NOTES ON SOUTH CAROLINA.
At a distance from the Sea Islands, the free-labor system in South
Carolina, was fast settling down upon a satisfactory basis. General
Richardson, commanding the Eastern District of the State,—comprising all
the districts east of the Wateree and Santee, except Georgetown and
Horry, on the coast,—assured me that there was going to be more cotton
raised in those districts this year than ever before.
In the districts west of the Wateree, the soil is not so well adapted to
cotton, and the country abounds in ignorant small planters and poor
whites. A planter of the average class, in York District, said to me:
“The people of this country formerly lived on nigger-raising. That was
the crop we depended on. If we could raise corn and pork enough to feed
the niggers, we did well. Now this great staple is tuk from us.”
The planters here love to dwell upon the advantages they derived from
that crop. One said to me; “Let a young man take three likely gals, set
’em to breedin’ right away, and he mought make a fortune out on ’em,
’fore he was old. But them times is past.”
The winds of freedom had scarcely reached the more remote western
districts. A planter of Union District told me that he was hiring good
men for twenty-five dollars a year. “Heap on ’em, round here, just works
for their victuals and clothes, like they always did. I reckon they’ll
all be back whar they was, in a few years.”
The South Carolina lands and modes of culture are not well adapted to
corn. A rotation of crops is deemed necessary to keep the soil in a
condition to raise it successfully. The decay of cotton seed and waste
cotton is its best fertilizer. During the war, when little cotton was
raised, planters became alarmed at the yearly decrease of the corn crop.
The average yield, throughout the State, the first year, was fifteen
bushels to the acre; the second, twelve bushels; the third, nine
bushels; and the fourth, six bushels.
Before the war, the city of Charleston exported annually one hundred and
twenty-five thousand tierces of rice. This year, it is _importing_ rice
of an inferior quality from the West Indies. This fact indicates the
condition of that culture. Yet in the face of it, rice-planters were
raising the price of their lands from fifty dollars an acre, for which
they could be bought before the war, to one hundred dollars.
As the rice plantations are confined to the tide-water region, where the
fields can be flooded after sowing, their present prospects were more or
less embarrassed by the knotty Sea-Island question. “If our people this
year make one sixth of an average rice-crop,” said Governor Orr, “they
will be fortunate, and they will be doing well. In old times, our annual
crop brought upwards of three and a half million dollars, when rice was
only five cents a pound.”
The railroads of South Carolina were nearly worn out during the war. All
sorts of iron were used to keep them in repair; and the old
rolling-stock was kept running until it was ready to fall to pieces.
Then Sherman came. The South Carolina Road, wealthy before the war, was
relaying its torn-up track and rebuilding its extensive trestle-work and
bridges, as fast as its earnings would permit. The branch to Columbia
was once more in operation; but, on the main road to Augusta, travel was
eked out by a night of terribly rough staging.
The finances of South Carolina were at a low ebb. Governor Orr told me
that there had not been a dollar in the State treasury since his
inauguration. The current expenses of the war were mostly met by
taxation; and the annual interest on the foreign debt of two and a half
millions had been promptly paid, up to July, 1865, by the exportation of
cotton. The State bank was obliged to suspend its operations, but the
faith of the State was pledged for the redemption of the bills. The
other banks had been ruined by loans made to the Confederate government.
Their stock had been considered the safest in the market, and the
property of widows and orphans was largely invested in it. The estates
of the stockholders, liable for double the amount of the bills issued,
were insufficient to redeem them. In January, 1866, two National Banks
had been organized in the State.
The aggregate of debts, old and new, in South Carolina, were estimated
to be worth not more than twenty-five per cent. of their par value.
South Carolina had suffered more than any other State by the Sale of
lands for United States taxes, during the war. I heard of one estate,
worth fifteen thousand dollars, which had been sold for three hundred
dollars. Governor Orr instanced another, the market value of which was
twenty-four thousand dollars, which was bought in by the government for
eighty dollars. Such was the fate of abandoned coast lands held by the
United States forces. Their owners, absent in the interior, were in most
instances ignorant even of the proceedings by which their estates were
sacrificed. In this way, according to the governor, “the entire parish
of St. Helena, and a portion of St. Luke’s, have completely changed
hands, and passed either into the possession of the government, or of
third parties.”
The prevalence of crime in remote districts was alarming. I was assured
by General Sickles that the perpetrators were in most cases outlaws from
other States, to which they dared not return. Union soldiers and negroes
were their favorite victims. They rode in armed bands through the
country, defying the military authorities. The people would not inform
against them for fear of their vengeance. Many robberies and murders of
soldiers and freedmen, however, were unmistakably committed by citizens.
Much ill-feeling had been kept alive by United States treasury agents,
searching the country for Confederate cotton and branded mules and
horses. Many of these agents, as far as I could learn, both in this and
in other States, were mere rogues and fortune-hunters. They would
propose to seize a man’s property in the name of the United States, but
abandon the claim on the payment of heavy bribes, which of course went
into their own pockets. Sometimes, having seized “C. S. A.” cotton, they
would have the marks on the bales changed, get some man to claim it, and
divide with him the profits. Such practices had a pernicious effect,
engendering a contempt for the government, and a murderous ill-will
which too commonly vented itself upon soldiers and negroes.
I found in South Carolina a more virulent animosity existing in the
minds of the common people, against the government and people of the
North, than in any other State I visited. Only in South Carolina was I
treated with gross personal insults on account of my Northern origin.
There is notwithstanding in this State a class of men whom I remember
with admiration for their courteous hospitality and liberal views.
Instead of insulting and repelling Northern men, they invite them, and
seem eager to learn of them the secret of Northern enterprise and
prosperity. Their ideas, although not those of New-England radicals, are
hopeful and progressive. Considering that they have advanced from the
Southern side of the national question, their position is notable and
praiseworthy. This class is small, but it possesses a vital energy of
which great results may be predicted. From it the freedmen have much to
hope and little to fear. It is not so far in advance of the people that
it cannot lead them; nor so far behind the most advanced sentiment of
the times that we may not expect them soon to come up to it.
Foremost among this class is Governor Orr,—almost the only man in South
Carolina who seemed to me prepared to consider dispassionately the
subject of universal suffrage. The color of the negro’s skin, he said,
was no good reason for keeping the ballot out of his hand. “In this
country, suffrage is progressive; and when the colored people are
prepared for it, they will have it.” A large proportion of the freedmen,
he felt sure, would become industrious and respectable citizens. As an
instance of the capacity and fidelity shown by many of their race, he
gave an account of one of his own slaves.
“He is by trade a carpenter, and a first-class workman. He was the son
of his original owner, who emancipated him by his will, and gave him,
with his liberty, a mule, a saddle, a set of tools, and some money. One
of the heirs of the estate was the executor of the will. Finding Henry a
very valuable man, he looked for some legal flaw by which the will could
be broken. There was a law of South Carolina designed to prevent
slave-owners from emancipating old worn-out servants, and thus
converting them into public paupers. It required the master, before
freeing his servant, to make a certain statement, under oath, that the
said servant was capable of self-support. This formality had been
neglected in Henry’s case; and the court decided that he must remain a
slave. When the fact was made known to him, he said to the executor, ‘If
the court has so decided, I suppose I must abide by the decision. It is
unjust, but I submit to it. But I will never serve you. I have lost all
confidence in you, and all respect for you; and the best thing you can
do is to sell me.’ The executor was so impressed by this declaration,
that he told him to go and choose his future master. He came to me, and
entreated me to buy him. I finally consented to do so, and paid his
price,—fifteen hundred dollars.
“He lived as my slave until the close of the war; and all the time his
patience under his great wrong was wonderful. He never complained; and
he served me with the most conscientious fidelity. By overwork, he
earned two hundred dollars a year, which he spent upon his family. I had
bought him a set of tools worth five hundred dollars, and scientific
books worth one hundred, which I gave him when we parted. He has wit and
education enough to understand the books, I assure you. He is now doing
business in Columbia. He might become wealthy, but he is too generous.
He will not spend his earnings foolishly, but he will share whatever he
has with his people. If I was in want, he would give me his last
dollar.”
There were in January fifty freedmen’s schools in operation in South
Carolina, with one hundred and twenty teachers, and ten thousand pupils.
The New-England Freedmen’s Aid, and the National Freedmen’s Association,
had each about fifty teachers in the field. The Boston teachers in
Charleston get forty-five dollars a month, and pay their own expenses.
At other points, where expenses are less, they get thirty-five dollars.
The average yearly cost of each teacher to the associations is six
hundred dollars.
The American Missionary Association, the Pennsylvania Freedmen’s Relief,
and the Friends’ Freedmen’s Association, had also teachers in the field.
The State superintendent of freedmen’s schools spoke in high praise of
the school in the Normal school building, at Charleston. The principal
was a colored man who had been educated at his own expense at the
University of Glasgow. Another teacher was a colored girl, who had
taught a free colored school in Charleston during the war,—paying half
her income to a white woman for sitting and sewing in the school-room,
and appearing as the teacher, when it was visited by the police.
“This woman’s pupils,” said Mr. Tomlinson, “draw maps, and do everything
white girls of twelve and sixteen years do, in ordinary advanced
schools.” General Richardson of the Eastern District, had set a number
of old soldiers, unfit for military duty, to teaching the freedmen.
There was not much active opposition shown to the schools in the State,
nor yet much encouragement. Only here and there an enlightened planter
saw the necessity of education for the negroes, and favored it.