Report on the Condition of the South Part 16

No. 28.

Mobile, Alabama, _September_ 9, 1865.

Colonel George D. Robinson, 97th United States colored troops, states as follows:

I was sent out to Connecuh, Covington, Coffee, Dale, and Henry counties, to administer the amnesty oath. I was at Covington myself, having officers under my orders stationed in the other four counties. I travelled through Connecuh and Covington; about the other counties I have reports from my officers. A general disposition was found among the planters to set the colored people who had cultivated their crops during the summer adrift as soon as the crops would be secured, and not to permit the negro to remain upon any footing of equality with the white man in that country.

In none of the above-named counties I heard of a justice of the peace or other magistrate discharging the duties of an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, nor did I hear of any of them willing to do so. I deem it necessary that some officers be sent out there to attend to the interests of the freedmen, in order to avoid the trouble and confusion which is almost certain to ensue unless the matter is attended to and regulated.

I returned from Covington yesterday, September 8.

GEO. D. ROBINSON, _Colonel 97th United States Infantry_.

No. 29.

MEMORANDUM OF A CONVERSATION BETWEEN WILLIAM KING, ESQ., OF SAVANNAH, AND CARL SCHURZ.

Savannah, July 31, 1865.

Question by Mr. Schurz. What are the ideas of the people in this State as to the future organization of your labor system?

Answer. It is generally conceded that slavery is dead, but it is believed that the negro will not work unless compelled to. Money is no inducement that will incite him to work. He works for comfort, that is, he wants to gain something and then enjoy it immediately afterwards. He has no idea of the binding force of a contract, and it is questionable whether he ever will have.

Question. So you consider the contract system, as it is now introduced here and there, a failure.

Answer. In a number of cases that I know of it is a failure. The negroes are not doing the work they have contracted for. I know other cases in which they have remained with their former masters, work well, and produce fair crops.

Question. In what manner, then, can, in your opinion, the free-labor system be made to work here?

Answer. The negro must be kept in a state of tutelage, like a minor. For instance, he may be permitted to freely choose the master for whom he wants to work; he may bind himself for a year, and, for all practical purposes, the master must act as his guardian.

Question. You think, then, something more is necessary than a mere contract system by which the negro is only held to fulfil his contract?

Answer. Yes. The negro ought to be held in the position of a ward.

Question. Do you not think the negro ought to be educated, and do you believe the people of this State would tax themselves for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng a general system of education?

Answer. I think it would be well to have the negro educated, but I do not think the people of this State would tax themselves for such a purpose.

The people are too poor and have too many other things to take care of. We have to look for that to the people of the North. The North having freed the negroes, ought to see to it that they be elevated. Besides, the poor whites are not in favor of general education at all. They are themselves very ignorant, and look upon education as something dangerous. For them we must have a system of compulsory education, or we cannot get them to send their children to school. A good many of the Hardsh.e.l.l Baptists among them look upon school-teachers as the emissaries of the devil.

Question. How far do you think the people of this State would be prepared to grant the negro equality before the law? Would they, for instance, give him the right to testify in courts of justice against white men?

Answer. I think not. It is generally believed that the negro has no idea of the sanct.i.ty of an oath.

Question. Do you not think such disabilities would place the negro under such disadvantage in the race of life as to deprive him of a fair chance?

Answer. This is the dilemma, in my opinion: either we admit the negro's testimony in courts of justice, and then our highest interests are placed at the mercy of a cla.s.s of people who cannot be relied on when testifying under oath; or we deny the negro that right, and then he will not be in a position to properly defend his own interests, and will be a downtrodden, miserable creature.

Question. Do you not think vagrancy laws and police regulations might be enacted, equally applicable to whites and blacks, which might obviate most of the difficulties you suggest as arising from the unwillingness of the negro to work?

Answer. Perhaps they might; but the whites would not agree to that. The poor whites hate and are jealous of the negro, and the politicians will try and please the whites so as to get their votes.

Question. Do you think it would be advisable to withdraw our military forces from the State if the civil government be restored at an early date?

Answer. It would not be safe. There are a great many bad characters in the country who would make it for some time unsafe for known Union people, and for northerners who may settle down here, to live in this country without the protection of the military. The mere presence of garrisons will prevent much mischief. The presence of the military is also necessary to maintain the peace between the whites and blacks, and it will be necessary until their relations are settled upon a permanent and satisfactory basis.

This memorandum was read by me to Mr. King and approved by him as a correct reproduction of the views he had expressed.

C. SCHURZ.

No. 30.

_What the planter wants before he embarks his capital and time in the attempt to cultivate another crop.--Suggestions submitted by a committee at a meeting of planters, November 24, 1864_.

_First_.--Above all, he wants an undoubted guarantee that the labor and teams, corn and hay, with which he begins the cultivation of another crop shall be secured to him for at least twelve months. From past experience, we know that, to be reliable, this guarantee must come from the government at Was.h.i.+ngton.

_Second_.--Some mode of compelling laborers to perform ten (10) hours of faithful labor in each twenty-four hours, (Sundays excepted,) and strict obedience of all orders. This may be partially attained by a graduated system of fines, deduction of time or wages, deduction of rations of all kinds in proportion to time lost, rigidly enforced. But in obstinate cases it can only be done by corporal punishments, such as are inflicted in the army and navy of the United States. In light cases of disobedience of orders and non-performance of duty the employer should impose fines, &c.

The corporal punishment should be inflicted by officers appointed by the superintendent of "colored labor," who might, from time to time, visit each plantation in a parish, and ascertain whether the laborer was satisfied with his treatment, and whether he performed his part of the contract, and thus the officer would qualify himself by his own information to correct any abuse that might exist, and award equal justice to each party. The plan of sending off refractory laborers to work on government plantations is worse than useless. A planter always plants as much land as he believes he has labor to cultivate efficiently, neither more nor less. If less, a portion of his laborers are idle a part of their time; if more, his crops must suffer from the want of proper cultivation.

If the laborers do not work faithfully, and their work is not judiciously directed, either from want of skill on the part of him who directs the labor, or from the refusal or failure of the laborers from any cause to do the work as it ought to be done, the crops must suffer. If, then, a portion of labor necessary to cultivate a certain amount of land is abstracted by sending it to work anywhere else, the crop must fail in proportion to the amount of labor abstracted. It must therefore be apparent to all that the amount of prompt, faithful, and well-directed labor, necessary to cultivate a given quant.i.ty of land efficiently, must be available at all times, when the cultivator deems it necessary, or the crops must necessarily, to a greater or less extent, prove a failure.

_Third_.--The rate of wages should be fixed--above which no one should be allowed to go. There should be at least four cla.s.ses of hands, both male and female. If the laborer should be furnished, as this year, 1864, with clothing, shoes, rations, houses, wood, medicine, &c., the planter cannot afford to pay any more wages than this year, and to some hands not so much. Wages should not be paid oftener than once a quarter. As long as a negro has a dime in his pocket he will go every Sat.u.r.day to some store or town. Besides, if the men have money once a month they are constantly corrupting the women, who will not work because they expect to get money of the men. If the laborers are to pay for all their supplies, some think higher wages could be paid; but it would be necessary to require the negro to supply himself with at least two suits of clothes, one pair of shoes, a hat, and four pounds of pork or bacon, one peck of corn meal a week, vegetables at least twice a week, for a first-cla.s.s hand. The laborer should pay for his medicine, medical attendance, nursing, &c.; also, house rent, $5 a month, water included; wood at $2 a cord in the tree, or $4 a cord cut and delivered. Instead of money, each employer should be required to pay once a week in tickets issued and signed by himself or agent, not transferable to any one off the premises of him who issues them, redeemable by the issuer quarterly in current funds, and to be received by him in the purchase of goods, provisions, &c., which he sold at current prices.

_Fourth_.--A law to punish most severely any one who endeavors, by offering higher wages, gifts, perquisites, &c., &c., to induce a negro to leave his employer before the expiration of the term for which he has engaged to labor without the consent of said employer.

_Fifth_.--Wages to be quarterly. One-half to be retained to the end of the year, unless it is found that more than half is required to maintain a man and his family.

_Sixth_.--Lost time to be deducted from wages daily; fines to be charged daily; rations, of all kinds, to be docked in proportion to the time lost during the week, if rations are to be supplied.

_Seventh_.--Fines to be imposed for disobedience of any orders.

_Eighth_.--During sugar-making the laborer should be required to work at night as well as during the day. For night-work he might be allowed double wages for the time he works.

_Ninth_.--The negroes should not be allowed to go from one plantation to another without the written permit of their employer, nor should they be allowed to go to any town or store without written permission.

_Tenth_.--That the laborers should be required to have their meals cooked in a common kitchen by the plantation cooks, as heretofore. At present each family cook for themselves. If there be twenty-five houses on a plantation worked by one hundred hands, there are lighted, three times every day, winter and summer, for the purpose of cooking, twenty-five (25) fires, instead of one or two, which are quite as many as are necessary. To attend these twenty-five fires there must be twenty-five cooks. The extravagance in wood and the loss of time by this mode must be apparent to all. Making the negroes pay for the wood they burn, and for fencing lumber of any kind, would have a tendency to stop this extravagant mode of doing business. They should also be fined heavily or suffer some kind of corporal punishment for burning staves, hoop-poles, s.h.i.+ngles, plank, spokes, &c., which they now constantly do.

_Eleventh_.--None but regularly ordained ministers should be allowed to preach. At present on every plantation there are a number of preachers.

Frequent meetings are held at night, continuing from 7 or 8 p.m. until 1 or 2 o'clock a.m. The day after one of these long meetings many of the laborers are unfit to labor; neither are the morals of the negroes improved by these late meetings, nor the health. The night meetings should break up at 10 p.m., and there should be but one a week on a plantation.

Some of the preachers privately promulgate the most immoral doctrines.

_Twelfth_.--A police guard or patrol should be established under the control of the superintendent of free labor, whose duty it shall be, under their officers, to enforce the rules and regulations that the superintendent of free labor may think best to adopt for the government of the laborers and their families on plantations and in private families.

_Thirteenth_.--The laborers are at present extremely careless of the teams, carts, wagons, gear, tools, and material of all kinds put in their possession, and should therefore be held accountable for the same. Parents should be held liable for things stolen or destroyed by their children not over twelve years of age.

_Fourteenth_.--Foremen should be fined whenever they fail to report any of the laborers under them who disobey orders of any kind. The foreman at the stable should be required especially to report neglect or ill treatment of teams by their drivers, and he should be held liable for all tools and halters, &c., put in the stable.