cases the renter had a plot of ground of from one to three acres, rent free, for a vegetable garden and “truck patch.” Here could be raised watermelons, sugar-cane, potatoes, sorghum, cabbage, and other vegetables. Every tenant could keep a few pigs and a cow, chickens, turkeys, and guineas, and especially dogs, and could hunt in all the woods around and fish in all the waters. “On halves” was considered the safest form of tenancy for both planter and tenant, for the latter was only an average man, and this method allowed the superior direction of the planter.[2060] Many negroes worked for wages; the less intelligent and the unreliable could find no other way to work; and some of the best of them preferred to work for wages paid at the end of each week or month. Wage laborers worked under the immediate oversight of the farmer or tenant who hired them. They received $8 to $12 a month and were “found,” that is, furnished with rations. In the white counties the negro hired man was often fed in the farmer’s kitchen. The laborer, if hired by the year, had a house, vegetable garden, truck patch, chickens, a pig perhaps, always a dog, and he could hunt and fish anywhere in the vicinity. Sometimes he was “found”; sometimes he “found” himself. When he was “found,” the allowance for a week was three and a half pounds of bacon, a peck of meal, half a gallon of syrup, and a plug of tobacco; his garden and truck patch furnished vegetables. This allowance could be varied and commuted. The system was worked out in the few years immediately following the war, and has lasted almost without change. Where the negroes are found, the larger plantations have not been broken up into small farms, the census statistics to the contrary notwithstanding.[2061] The negro tenant or laborer had too many privileges for his own good and for the good of the planter. The negro should have been paid more money or given a larger proportion of the crop, and fewer privileges. He needed more control and supervision, and the result of giving him a vegetable garden, a truck patch, a pasture, and the right of hunting and fishing, was that the negro took less interest in the crop; the privileges were about all he wanted. Agricultural industry was never brought to a real business basis.[2062]