4.

ATTEMPTS AT INDUSTRIAL

REORGANIZATION 1

A Plan of Industrial Reorganization

Trowbridge, The South, p. 431. Extracts from the constitution of the Monroe County (Alabama) Agricultural Association, 1865. Adopted by other counties of southeast Alabama. [1865] ARTICLE 6th. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to look after the welfare of the freedmen, in their respective beats, to inspect and sanction each and every contract made between freedmen and their employers, and to see that said freedmen are not deceived or overreached in any contract made with the employer. . . And when any contract, as aforesaid, shall be fairly and understandingly made, it shall be the law between the parties thereto, and when any difficulty arises between any freedman and his white employer, relative to the construction or performance of any contract, said committeeman may act as arbitrator between the parties, and his decision. shall be final, unless one or both of the parties desire an appeal.

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Art. 8th. It shall be the duty of all the officers of this Association, to see that the freedman shall receive from his employer his wages or earnings, and in case such employer refuses to pay promptly such wages and earnings, to aid the freedman. by their full power in the collection of the same.

Art. 9th. It shall also be the duty of this Association, and particularly the officers thereof, to see that the freedman shall comply with his contracts with his employer unless he can show some good or reasonable excuse for the non-performance.

Art. 13th. It shall be the duty of the said Association to provide a home for the aged and helpless freedmen of the county, and for such others as are unable to make an honest support, and to see that they are provided with the necessaries of life, to devise ways and means for their permanent relief and support.

1. See also Chapter I.

Art. 15th. It shall be the duty of this Association, and all the officers thereof, to favor, as much as possible, the education and schooling of the colored children in said county, and to aid in devising ways and means, and making arrangements for having said children properly taught and their general morals taken care of.

To Encourage Immigration

Statutes at Large of South Carolina, vol. xiii, p. 380. The Southern provisional governments (1865-1867) made strong efforts to attract white immigrants to the South, but without success.

[December 20, 1866]

I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, now met and sitting in General Assembly, and by the authority of the same, That for the purpose of encouraging, promoting and protecting European immigration to and in this State, the sum of ten thousand dollars be appropriated from the contingent fund, to be expended under the direction of the Government, for the purposes and in the manner hereinafter provided.

II. That the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint a Commissioner of Immigration, who shall open an office in the fire-proof building in Charleston, to perform such duties as may appertain to his office, and shall be paid for his services the salary of fifteen hundred dollars per annum out of the fund aforesaid, in quarterly payments.

III. That it shall be the duty of said Commissioner of Immigration to advertise in all the gazettes of the State for lands for sale; to cause such lands, after having been duly laid off, platted and described, at the expense of the owner or owners of said lands, to be appraised by three disinterested persons, and their titles to be examined by the Attorney General or Solicitors of the State, and endorsed by them, as the case may be; to open a book or books for the registry of the same, together with the price demanded and the conditions of payment. And in case such lands be selected by any immigrant, to superintend the transfer of title and other necessary instruments and proceedings of conveyance.

IV. That the said Commissioner shall periodically publish, advertise and cause to be distributed in the Northern and European ports and states, descriptive lists of such lands as have been registered and offered for sale, together with this Act, and a statement of such advantages as this State offers in soil, climate, productions, social improvements, etc., to the industrious, orderly and frugal European immigrant.

The Effects of Emancipation

Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, part iv, p. 135. Statement of J. D. B. DeBow, editor of DeBow's Review. [1866]

If we can get the same amount of labor from the same persons [negroes], there is no doubt of the result in respect to economy. Whether the same amount of labor can be obtained, it is too soon yet to decide. We must allow one summer to pass first. They are working now very well on the plantations. . . The negro women are not disposed to field work as they formerly were, and I think there will be less work from them in the future than there has been in the past. The men are rather inclined to get their wives in [to] other employment, and I think that will be the constant tendency, just as it is with the whites. Therefore, the real number of agricultural laborers will be reduced. I have no idea the efficiency of those who work will be increased. If we can only keep up their efficiency to the standard before the war, it will be better for the south, without doubt, upon the mere money question, because it is cheaper to hire the negro than to own him. Now a plantation can be worked without any outlay of capital by hiring the negro and hiring the plantation.

Beginning with Free Negro Labor

Leigh, Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation, pp. 13, 24, 53, 55, 113. Miss Frances Butler (Mrs. Leigh) was the daughter of Fanny Kemble Butler. For several years after the war she managed a plantation on the Georgia coast. Extracts from letters. [1866]

THEY received him [my father] very affectionately, and made an agreement with him to work for one half the crop... Owing to our coming so late, only a small crop could be planted,

enough to make seed for another year and clear expenses. Most of the finest plantations were lying idle for want of hands to work them, so many of the negroes had died; 17,000 deaths were recorded by the Freedmen's Bureau alone. Many had been taken to the South-west, and others preferred hanging about the towns, making a few dollars now and then, to working regularly on the plantations; so most people found it impossible to get any labourers. .

The negroes seem perfectly happy at getting back to the old place and having us there, and I have been deeply touched by many instances of devotion on their part. . .

The prospect of getting in the crop did not grow more promising as time went on. The negroes talked a great deal about their desire and intention to work for us, but their idea of work, unaided by the stern law of necessity, is very vague, some of them working only half a day and some even less. I don't think one does a really honest full day's work, and so of course not half the necessary amount is done and I am afraid never will be again. . . They are affectionate and often trustworthy and honest, but so hopelessly lazy as to be almost worthless as labourers.

My father was quite encouraged at first, the people seemed so willing to work and said so much about their intention of doing so; but not many days after they started he came in quite disheartened, saying that half the hands had left the fields at one o'clock and the rest by three o'clock, and this just at our busiest time. Half a day's work will keep them from starving, but won't raise a crop. Our contract with them is for half the crop; that is, one half to be divided among them, according to each man's rate of work, we letting them have in the meantime necessary food, clothing, and money. . . If we paid them wages, the first five dollars they made would have seemed like so large a sum to them, that they would have imagined their fortunes made and refused to work any more.

. They told us, when they missed working two or three days a week, that they were losers by it as well as ourselves, half the crop being theirs... They were quite convinced

that if six days' work would raise a whole crop, three days' work would raise half a one, with which they as partners were sat isfied, and so it seemed as if we should have to be too...

The people seem to me working fairly well, but Major D-, used only to Northern labour, is in despair, and says they don't do more than half a day's work, and that he has often to go from house to house to drive them out to work, and then has to sit under a tree in the field to see they don't run away.

A Mr. G from New York has bought Canon's Point, and is going to the greatest expense to stock it with mules and farming implements of all sorts, insisting upon it that we Southerners don't know how to manage our own places or negroes, and he will show us. . .

[The history of Canon's Point is as follows. Mr. Ghaving started by putting the negroes on regular wages expecting them to do regular work in return, and not being at all prepared to go through the lengthy conversations and explanations which they required, utterly failed in his attempt either to manage the negroes or to get any work out of them. Some ran off, some turned sulky, and some stayed and did about half the work. So that at the end of two years he gave the place up in perfect disgust, a little to our amusement, as he had been so sure, like many another Northern man, that all the negroes wanted was regular work and regular wages, overlooking entirely the character of the people he was dealing with, who required a different treatment every day almost; sometimes coaxing, sometimes scolding, sometimes punishing, sometimes indulging, and always, unlimited patience. After Mr. G failed in his management of the negroes he gave the place up, leaving an agent there merely to keep possession of the property. This man in turn moved off, leaving about fifty negro families in undisputed possession, who two years later were driven off by a new tenant who undertook to charge them high rent for their land; and it is now finally in the hands of a Western farmer and his son, who told my husband last winter that they were delighted with the place and climate,