“Nigger work hard all de year,
White man tote de money.”[2082]
If the negro made anything, his fellows were likely to steal it. Somers said, “There can be no doubt that the negroes first steal one another’s share of the crop, and next the planter’s, by way of general redress.”[2083] Crop stealing was usually done at night. Stolen cotton, corn, pork, etc., was carried to the doggeries kept on the outskirts of the plantation by low white men, and there exchanged for bad whiskey, tobacco, and cheap stuff of various kinds. These doggeries were called “deadfalls,” and their proprietors often became rich.[2084] So serious did the theft of crops become, that the legislature passed a “sunset” law, making it a penal offence to purchase farm produce after nightfall. Poultry, hogs, corn, mules, and horses were stolen when left in the open.
Emancipation destroyed the agricultural supremacy of the Black Belt. The uncertain returns from the plantations caused an exodus of planters and their families to the cities, and formerly well-kept plantations were divided into one-and two-house farms for negro tenants, who allowed everything to go to ruin. The negro tenant system was much more ruinous than the worst of the slavery system, and none of the plantations ever again reached their former state of productiveness. Ditches choked up, fences down, large stretches of fertile fields growing up in weeds and bushes, cabins tumbling in and negro quarters deserted, corn choked by grass and weeds, cotton not half as good as under slavery,—these were the reports from travellers in the Black Belt, towards the close of Reconstruction.[2085] Other plantations were leased to managers, who also kept plantation stores whence the negroes were furnished with supplies. The money lenders came into possession of many plantations. By the crop lien and blanket mortgage, the negro became an industrial serf. The “big house” fell into decay. For these and other reasons, the former masters, who were the most useful friends of the negro, left the Black Belt, and the black steadily declined.[2086] The unaided negro has steadily grown worse; but Tuskegee, Normal, Calhoun, and similar bodies are endeavoring to assist the negro of the black counties to become an efficient member of society. In the success of such efforts lies the only hope of the negro, and also of the white of the Black Belt, if the negro is to continue to exclude white immigration.[2087]
CHAPTER XXIII
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS DURING RECONSTRUCTION
Sec. 1. Politics and Political Methods
During the war the administration of the state government gradually fell into the hands of officials elected by people more or less disaffected toward the Confederacy. Provisional Governor Parsons, who had been secretly disloyal to the Confederacy, retained in office many of the old Confederate local officials, and appointed to other offices men who had not strongly supported the Confederacy. In the fall of 1865 and the spring of 1866 elections under the provisional government placed in office a more energetic class of second and third rate men who had had little experience and who were not strong Confederates. Men who had opposed secession and who had done little to support the war were, as a rule, sent to Congress and placed in the higher offices of state. The ablest men were not available, being disfranchised by the President’s plan.
In 1868, with the establishment of the reconstructed government, an entirely new class of officials secured control. Less than 5000 white voters, of more than 100,000 of voting age, supported the Radical programme, and, as more than 3000 officials were to be chosen, the field for choice was limited. The elections having gone by default, the Radicals met with no opposition, except in three counties. In all the other counties the entire Radical ticket was declared elected, even though in several of them no formal elections had been held.