Cochin, in his admirable work on the 'Results of Emancipation,' asserts
of the negroes: 'This race of men, like all the human species, is
divided into two classes, the diligent and the idle; freedom has nothing
to do with the second, while it draws from the labor of the first a
better yield than servitude.' Has this statement proved true on the Sea
Islands? The prejudiced are ready with their negative answer, and point
to the comparatively small amount of cotton raised during the past year.
By such persons no allowance is made for the peculiarly unfavorable
circumstances under which the experiment of free labor thus far has been
tried, and they are only too happy to charge upon emancipation all the
evils which labor has suffered from the presence of our soldiers and the
continuance of the war. The causes of the smallness of the cotton crop
produced last year, are obvious to the most careless observer. Owing to
the late arrival of the first company of superintendents who were sent
from the North, no preparations were made for planting till more than
two months after the usual time. On many of the plantations the seed
used was of a poor quality, while it was almost impossible to find any
implements of culture or to obtain the necessary mules or horses. As a
consequence of the late planting, the cotton was not sufficiently
advanced to resist the attacks of the caterpillars in September, and for
a month these insects held grand carnival on the yet immature plants,
causing widespread damage to the crop. The low wages offered to the
freedmen by Government were no offset to the attractions of trading with
the army and navy, and all the negroes were ambitious to have some
connection with camp life. As a natural result of this condition of
things, both the industry and interest of the freedmen were drawn away
from the cotton fields. Early in the season, also, when the young crops
required constant attention, all the able-bodied men were drafted into
General Hunter's regiments, and kept in camp till the fall. The
influence of the draft upon those who remained at home, added to the
delay and smallness of the Government payments, made the laborers
discouraged at their prospects, disaffected toward the superintendents,
and careless at their work.
The obstacles in the way of successful agricultural operations, produced
by the military occupation of the islands, are still further evident
from the fact that both provision and cotton crops improved in
proportion to the distance from the camps. Thus, on Port Royal and
Hilton Head Islands, where most of the troops were encamped, very little
cotton was raised, and so small a crop of provisions, that it became
necessary for Government to ration many of the freedmen during a brief
period. On Ladies' and St. Helena Islands, away from the immediate
vicinity of the camps, very fair crops of cotton were raised, and nearly
enough provision for the support of all the laborers. The rations
furnished by Government, and which have given rise to so much unfriendly
comment, were called for, either by the refugees from the mainland and
adjacent islands, many of whom had at first no means of subsistence, or
by the freedmen on those plantations so exposed to the camps and so
harassed by the soldiers, that the crops which they were able to gather
failed to last them through the year. In one district on St. Helena
Island, including three plantations, which was under the care of a
capable and judicious superintendent, of sufficient means to advance his
private funds to the payment of the laborers, the total receipts from
the sale of the cotton and the surplus provisions raised were more than
double all the expenses incurred in wages, clothing, and
superintendence.
Such were the results of the first year's experiment. Early in the
present year several of the plantations passed into the possession of
private individuals, and thus an important change has been effected in
the aspect of the free-labor problem. On the Government plantations,
which are under the care of salaried superintendents as last year, a
uniform system of labor has been adopted, embodying the results of
previous experience. Under this system, the laborers agree as to the
amount of cotton land which they will cultivate, and are then paid
twenty-five cents a day for their work. At the end of the year they are
to receive a bonus of two cents per pound of unginned cotton for
picking. This additional reward at once stimulates them to exertion, and
teaches them that steady and continued labor brings the best return. In
addition to raising the amount of cotton agreed upon, each freedman is
responsible for cultivating corn and potatoes enough for his own
subsistence, and land is allotted for this purpose. The laborers are
also required to produce corn enough for the subsistence of the
plantation mules and horses, for the use of the superintendents, and for
the subsistence of all the old and disabled persons for whom provision
is not otherwise made. As regards payments, the Government theory is
most excellent, inasmuch as it provides for partial payments while the
work is going on, so as to furnish the freedman enough money for his
immediate wants, and then, by the bonus which is paid at the end of the
year, supplies him with an amount greater than his wages, to be laid up
or put out at interest. Unfortunately the practice of the Government has
been most injurious. The delay in the monthly payments during the past
year, sometimes for as long a period as six months, caused the laborers
to become discouraged, discontented, and suspicious. Unlike the soldier,
the freedman is not clothed or fed by Government (except in the case of
those who are utterly destitute), nor can he, like other laborers,
obtain credit to the extent of the wages due him. Under these
circumstances, the delay on the part of the Government in paying the
freedman has been not only unjust to the laborers but disastrous to the
workings of the free-labor system.
On the purchased plantations we find a wholly different state of things,
and, as might be expected, a great variety of systems of labor. Some of
the best managers keep up the Government scale of prices, but pay the
laborers more promptly, and increase their wages by many indirect means,
such as giving them bacon and molasses in proportion to the amount of
cotton land which they cultivate, providing a store for the plantation,
where the freedmen can purchase articles at a much lower rate than
elsewhere, keeping the cabins in good repair, building new ones, and
having always on hand the necessary plantation implements for
facilitating the culture of the cotton. Others pay higher wages, and
also increase the bonus which is paid for picking the cotton. Some
promise the freedmen so much per pound for the cotton which they shall
raise, and see that all their wants are supplied till the crop is
gathered; while still others, from lack of judgment or capital, offer
the negroes a certain portion of the crop--in some cases as high as two
thirds--in return for their labor. On all these plantations the freedmen
are doing better than on those which are still retained by Government.
The average amount of cotton land which has been planted this spring is
from an acre and a half to two acres for each 'full hand.' Under slavery
a full hand took care on an average of three acres, but it must be
remembered that all the able-bodied negroes, excepting only a foreman to
each plantation, have been drafted into the army, or are working in the
Quartermaster's Department.
At the present time all indications point to a successful season. Riding
over many of the plantations, I have seen the negroes at work breaking
up the ground or planting the seed, and everywhere found them laboring
diligently, and even showing a manly emulation in their tasks. Yet it
would be unreasonable to expect too much where so many obstacles beset
the way. As one of the new planters writes: 'For success in an
experiment of free hired labor among ignorant blacks just emancipated,
conditions of peace and quiet are absolutely necessary. However, the
difficulties in our way are purely natural workings, and merely show
that black is more nearly white than is usually allowed.' Perhaps the
greatest of these obstacles is the vicinity of the camps at Beaufort and
Hilton Head, which tempts the freedmen to leave their regular
employments and obtain an easy livelihood by the sale of eggs, chickens,
fish, oysters, &c. Such markets affect the blacks on the plantations
just as the California fever affected the laboring men of the North a
few years ago; and it is a matter of surprise and congratulation that
the presence of the soldiers has not produced a greater demoralization
among the negroes than we find to be the case.
Five of the plantations were bought by the freedmen themselves, who are
now carrying them on as independent cultivators. Everywhere the
freedmen, on hearing that the lands were to be sold, were eager to buy,
and it was found in many cases that they had saved considerable sums of
money from their earnings of the previous year. This almost universal
desire of the negroes to become landowners, is a complete refutation of
the charge that sudden emancipation from forced labor opens the door for
the return of the blacks to barbarism.
The conditions under which the trial of free labor is now carried on in
South Carolina, are unparalleled in history. Those who are familiar with
the results of emancipation in the French and English colonies, will
find few points of comparison between those results and the present
workings of freedom on the Sea Islands. Consider that at no previous
time, and in no other country, has there ever been an immediate and
unconditional abolition of slavery. France, in the frenzy of the
Revolution, declared that slavery was abolished, but was forced to
reestablish it under the Consulate; and, during the half century which
followed before the complete and final emancipation of the slaves in
1848, we find continually acts and measures adopted which gradually
paved the way to this ultimate success. England, too, after the
abolition of the slave trade, made repeated efforts to ameliorate the
condition of the slave population of her colonies, and when, in 1833,
the Act of Emancipation was passed, it was found that, while declaring
all slaves on English soil to be instantly free, it made provisions for
transforming them into apprenticed laborers. In South Carolina,
emancipation, proclaimed by the guns of Admiral Du Pont, was instant,
unlooked for, and without conditions. However ardently it may have been
desired by the slaves themselves, they surely could not have expected
it, at a time when the belief universally prevailed among the planters
that the forts which defended their islands were impregnable.
In the colonies of France and England, there was no civil war, bringing
into the midst of the plantations the demoralizing influences of the
camp, harassing the simple-minded freedmen with constant fear of
reverses, which would consign them to a worse bondage than they had ever
known, and tending, in the absence of all civil law and the restraints
of a well-ordered society, to draw away the laborer from the cultivation
of the soil. In South Carolina, moreover, no masters or overseers were
left, as in the French and English colonies, to direct the negroes in
their labor; and, in consequence, their guidance has been intrusted to a
body of superintendents from the North, most of them young men, and all
without experience, either in the management of the blacks or the
culture of the cotton. This complete separation of the freedmen from
their former masters, by reason of the flight and escape of all the
planters, has been, in many respects, most favorable to their progress
in liberty. Consider for a moment what would have been the result if, at
any time during the past thirty years, it had been possible to effect
the abolishment of slavery in these islands by an act of the General
Government. Who can doubt that such an act, passed against the wills of
the slaveholders, would have produced the most disastrous consequences,
and that such an experiment of free labor as is now going on would have
been utterly impossible? Those, at least, who have had opportunities for
observing the bitter hate engendered toward the negroes, among those
masters whom the proclamation of the 1st of January deprived of their
former 'chattels,' cannot but regard with satisfaction such peaceful
solutions of this fearful problem as that effected at Port Royal, where
the shot and shell of our gunboats, in breaking the chains of the slave,
at the same moment compelled the master to flight.