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Recollections of Reconstruction
Not Free Yet
From http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/sharecrop/ps_adams.html
Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865, former slave Henry Adams testified before the U.S. Senate fifteen years later about the early days of his freedom, describing white planters' unfair labor practices and the violent, intimidating atmosphere in which ex-slaves felt compelled to work for their former masters.
The white men read a paper to all of us colored people telling us that we were free and could go where we pleased and work for who we pleased. The man I belonged to told me it was best to stay with him. He said, "The bad white men was mad with the Negroes because they were free and they would kill you all for fun." He said, stay where we are living and we could get protection from our old masters.
I told him I thought that every man, when he was free, could have his rights and protect themselves. He said, "The colored people could never protect themselves among the white people. So you had all better stay with the white people who raised you and make contracts with them to work by the year for one-fifth of all you make. And next year you can get one-third, and the next you maybe work for one-half you make. We have contracts for you all to sign, to work for one-twentieth you make from now until the crop is ended, and then next year you all can make another crop and get more of it."
I told him I would not sign anything. I said, "I might sign to be killed. I believe the white people is trying to fool us." But he said again, "Sign this contract so I can take it to the Yankees and have it recorded." All our colored people signed it but myself and a boy named Samuel Jefferson. All who lived on the place was about sixty, young and old.
On the day after all had signed the contracts, we went to cutting oats. I asked the boss, "Could we get any of the oats?" He said, "No; the oats were made before you were free." After that he told us to get timber to build a sugar-mill to make molasses. We did so. On the 13th day of July 1865 we started to pull fodder. I asked the boss would he make a bargain to give us half of all the fodder we would pull. He said we may pull two or three stacks and then we could have all the other. I told him we wanted half, so if we only pulled two or three stacks we would get half of that. He said, "All right." We got that and part of the corn we made. We made five bales of cotton but we did not get a pound of that. We made two or three hundred gallons of molasses and only got what we could eat. We made about eight-hundred bushel of potatoes; we got a few to eat. We split rails three or four weeks and got not a cent for that.
In September I asked the boss to let me go to Shreveport . He said, "All right, when will you come back?" I told him "next week." He said, "You had better carry a pass." I said, "I will see whether I am free by going without a pass."
I met four white men about six miles south of Keachie, De Soto Parish. One of them asked me who I belonged to. I told him no one. So him and two others struck me with a stick and told me they were going to kill me and every other Negro who told them that they did not belong to anyone. One of them who knew me told the others, "Let Henry alone for he is a hard-working nigger and a good nigger." They left me and I then went on to Shreveport . I seen over twelve colored men and women, beat, shot and hung between there and Shreveport
Sunday I went back home. The boss was not at home. I asked the madame, "where was the boss?" She says, "Now, the boss; now, the boss! You should say 'master' and 'mistress' -- and shall or leave. We will not have no nigger here on our place who cannot say 'mistress' and 'master.' You all are not free yet and will not be until Congress sits, and you shall call every white lady 'missus' and every white man 'master.'"
During the same week the madame takin' a stick and beat one of the young colored girls, who was about fifteen years of age and who is my sister, and split her back. The boss came next day and take this same girl (my sister) and whipped her nearly to death, but in the contracts he was to hit no one any more. After the whipping a large number of young colored people taken a notion to leave. On the 18th of September I and eleven men and boys left that place and started for Shreveport . I had my horse along. My brother was riding him, and all of our things was packed on him. Out come about forty armed men (white) and shot at us and takin' my horse. Said they were going to kill ever' nigger they found leaving their masters; and taking all of our clothes and bed-clothing and money. I had to work away to get a white man to get my horse.
Then I got a wagon and went to peddling, and had to get a pass, according to the laws of the parishes, to do so. In October I was searched for pistols and robbed of $250 by a large crowd of white men and the law would do nothing about it. The same crowd of white men broke up five churches (colored). When any of us would leave the white people, they would take everything we had, all the money that we made on their places. They killed many hundreds of my race when they were running away to get freedom.
After they told us we were free -- even then they would not let us live as man and wife together. And when we would run away to be free, the white people would not let us come on their places to see our mothers, wives, sisters, or fathers. We was made to leave or go back and live as slaves. To my own knowledge there was over two thousand colored people killed trying to get away after the white people told us we were free in 1865. This was between Shreveport and Logansport .
Excerpt from Senate Report 693, 46th Congress, 2nd Session (1880). Reprinted in Dorothy Sterling, editor, The Trouble They Seen: The Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans. New York : Da Capo Press, 1994.
From http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?wpa:1:./temp/~ammem_LFYP
Mrs. Emma Falconer
Mrs. Emma Falconer was born in 1850 in Mississippi . She was interviewed in the 1930s about her life.
"I was fifteen years old when the war between the states ended and still living with my grandmother in Missippi. It would be impossible for me to give you an exact picture of conditions at this time. The civil laws of the south were not in operation and the military government that had charge of affairs was not enough to meet the demands made upon it. The negroes had been set free and were supported by the office of the "freedmens buerau". Many left the plantation on which they were born and went from to place like lost sheep expecting to be provided for. Most of them believed that freedom meant idleness and to live as they had seen the wealthier class of whites live.
"Many went to the cities expecting the freedmens bureau to feed and clothe them and this body could not care for all. Therefore, stealing and incendiarism took place. The white people could hardly the slaves were free and the old faithful slaves were still dependent on their former masters for their support. We all know how the unprincipled politicians came down and took charge and deprived the whites who fought in the rebel army from voting and the vote and many offices were given to the former slaves or their off-springs. It was the time of the "carpet bagger rule and scalawags" as they were called.
"There is no doubt but that the indignities that were heaped on the south led to acts of retaliation. When there were political conventions it was these unprincipled politicians that ruled the day, for this reason there were prejudice aroused against the Republican party that to this day has not been entirely overcome by the honesty of later officers of that party.
"There was the union League, a secret political society that had its branches in most of the southern states, some under different names. They told the slaves their old masters were making arrangements to re-enslave them and this aroused more trouble and caused some of the many unlawful acts of the reconstruction period, it was believed. It was by means of these societies the negroes were made to believe they were to be given forty acres and a mule. These societies were offset by the Ku-Klux Klan which was intended to restore order, as well as a protection to the communities which were suffering from these troubles. However the spirit of it was often violated by parties doing unjust things in the name of the Klan.
"When the southern men who were capable leaders gained control of affairs, after several years and much needless expense which the states had been subject to by these politicians who were making their office's an excuse for their own private gains, the troubles began to gradually die down. When the northern opinion had become disgusted with the dishonesty that had been practiced in the name of the Republican party there came a welcome end to this humiliating and bitter rule. While both factions were busy trying to solve this problem it solved itself with the help of their former masters. When the negroes saw that they had to go to work to live they let the white man arrange for them to work the land for a part of the crops and their supplies. After all, it was the southern planters who solved the negro problem as it is solved today."
From http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/civilwar/recon/yarboro.html
Judge JH Yaraborough Recalls the End of the Civil War
James Henry Yarborough was a Probate Judge in Chester County , South Carolina , when we was interviewed by a WPA Federal Writer's Project writer. Much of that interview dealt with his experiences as a young man in the period after the Civil War.
"I was a tousled-head boy when the Yankees reached Jenkinsville and our old home, after crossing at Freshley's Ferry on Broad River . The invading army confiscated everything, such as corn, wheat, oats, peas, fodder, hay, and all smokehouse supplies. My recollection is that they came in February, 1865. I was then a freckled-face boy nine years old, and I fought like fury to retain about a pack of corn-on-the-cob that the Yankee's horses had left in a trough unconsumed.
"I remember, too, how grief stricken I was when a Yankee soldier killed my little pet dog. He had a gun with a bayonet fixed on the muzzle. He began teasing me about the corn. The little dog ran between my legs and growled and barked at the soldiers whereupon with an oath the soldier unfeelingly ran the bayonet through the neck of the faithful little dog and killed him.
"When that cruel war was over, it would have been wiser had the whites and ex-slaves been left to their own resources and inventions, to work out their future welfare. There was no lack of affection or loyalty on the part of the Negro, nor was there a lack of love and an enlightened appreciation of self-interest upon the part of the whites. Things might have been different if suffrage had been granted gradually. But with immediate equal suffrage, or the right to vote, came the carpetbagger with his preachments of social equality and the tantalizing bag of tricks to get for every Negro 40 acres of land and a mule. The Negroes were credulous and believed all the absurdities the knaves told them. The result was an inevitable curse for the Negro and lots of trouble for the white people. It ended only when Hampton was elected in 1876. Hampton is still my hero and a man of greatest worth in the annals of South Carolina ."
From http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/civilwar/freedmen/startrev.html
Report of the Board of Education for Freedmen
The following excerpt was taken from an article that appeared in the "Anglo-African" magazine in 1864. In the article, Dr. Thomas P. Knox, who was hired as a doctor to treat freed slaves in South Carolina , recounts his firing and brief confinement in jail on orders of General Saxton, the commander of South Carolina . In this excerpt, he explains the reasons for his firing. (He also explains the terrible conditions he discovers in the course of his job.)
And now, why have I received this treatment at the hands of Gen. Saxton? As no reasons have been assigned in any of his official orders, the real reasons will be found in the following facts, which I feel bound, though reluctantly, to place before the public under my affidavit.
After receiving my appointment as Contract-Surgeon, as above stated, I was assigned to Coosaw Island for official duty. On entering on the field of my duties, I found the small pox in almost every dwelling. I also found the people, and especially the children, in a most wretched and destitute condition in regard to clothing. Mothers were obliged to let the children go naked or wrap them in coarse bagging, while their squalid clothes were being cleaned of the infection of their disease, for the children had no change of clothing, and many of the mothers were in the same condition.
In view of this condition of things, I inquired why they did not get clothing of Mr. Judd, the agent of the "Freedmen's Relief Association," at Beaufort, as large quantities had been given by the Northern people to be distributed gratuitously among them. They all replied that they had tried to get clothing of the agent, but had been driven away without any, because they had no money to buy. I went to Corn Island , another settlement of the colored people, and found the same state of things, small pox and destitution of clothing. At Eddings Point Plantation, the condition of the people was in no wise different. There I found an aged woman, with nothing but an old bagging skirt, and that in tatters, to cover her. I inquired why she did not apply to the agent of the Northern donors of clothing, at Beaufort for a supply of garments. She said, she had made application, and had been driven from the door, because she had no money with which to buy, and with tears in her eyes, the old woman prayed for her old master to come back and give her some clothes. I went to Ladies' Island , and there found the same condition of things. At St. Helena Island I also found the same destitution. At St. Helena Ville, I met a Mr. Thorpe, the superintendent, in the presence of whom it was remarked by a gentleman, that the people seemed to be very destitute of clothing. To this I replied, that if they had received the clothing sent to them from their friends at the North, they would not be in this wretched condition. Whereupon Mr. Thorpe asserted that he could show me plenty of people who had received these donations from the North. I replied that I would go with him twenty miles to see them. To make his word good, he took me into a cotton house where there were about twenty men and women, who had just been carrying cotton on board the steamer. Mr. Thorpe, addressing one of the company, said, "Here is a man who says there is nobody here who has received second hand clothing;" adding, with emphasis, "you know you have , and I want you to tell him so, for you know Mrs.--gave you clothes the other day, and I gave you a pair of stockings." The old man dropped his head in silence. I saw his embarrassment, and said to him, "Did you do anything for these things?" He replied, "Yes, I worked for them." I said, "Then it was no gift." Mr. T. not seeming inclined to appeal to any other, I spoke to all present, and asked them if there was one of them who received from any of the agents for the distribution of clothing, any garments as a gift. They all replied that they had not. I then said to Mr. Thorpe, "You are condemned by your own witnesses." Whereupon a sharp altercation took place between us, in which I charged him with deceiving and defrauding these poor colored people, who had escaped from bondage only to fall into the hands of God-forsaken Northern sharks. As I went on board the steamer to leave the place, these people, to show their gratitude for my defence of their cause, came to the bank of the river, and cheered me as I departed. On this Mr. Thorpe went away and reported that I was making the people discontented, and creating disturbance among them, tending to insurrection, or something of that kind.
At Beaufort, I met five old slaves, Jennie, Scipio, Killis, Molly and Anna, who had been kidnapped in Africa in their childhood, who told me they could get no clothes from the Freedmen's Association without buying them, and that they could not do. I found Scipio, who is not less than one hundred years old, lying one night on the bare floor, suffering from the cold. I went and obtained a blanket, the fruit of a Christmas Fair gotten up for the benefit of the poor colored people who could get no assistance from the Freedman's Relief Association, and gave it to him, which filled him with gratitude, and brought from him a hearty, "God bless you, massa."
The above Association keep a store in Beaufort for the sale of their goods, and also, from time to time, make sales of their clothing at public auction, some of which auctions I have myself attended. . . . I have been informed by reliable persons that all moneys obtained from these sales of the Association, are paid into the hands of Gen. Saxton, to whom all goods are assigned. . . .
In the commencement of the establishment of schools in Beaufort, both colored and white children met together in the same schools; but recently they have introduced the odious Northern system of caste, by establishing separate schools for the negro children, thus perverting the very object of this mission among the freedmen of the South, which was to elevate the colored people, break down the prejudice against color, and thus produce a homogeneous society, as the basis of freedom and peace.
I will also add a word in respect to the general management of the plantations. These plantations are monopolized by Northern speculators to the almost entire exclusion of the freedmen, who are made the mere serfs of these lords of the soil. On the plantations, the highest price paid to colored laborers, to my knowledge, is thirty cents a day, they subsisting themselves. Many have told me that they have worked all the year, producing from three hundred pounds to five hundred pounds of cotton, and have received only from $5 to $15 for their years toil. They who plant a small patch for themselves, are often denied the use of mules and necessary implements unless they will plant the same amount, gratuitously, for the superintendent; and in some cases they have been driven off the plantations because they would not work on the agent's terms. I have met with hundreds of these poor laborers, and all say they have never received the amount of wages secured to them by act of Congress, * viz: $8 per month for men, and $4 per month for women.
*This pay was promised, however by the Commander of the post.
Colored laborers, on the wharf at Beaufort, get out $8 per month, and not fully paid at that, while white men, doing the same work, get from $30 to $50 per month. Capt. Isaac Simmons, Black Isaac, as he is called, is a pilot, and the best in those waters, and who has more brains than nine-tenths of the whites, gets only $45 a month, while the white pilot gets from $60 to $75; a wicked and oppressive discrimination against the black man.
Under this unrighteous and oppressive treatment, universal sadness is written on every countenance. Many have told me their present condition under these "Buchramen," as they call them, is worse than under their old masters; proving to them what "Old Massa" told them, that the Yankees were not their friends. Cheating these people is in proportion to their ignorance, and as a consequence universal ill-will prevails among them towards the whole horde of plunderers who have come down there, not for the good of the freedmen, but for their own profit. The cry of these suffering people comes up:
"Pay us for our labor, and treat us as free men and women, giving us an equal chance in the participation of the soil, and we will buy our own lands, keep our own store, and relieve the Freedmen's Association of the benevolent task of drawing on the charities of our real friends in the North, for donations for our benefit, which we never receive as a free gift, as the donors designed."
Thomas P. Knox, M.D.
STATE OF NEW YORK .
City and County of New York , ss.
Be it remembered, that on the sixteenth day of June, A.D. 1864, personally appeared before me Thomas P. Knox, and made solemn affirmation that the foregoing statements, by him subscribed, are true. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my official seal. Charles Nettleton, Notary Public in and for the City, County and State of New York
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