_Boston, Oct. 15._ I have had a letter from Charleston written by a
lawyer on behalf of Captain John Fripp and his three daughters! The
writer says but little about his legal rights, but appeals to my
"sense of justice and generosity," to see if some compromise can't be
made. He doesn't say exactly what he wants, but intimates that both
parties could profit by such an arrangement and save the vexations of
a law suit. I don't see exactly what he has got to give, except his
old title, which he probably values a good deal higher than I do. I
wrote him telling him I was hampered in acts of "generosity" by the
fact that the present title was not in me alone, but that about a
dozen other gentlemen were interested, and asked him to make us a
definite proposition. You may see by the papers that General Howard
is sent by the President to see if he can reconcile the claims of the
negroes on Edisto and other islands with those of the former owners
who clamor to be reinstated in their position. I guess General Howard
will have a tough job. I don't envy him.
_Nov. 21._ There is a large number of old planters who are offering
their lands at very low rates, and so many tempting chances are
offered to Northern men. The tide of emigration southward doesn't yet
set very strong, however. I think the great drawback is the feeling
that the South is still intolerant of Yankees. The rabble and the
young men are still clinging to the hope that they are going to have
their own way about managing the nigger, somehow or other, as soon as
they get rid of the United States forces, and they know very well that
Yankees who come among them will not agree with them about the best
way of "making him work," for they won't believe that he will ever
work till he is _made_ to. Now, to tell the truth, I don't believe
myself that the present generation of negroes will work as they were
formerly obliged to, and therefore the race will not produce so much
cotton in this generation as they did five years ago. The change is
too great a one to be made in a day. It will take many years to make
an economical and thrifty man out of a freedman, and about as long to
make a sensible and just employer out of a former slaveholder. It is
not at all likely that the Southern community will tax itself to
educate the negro yet for a good while, and I have my doubts whether
the system of education thus far carried on through the benevolence of
Northern and English communities can be kept up much longer. It is a
laudable and a noble work, but I fear it can't be sustained after the
novelty is over. There seems to be a lethargy creeping over our
community on this subject, which is very hard to shake off. The
feeling is somewhat general that the negro must make the most of his
chances and pick up his a, b, c's as he can. Moreover, there is a mass
of ignorance in the South under _white_ skins, which is likely to give
us more immediate trouble, politically, than the ignorance of the
negro, for that latter is not as yet armed with the suffrage. Of
course there is not much enthusiasm about sending teachers South to
teach the poor whites, so the negro suffers from the magnitude of the
undertaking, from his remoteness from view, and the general
disposition among mankind to let everybody hoe their own weeds so long
as they don't shade one's own garden.
I hear that General Howard went to Edisto with the view of reconciling
the squatter negroes with the claims of the former owners, as
requested by the President, but that the task was rather difficult, as
you may imagine; and though the former owners had promised to "absorb"
the labor, and provide for the negroes' wants, etc., they found the
negroes had ideas which they were not quite prepared for, and, in
short, got so disgusted with the prospect of getting the said negroes
to work for them under the new order of things that they did not seem
so anxious to "absorb" them as before, and as General Howard did not
feel like driving off the negroes to put the old owners in possession,
he left things pretty much as he found them,[188] except that the old
owners, who went there confidently expecting to have all their own
way, went off with a flea in the ear. I have nothing more from the
Charleston lawyer, but Mr. Tomlinson reports that Charleston lawyers
told him they didn't see how to get around our tax-titles, though they
would doubtless carry them into court as soon as they have courts, and
give the lawyers plenty of work.[189]
Dr. Clarence Fripp began to practice medicine on St. Helena, living
with John Major, but afterwards got a contract surgeon's berth from
General Saxton, and is now in the Village, next door to his old house,
now occupied by Miss Towne! He made a professional visit at Coffin's
Point and dined with them!
A picture of Clarence Fripp on his return to St. Helena, and
a glimpse of his situation from his own point of view, are
given in a letter to the New York _Nation_ from Dennett, a
special correspondent (see page 320). Dennett writes that,
among the Northern soldiers and traders in the hotel at
Hilton Head, there was also "a person who had the easily
distinguishable appearance and manners of a South
Carolinian. This gentleman, a person of some fifty odd years
old, dressed tolerably well in a suit of grey clothes, with
a large display of crumpled linen at the collar and cuffs of
his coat, sat before the stove smoking, and talking very
freely about his present poverty and his plans for the
future." After explaining that he had left St. Helena when
Dupont forced an entrance, leaving his plate and furniture
behind, and that his plantation had been sold, Dr. Fripp set
forth the situation in which he now found himself. "Some
Massachusetts man had bought it, and he didn't know when
he'd get it back.... Up in Greenville he soon spent all his
money to support his family, but if he'd had money he
couldn't have saved his property. How was he to come back
inside the Yankee lines and pay the tax? The Commissioners
knew very well it couldn't be done; the sale was a perfectly
unfair thing." In coming back now to Beaufort, he said "he
hoped to be able to pick up a little medical practice; but
if his profession failed him, he supposed his son and
himself could put up a cabin somewhere in the vicinity, and
get fish and oysters enough to live on." He even talked of
circulating a handbill at Greenville asking for money for
his needs, and Dennett adds: "This gentleman, it is
currently reported, has made several visits to the
plantation which he formerly owned, and the negroes living
there have collected for his use nearly a hundred
dollars."[190]