A DESPAIRING ALABAMIAN.

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CHAPTER LX.

ALABAMA PLANTERS.

THE Alabama River steamers resemble those of the Mississippi, although inferior in size and style. But one meets a very different class of passengers on board of them. The Alabamians are a plain, rough set of men, not so fast as the Mississippi-Valley planters, but more sober, more solid, more loyal. They like their glass of grog, however, and some of them are very sincere in their hatred of the government. I found the most contradictory characters among them, which I cannot better illustrate than by giving some specimens of their conversation.

Here is one of the despairing class. "The country is ruined; not only the Southern country, but the Northern country too. The prosperity of our people passed away with the institution of slavery. I shall never try to make another fortune. I made one, and lost it in a minute. I had a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in niggers. I am now sixty years old. I'll bet a suit of clothes against a dime, there'll be no cotton crop raised this year. If there's a crop grown, the hands that raise it won't pick it. Some few niggers go on, and do well, just as before; but they 're mighty scarce. They never will be as well off again as they have been, and some of 'em see it. A nigger drayman came to me the other day and asked me to buy him. He said, 'I want a master. When I had a master, I had nothing to do but to eat and drink and sleep, besides my work. Now I have to work and think too.' When I said the law would n't allow me to buy him, he looked very much discouraged."

I heard of a few such cases as this drayman's, but they

were far less common than one would have expected. Poor fellow, he did not know that if he was ever to be anything but an animal, a beast of burden, it was necessary for him to begin to think.

Mr. J———————, of Marengo County, also an old man, talked in a different spirit.

"The trouble with the freedmen is, they have not yet learned that living is expensive. They never before had any idea where their clothes came from, except that 'Master gave 'em to me.' In my county, I find them generally better disposed than the whites. I don't know of a case where they have been treated kindly and justly, and have deserted their masters. A few restless ones are exceptions. I noticed one of my boys that I had asked to make a contract for the coming year, packing up his things; and I said to him, Warren, what are you doing?' He replied,' Master, they say if we make contracts now, we'll be branded, and made slaves again.' I had always treated him well. I don't remember that I ever struck him, but he says I did strike him once, and he's a truthful boy. Another old man that I was raised with, said, 'Master, all the contract I want with you is that you shall bury me, or I'll bury you.' He said he would go on and work for me like he always had; and he 'll do it, for he's an honest man."

Mr. J related the case of one of his neighbors who contracted with his freedmen to furnish their supplies and give them one fifth of the crop. He gave them provisions for a year at the start; and deducted a dollar a day for lost time. "He raised the largest crop of corn he ever did; but when he came to harvest it, he owed them nothing, though he had kept his contract. He was honest, but he had managed badly. I give my hands a share of the crop," added Mr. J——. “But I do not give them provisions any faster than they need them, for if I did they would call in their friends, make a great feast, and eat up everything, they are so generous and improvident. I deduct a dollar a day for lost time, but instead of putting it into my own pocket, I give the lazy man's dollar

A GOOD YANKEE-HATER.

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to those who do the lazy man's work. I find that encourages them, and the consequence is, there are few lost days."

This genial old gentleman, whom I found to be well known and highly esteemed throughout the country, justified the North in its course during the war, and expressed confidence in the future of the South under the free-labor system.

Mr. G——————, one of the bitterest Yankee-haters I met, became nevertheless one of my most intimate steamboat acquaintances. I cull the following from many talks I had with him.

"I owned a cotton factory in Dallas County, above Selma. I had two plantations besides, and an interest in a tan-yard. Wilson's Thieves came in, and just stripped me of everything. They burned eight hundred bales of cotton for me. That was because I happened to be running my mill for the Confederate government. I was making Osnaburgs for the government for a dollar a yard, when citizens would have paid me four dollars a yard; and do you imagine I'd have done that except under compulsion? But the Yankee rascals did n't stop to consider that fact. They skipped my neighbors' cotton and burned mine.

"In other respects they treated them as bad as they did me. They robbed our houses of everything they could find and carry away. I should n't have had a thing left, if it had n't been for my niggers. Some of 'em run off my mules and saved 'em. I gave all my gold and silver to an old woman who kept it hid from the raiders. On one of my plantations a colored carpenter and his wife barrelled up three barrels of fine table crockery and buried it. One of the Yankee officers rode up and said to this woman, Where's your husband?' 'There's my husband,' she said, pointing to the mulatto. 'You 're a sight whiter 'n he is,' he said, for she is white as anybody, and he had taken her for the lady of the house. An old negro saved the tannery by pleading with the vandals, and lying to 'em a little bit.

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"Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold would n't cover my losses. I never can feel towards this government 'ike I once did. I got started to leave the country; I swore

I would n't live under a government that had treated me in this way. I made up my mind to go to Brazil. I got as far as Mobile, and changed my mind. Now I've concluded to remain here, like any alien. I'm a foreigner. I scorn to be called a citizen of the United States. I shall take no oath, so help me God! Unless," he added immediately, "it is to enable me to vote. I want to vote to give the suffrage to the negro."

As I expressed my surprise at this extraordinary wish, he went on: "Because I think that will finish the job. I think then we'll have enough of the nigger, North and South, and all will combine to put him out of the country."

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"It seems to me," I said, " you are a little ungrateful after you say your negroes have done for you."

"There are a few faithful ones among them," he replied. "If all were like some of mine I would n't say anything. They 're as intelligent and well behaved as anybody. But I can't stand free niggers, any how!

"I notice," said I, "that every man who curses the black race, and prays for its removal or extermination, makes exceptions in favor of negroes he has raised or owned, until I am beginning to think these exceptions compose a majority of the colored population."

G― made no reply to the remark, but resumed, —

"I want this country filled up with white men. I want the large plantations cut up, and manufactories established. We never had any manufactories for this reason: Southern capitalists all jammed their money into niggers and land. As their capital increased, it was a few more niggers, a little more land. The few factories we had were consequently one-horse concerns, that could n't compete with those at the North. They were patronized by men who wanted to buy on credit. If a man had cash, he went to the North to buy goods; if he was short, he bought here. Consequently, to carry on a business of a hundred thousand dollars, a capital of three hundred thousand dollars was necessary. Two thirds of it was sunk; below the water, like the guards of this boat.

CONFLICTING OPINIONS.

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"Now I want the old system played out. But," continued G, "if the Freedmen's Bureau is withdrawn, things will work back again into their old grooves. The nigger is going to be made a serf, sure as you live. It won't need any law for that. Planters will have an understanding among themselves: You won't hire my niggers, and I won't hire yours;' then what's left for them? They 're attached to the soil, and we're as much their masters as ever. I'll stake my life, this is the way it will work. The country will be no better off than it ever was. To make a farming and manufacturing country, like you have at the North, we must put the nigger out of the way. For this reason, I hope the cotton crop this year will be a failure. And I not only hope, but I know it will. There a'n't labor enough in the country; the planters are going to bid against each other, and make contracts they won't be able to keep, and that's going to put the Old Harry into the freedmen."

I remarked that, as long as the demand for labor exceeded the supply, planters would continue to bid against each other, and that the plan he had suggested, by which the freedman was to be made a serf without the aid of legislation, would thus be defeated.

"Let the Bureau be taken away," he replied, "and planters will come into the arrangement. That is, all honorable ones will; and if a man has n't honor enough to come in, he'll be scared in. If he hires my niggers, or yours, he'll be mobbed."

Mr. H, of Lowndes County, often joined in our conversation. "I don't believe my friend G here believes G― half he says. I am sure the South is going to make this year a million bales, probably much more. One thing planters have got to learn: the old system is gone up, and we must begin new. It won't do to employ the old overseers; they can't learn to treat the freedmen like human beings. I told my overseer the old style would n't do, the niggers would n't stand it, and he promised better fashions; but it was n't two days before he fell from grace, and went to whipping