PRIVATE LEAGUES AGAINST THE FREEDMEN. 229

but even those who rejoiced that slavery was no more, desired to get rid of him along with it. When he was a chattel, like a horse or dog, he was commonly cherished, and sometimes even loved like a favorite horse or dog, and there was not a particle of prejudice against him on account of color; but the master-race could not forgive him for being free; and that he should assume to be a man, self-owning and self-directing, was mtolerable. I simply state the fact; I do not condemn anybody. That such a feeling should exist is, I know, the most natural thing in the world; and I make all allowances for nabit and education.

It is this feeling which makes some protection on the part of the government necessary to the negro in his new condition. The Freedmen's Bureau stands as a mediator between him and the race from whose absolute control he has been too recently emancipated to expect from it absolute justice. The belief inheres in the minds of the late masters, that they have still a right to appropriate his labor. Although we may acquit them of intentional wrong, it is impossible not to see how far their conduct is from right.

Before the war, it was customary to pay for ordinary ablebodied plantation slaves, hired of their masters, at rates varying from one hundred and ten to one hundred and forty dollars a year for each man, together with food, clothing, and medical attendance. After the war, the farmers in many counties of Virginia entered into combinations, pledging themselves to pay the freed slave only sixty dollars a year, exclusive of clothing and medical attendance, with which he was to furnish himself out of such meagre wages. They also engaged not to hire any freedman who had left a former employer without his consent. These were private leagues instituting measures similar to those which South Carolina and some other States afterwards enacted as laws, and having in view the same end, namely, to hold the negro in the condition of abject dependence from which he was thought to have been emancipated.

That the freedman's supposed unwillingness to work, and the employer's poverty occasioned by the war, were not the

wages he

reasons why he was to be paid less than half the earned when hired out as a One illustration will suffice. of Richmond, I found them under white superintendents. I never saw more rapid labor performed with hands than the doing up of the tobacco in rolls for the presses; nor harder labor with the muscles of the whole body than the working of the presses. The superintendents told me they had difficulty in procuring operatives. I inquired if the freedmen were well paid; and was informed that good workmen earned a dollar and a half a day.

slave, I had abundant evidence. Visiting the tobacco factories worked entirely by freedmen

"If the negroes will not engage in the business, why not employ white labor?"

White

"We tried that years ago, and it would n't answer. men can't stand it; they can't do the work. This presswork is a dead strain; only the strongest niggers are up to it."

Those putting up the tobacco in rolls, three ounces in each, though they rarely stopped to place one on the scales, - showed a skill which could have resulted only from years of practice. I learned, from conversing with them, that they were dissatisfied with their pay; and the superintendents admitted that, while the negroes worked as well as ever, labor was much cheaper than formerly. On further investigation I ascertained that a combination between the manufacturers kept the wages down; that each workman had to employ a "stemmer," who made the tobacco ready for his hands; and that his earnings were thus reduced to less than five dollars a week, out of which he had himself and his family to support.1

1 After my visit to the tobacco factories, the following statement, drawn up for the colored workmen by one of their number, was placed in my hands by a gentleman who vouched for its truthfulness. I print it verbatim:

Richmond September 18, 1865 Dear Sirs We the Tobacco mechanicks of this city and Manchester is worked to great disadvantage In 1858 and 1859 our masters hiered us to the Tobacconist at a prices ranging from $150 to 180. The Tobacconist furnished us lodging food & clothing. They gave us tasks to performe. all we made over this task they payed us for. We worked faithful and they paid us faithful. They Then gave us $2 to 2.50 cts, and we made double the amount we now make. The Tobacconist held a meeting, and resolved not give more than $1.50 cts per hundred, which is about one days work-in a week we may make 600 lbs apece with a stemer. The weeks work then at $1.50 amounts to $9- the stemers wages is from $4 to $4.50

THE WORK OF THE FREEDMENS BUREAU. 231

The Bureau labored to break up these combinations, and to secure for the freedmen all the rights of freemen. Colonel Brown, the Assistant-Commissioner for Virginia, divided the State into districts, and assigned a superintendent to each. The districts were subdivided into sub-districts, for which assistant superintendents were appointed. Thus the Bureau's influence was felt more or less throughout the State. It assisted the freedmen in obtaining employment, regulated contracts, and secured to them fair wages. It had a general superintendence of freedmen's schools. It used such powers as it possessed to scatter the negroes, whom the exigencies of the war had collected together in great numbers at places where but few could hope for employment. It fed the destitute, the aged, the orphan, the infirm, and such as were unable to find work, who, in that period of transition, must have perished in masses without such aid. It likewise established courts for the trial of minor cases of litigation or crime in which persons of color were concerned. Each court was originally presided over by an officer of the Bureau; but in order to secure impartial justice to all, there were associated with him two agents, one chosen by the citizens of the subdistrict in which it was located, and the other by the freed

men.

There is in every community a certain percentage of its members that look to get a living without honest toil. I am not aware that the negro has any more love for work than another man. Coming into the enjoyment of freedom before they knew what freedom meant, no wonder that many should have regarded life henceforth as a Christmas frolic. The system cts which leaves from $5 to 4-50 cts per week about one half what we made when slaves. Now to Rent two small rooms we have to pay from $18 to 20. We see $450 cts or $5 will not more then pay Rent say nothing about food Clothing medicin Doctor Bills. Tax and Co. They say we will starve through lazines that is not so. But it is true we will starve at our present wages. They say we will steal we can say for ourselves we had rather work for our living. give us a Chance. We are Compeled to work for them at low wages and pay high Rents and make $5 per week and sometimes les. And paying $18 or 20 per month Rent. It is impossible to feed ourselves and family- starvation is Cirten unles a change is brought about

Tobacco Factory Mechanicks of Richmond and Manchester.

which had held them in bondage had kept them ignorant Having always been provided for by their masters, they were as improvident as children. They believed that the government which had been their Liberator would likewise be their Provider: the lands of their Rebel masters were to be given them, and their future was to be licensed and joyous. They had the vices of a degraded and enslaved race. They would lie and steal and shirk their tasks. Their pleasures were of a sensuous character; even their religion was sensuous; the sanctity of the marriage-tie, so long subject to the caprices of the master-race, was lightly esteemed. Under these cir cumstances the proportion of those who have shown a persistent determination to lead lives of vice and vagrancy, appears to me surprisingly small. Their number still decreases as their enlightenment increases. The efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau, and Northern missionary and educational labors among them, have contributed greatly towards this desirable result. Still more might be done if additional discretionary powers were granted the Assistant-Commissioner. Vagrants, whether white or black, should be treated as vagrants; and I thought it would have been wholesome

measure for the Bureau to make contracts for those freedmen who refused to make contracts for themselves, and were without any visible means of support.

There are in Virginia half a million negroes. Those appear most thriving and happy who are at work for themselves. I have described the freedmen's farms about Hampton. In other portions of Southeast Virginia, where the Federal influence has been longest felt, they are equally industrious and prosperous. Captain Flagg, the superintendent at Norfolk, whose district comprises seven counties, told me that he was not issuing rations to a hundred persons, besides orphan children. In Northampton and Accomack counties every negro owns his boat, and earns with it three dollars a day at oystering, in the oyster season. There are perhaps eighteen thousand freedmen in those counties, all engaged in oystering, fishing, and the cultivation of lands which they own or hire.

LEGISLATIVE AND LOCAL AFFAIRS.

233

In Norfolk, Princess Anne, and other counties adjacent, planters were very generally renting or selling lands to the freedmen, who were rapidly becoming a respectable, solid, taxpaying class of people. Many colored soldiers were coming back and buying small farms with money earned in the service of the government. Captain Flagg, a man of sense and discretion, said to me deliberately, and gave me leave to publish the statement:

"I believe the negro population of the seven counties of my district will compare favorably, in respect to industry and thrift, with any laboring white population of similar resources at the North." Adding, "I believe most thoroughly in the ability of these people to get a living even where a white man would starve."

The freedmen in other parts of the State were not doing as well, being obliged generally to enter into contracts with the land-owners. Many of these, impoverished by the war, could not afford to pay them more than seven or eight dollars a month for their labor; while some were not able to pay even that. Their fences destroyed, buildings burned, farming implements worn out, horses, mules, and other stock consumed by both armies, investments in Confederate bonds worthless, bank-stock gone, without money, or anything to exchange for money, they had often only their bare lands on which to commence life anew; and could not therefore give much encouragement to the freedman, whatever may have been their disposition towards him.

The legislative and local affairs of the State had very generally fallen under the influence, or into the hands, of those who had given aid and sympathy to the Rebellion. Indeed, Governor Pierpoint told me that there were not unquestionably loyal men enough in Virginia to form a government. "In many counties," said he, "you will not find one."

Yet Virginia sent to the convention of February 13th, 1861, a majority of Union delegates. It was only after the fall of Fort Sumter, and President Lincoln's call for troops, that a vote could be had taking the State out of the Union. Eighty