CHAPTER LXXIV. THE SEA ISLANDS. THE plantation negro of the great cotton and rice-growing States is a far more ignorant and degraded creature than the negro of Virginia and Tennessee. This difference is traceable to a variety of causes. First, the farmers of the slave-breeding States were formerly accustomed to select, from among their servants, the most stupid and vicious class, to be sold in the Southern market. To the same destination went all the more modern importations of raw savages from the coast of Africa. The negro is susceptible to the influences of civilization; and in the border States his intelligence was developed by much intercourse with the white race. His veins also received a generous infusion of the superior blood. The same may be said of house and town servants throughout the South. The slaves of large and isolated plantations, however, enjoyed but limited advantages of this sort; seeing little of civilized society beyond the overseer, whose lessons were not those of grace, and the poor whites around them, scarcely more elevated in the scale of being than themselves. In South Carolina the results of these combined causes are more striking than in any other State. The excess of her black population, and the unmitigated character of slavery within her borders, afford perhaps a sufficient explanation of this fact. In 1860 she had 291,388 white, 402,406 slave, and 9,914 free colored inhabitants. Even these figures do not indicate the overwhelming predominance of black numbers in certain localities. In the poorer districts, as counties are here called, the whites are in a majority; while in certain others there were three and four times as many negroes as white per Herded together in great numbers, and worked like sons. NEGRO SETTLEMENTS. 533 cattle, the habits of these wretched people, their comforts and enjoyments, were little above those of the brute. Under such circumstances it was hardly possible for them to make any moral or intellectual advancement, but often, even to the third generation, they remained as ignorant as when brought from the wilds of Africa. It was owing much no doubt to this excessive black population and its degraded character, that labor appeared to be more disorganized, and the freedmen in a worse condition in South Carolina, than elsewhere. The Sea-Island question, however, had had a very marked and injurious effect upon labor in the State, and should be taken into consideration. The most ignorant of the blacks have certain true and strong instincts, which stand them in the place of actual knowledge. Their faith in Providence has a depth and integrity which shames the halting belief of the more enlightened Christian. Next to that, and strangely blended with it, is the faith in the government which has brought them out of bondage. Along with these goes the simple and strong conviction, that, in order to be altogether free, and to enjoy the fruits of their freedom, they must have homes of their own. The government encouraged them in that belief and hope. Conscious of their own loyalty, and having a clear understanding of the disloyalty of their masters, they expected confidently, long after the war had closed, that the forfeited lands of these masters would be divided among them. It was only after earnest and persistent efforts on the part of the officers of the Bureau, to convince them that this hope was futile, that they finally abandoned it. But by this time it had become known among the freed people of South Carolina and Georgia, that extensive tracts of Land on the coast of these States had been set aside by military authority for their use. There the forty thousand bondmen who followed Sherman out of Georgia, together with other thousands who had preceded them, or come after, were established upon independent farms, in self-governing communities from which all white intruders were excluded. These settle ments were chiefly upon the rich and delightful Sea Islands, which the Rebel owners had abandoned, and which now became the paradise of the freedmen's hopes. "Go there," they said, "and every man can pick out his lot of forty acres, and have it secured to him." With such fancies in his brain, the negro of the interior was not likely to remain contented on the old plantation, after learning that no acre of it was to be given him. He was naturally averse to accepting a white master, when he might be his own master elsewhere. His imaginative soul sang too, in its rude way: "Oh, had we some sweet little isle of our own, And so the emigration to the coast set in. In October, 1865, orders were issued that no more allotments of land should be made to the Freedmen. But this did not avail to stop entirely the tide of emigration; nor did it inspire with contentment those who remained in the interior. "If a freedman has forty acres on the coast," they reasoned, "why should n't we have as much here?" Hence one of the most serious troubles the officers of the Bureau had to contend against. In October, General Howard visited the Sea Islands with the intention of restoring to the pardoned owners the lands on which freedmen had been settled, under General Sherman's order. According to the President's theory, a pardon entitled the person pardoned to the immediate restoration of his property. Hence arose a conflict of authority and endless confusion. Secretary Stanton had approved of Sherman's order, and earnestly advised the freedmen to secure homesteads under the government's protection. General Saxton, Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau, had in every way encouraged them to do the same. So had General Hunter. Chief Justice Chase had given them similar counsel. General Howard found the land-owners urgent in pressing their claims, and the freedmen equally determined in resisting them. CONFLICTING CLAIMS.-THE DIFFICULTY. 535 Impressed by the immense difficulty of the problem, he postponed its immediate solution by a compromise, leaving the main question to be settled by Congress. Congress settled it, after a fashion, in the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill; but that, in consequence of the President's veto, did not become a law. By General Howard's plan, abandoned lands on which there were no freedmen settled under Sherman's order, or only "a few," were to be restored to pardoned owners. Other estates, on which there were more than "a few," were also to be restored, provided arrangements could be made, satisfactory to both the owners and the freedmen. So nothing was settled. The owners claimed the lands, and wished the freedmen to make contracts to work for them. The freedmen claimed the lands, and positively refused to make contracts. The freedmen's crops for the past year had generally proved failures, or nearly so. Their friends argued that this result was owing to causes that could not be controlled, the lack of capital, of seed, of mules and farming implements, and the lateness of the season when most of them commenced work. The owners of the lands contended that the negro, under the best conditions, could not make a crop of cotton. The truth probably lies between these two extremes. The freedmen lacked experience in management, as well as planting capital; and I have no doubt but many of them thought more of a gun and a fishing-rod, sources of a pleasure so new to them, than of hard work in the field, which was anything but a novelty. I regret to add that the freedmen's prospects for the coming year did not appear flattering. The uncertainty of their titles. caused them deep trouble and discouragement, and they did not exhibit much energy in improving lands which might be taken from them at any moment. The feeling, "This is my home and my children's," seemed no longer to inspire them. The majority were at work; but others were sullenly waiting to see what the government would do. This whole question is one of great embarrassment and difficulty, and it is not easy to say how it should be decided The plan proposed by Congress, of securing to the freedmen the possession of the lands for three years, did not seem to me a very wise one. It would take them about three years, under the most favorable circumstances, to overcome the obstacles against which their poverty and inexperience would have to struggle; and the knowledge that, after all, those homes were not to be permanently their own, would tend to discourage industry and promote vagabondism. It would be better to remove them at once, if they are to be removed at all; but then the question presents itself, can a great and magnanimous government afford to break its pledges to these helpless and unfortunate people? On the other hand, to make their titles perpetual, is to give over to uncertain cultivation, by a race supposed to exist only for the convenience of another, the most valuable cotton-lands of those States, for it is here alone that the incomparable long-fibred "Sea-Island" staple is produced, a conclusion deemed inadmissible and monstrous, especially by the Rebel owners of the lands. |