When the end of this record is reached, undoubtedly the feeling
uppermost in the mind of the reader is one of disappointment. At first
blush one is ready to believe that the members of the little colony,
in proving the free negro capable of raising cotton to good advantage,
had still more completely proved him unfit for freedom. Yet the more
one reflects on the story, the more plainly one sees that the
discouraging state of things described in the later letters was merely
the inevitable result of Emancipation, and would have been the same
had any other race been concerned, whatever its characteristics. The
ferment of Freedom worked slowly in the negroes, but it worked
mightily, and the very sign of its working was, as a matter of course,
unreasonableness, insubordination, untrustworthiness. This result
might have been foreseen, and probably was foreseen. It was not a
pleasant thing to contemplate, nor is it pleasant to read of, but it
proved nothing as to the powers and possibilities of the negro people.
It is not probable that any of the "missionaries," however
discouraged, came to think that the black man was too stupid or too
dishonest to become a self-respecting member of society. Nor does it
appear that W. C. G. was justified in fearing that their efforts were
worse than wasted, inasmuch as the negro might have acquired manhood
more rapidly if left to himself from the start. They had established
two facts, the very foundation-stones of the new order in the South;
that the freedman would work, and that, as an employee, he was less
expensive than the slave. Their reward was not in any one's gratitude,
but in their own knowledge that they had served their unfortunate
fellow-beings as far as, at the moment, was possible. And it must not
be forgotten that some stayed on, putting their energies where there
was no question, even, of waste or of ingratitude. There is no telling
the service done for the Sea Islands by the education that has been
given to it these forty years, or indeed by the mere presence of the
women who have devoted their lives to this service.
Looking at the letters as a whole, perhaps the reader finds that the
chief impression they have made upon him is that of profound respect
for the negro wisdom shown by the writers. Keenly as they felt the
past suffering and the present helplessness of the freedmen, they had
the supreme common-sense to see that these wrongs could not be righted
by any method so simple as that of giving. They saw that what was
needed was, not special favor, but even-handed justice. Education,
indeed, they would give outright; otherwise they would make the negro
as rapidly as possible a part of the economic world, a laborer among
other laborers. All that has happened since has only gone to prove how
right they were.