The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Negro Farmer, by Carl Kelsey
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Title: The Negro Farmer
Author: Carl Kelsey
Release Date: August 17, 2009 [EBook #29714]
Language: English
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THE NEGRO FARMER
By CARL KELSEY
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA IN
PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF PH. D.
Printed and on sale by
JENNINGS & PYE
CHICAGO
1903
PRICE FIFTY CENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Introduction 5
II. Geographic Location 9
III. Economic Heritage 22
IV. Present Situation 29
Virginia 32
Sea Coast 38
Central District 43
Alluvial Region 52
V. Social Environment 61
VI. The Outlook 67
VII. Agricultural Training 71
Population Maps 80
=OLD-TIME NEGROES.=
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
In the last three hundred years there have been many questions of
general interest before the American people. It is doubtful, however, if
there is another problem, which is as warmly debated to-day as ever and
whose solution is yet so uncertain, as that of the Negro. In the second
decade of the seventeenth century protests were being filed against
black slavery, but the system was continued for nearly 250 years. The
discussion grew more and more bitter, and to participation in it
ignorance, then as now, was no bar. The North had less and less direct
contact with the Negro. The religious hostility to human bondage was
strengthened by the steadily increasing difference in economic
development which resulted in the creation of sectional prejudices and
jealousies. The North held the negro to be greatly wronged, and accounts
of his pitiable condition and of the many individual cases of ill
treatment fanned the flames of wrath. The reports of travelers, however,
had little influence compared with the religious sentiments which felt
outraged by the existence of bond servitude in the land. Through all the
years there was little attempt to scientifically study the character of
the problem or the nature of the subject. A mistaken economic sentiment
in the South and a strong moral sentiment at the North rendered such
studies unnecessary, if not impossible. The South, perceiving the
benefits of slavery, was blind to its fundamental weaknesses, and the
North, unacquainted with Negro character, held to the natural equality
of all men. Thus slavery itself became a barrier to the getting of an
adequate knowledge of the needs of the slave. The feeling grew that if
the shackles of slavery were broken, the Negro would at once be as other
men. The economic differences finally led to the war. It is not to be
forgotten that slavery itself was not the cause of the war, nor was
there any thought on the part of the Union leaders to make the blacks
citizens. That this was done later was a glowing tribute to their
ignorance of the real demands of the situation. The Republican party of
to-day shows no indication of repeating this mistake in the newly
acquired islands. I would not be understood as opposing suffrage of the
blacks, but any thoughtful observer must agree that as a race they were
not prepared for popular government at the time of their liberation. The
folly of the measures adopted none can fail to see who will read the
history of South Carolina or Mississippi during what is called
"Reconstruction."
Immediately after the war, new sources of information regarding the
Negro were afforded the North. The leaders of the carpet-bag regime,
playing political games, circulated glowing reports of the progress of
the ex-slaves. A second class of persons, the teachers, went South, and
back came rose-colored accounts. It might seem that the teacher could
best judge of the capacity of a people. The trouble is that in the
schools they saw the best specimens of the race, at the impressionable
period of their lives, and under abnormal conditions. There is in the
school an atmosphere about the child which stimulates his desire to
advance, but a relapse often comes when ordinary home conditions are
renewed. Moreover, it is well known that the children of all primitive
races are very quick and apt up to a certain period in their lives,
excelling often children of civilized peoples, but that this disappears
when maturity is reached. Hence, the average teacher, not coming in
close contact with the mass of the people under normal surroundings,
gives, although sincerely, a very misleading picture of actual
conditions. A third class of informants were the tourists, and their
ability to get at the heart of the situation is obvious. There remain to
be mentioned the Negro teachers and school entrepreneurs. Naturally
these have presented such facts as they thought would serve to open the
purses of their hearers. Some have been honest, many more
unintentionally dishonest, and others deliberately deceitful. The
relative size of these classes it is unnecessary to attempt to
ascertain. They have talked and sung their way into the hearts of the
hearers as does the pitiful beggar on the street. The donor sees that
evidently something is needed, and gives with little, if any, careful
investigation as to the real needs of the case. The result of it all has
been that the testimony of those who knew far more than was possible for
any outsider, the southern whites, has gone unheeded, not to say that it
has been spurned as hostile and valueless. The blame, of course, is not
always on one side, and as will be shown later, there are many southern
whites who have as little to do with the Negro, and consequently know as
little about him, as the average New Yorker. This situation has been
most unfortunate for all concerned. It should not be forgotten that the
question of the progress of the Negro has far more direct meaning for
the southerner, and that he is far more deeply interested in it than is
his northern brother, the popular impression to the contrary
notwithstanding. It is unnecessary to seek explanations, but it is a
pleasure to recognize that there are many indications that a better day
is coming, and indications now point to a hearty co-operation in
educational efforts. There are many reasons for the change, and perhaps
the greatest of these is summed up in "Industrial Training."
The North is slowly learning that the Negro is not a dark-skinned
Yankee, and that thousands of generations in Africa have produced a
being very different from him whose ancestors lived an equal time in
Europe. In a word, we now see that slavery does not account for all the
differences between the blacks and whites, and that their origins lie
farther back. Our acquaintance with the ancestors of the Negro is
meager. We do not even know how many of the numerous African tribes are
represented in our midst. A good deal of Semitic blood had already been
infused into the more northern tribes. What influence did this have and
how many descendants of these tribes are there in America? Tribal
distinctions have been hopelessly lost in this country, and the blending
has gone on so continuously that perhaps there would be little practical
benefit if the stocks could be determined to-day. It is, however, a
curious commentary on the turn discussions of the question have taken,
that not until 1902 did any one find it advisable to publish a
comprehensive study of the African environment and to trace its
influence on subsequent development. Yet this is one of the fundamental
preliminaries to any real knowledge of the subject.
In close connection with the preceding is the question of the mulatto.
Besides the blending of African stocks there has been a good deal of
intermixture of white blood. We do not even know how many full blooded
Africans there are in America, nor does the last census seek to
ascertain. Mulattoes have almost entirely been the offspring of white
fathers and black mothers, and probably most of the fathers have been
boys and young men. Without attempting a discussion of this subject,
whose results ethnologists cannot yet tell, it is certain that a half
breed is not a full blood, a mulatto is not a Negro, in spite of the
social classification to the contrary. The general belief is that the
mulatto is superior, either for good or bad, to the pure Negro. The
visitor to the South cannot fail to be struck with the fact that with
rare exceptions the colored men in places of responsibility, in
education or in business, are evidently not pure negroes. Even in
slavery times, the mulattoes were preferred for certain positions, such
as overseers, the blacks as field hands. Attention is called to this
merely to show our ignorance of an important point. Some may claim that
it is a matter of no consequence. This I cannot admit. To me it seems of
some significance to know whether mulattoes (and other crosses) form
more than their relative percentage of the graduates of the higher
schools; whether they are succeeding in business better than the blacks;
whether town life is proving particularly attractive to them; whether
they have greater or less moral and physical stamina, than the blacks.
The lack of definite knowledge should at least stop the prevalent
practice of taking the progress of a band of mulattoes and attempting to
estimate that of the Negroes thereby. It may be that some day the
mulatto will entirely supplant the black, but there is no immediate
probability of this. Until we know the facts, our prophecies are but
wild guesses. It should be remembered that a crossing of white and black
may show itself in the yellow negro or the changed head and features,
either, or both, as the case may be. A dark skin is, therefore, no sure
indication of purity and blood.[1]
It is often taken for granted that the Negro has practically equal
opportunities in the various parts of the South, and that a fairly
uniform rate of progress may be expected. This assumption rests on an
ignorance of the geographical location of the mass of blacks. It will be
shown that they are living in several distinct agricultural zones in
which success must be sought according to local possibilities.
Development always depends upon the environment, and we should expect,
therefore, unequal progress for the Negroes. Even the highest fruits of
civilization fail if the bases of life are suddenly changed. The
Congregational Church has not flourished among the Negroes as have some
other denominations, in spite of its great activity in educational work.
The American mode of government is being greatly modified to make it fit
conditions in Porto Rico. The manufacturers of Pennsylvania and the
farmers of Iowa do not agree as to the articles on which duties should
be levied, and it is a question if the two have the same interpretation
of the principle of protection. Different environments produce different
types. So it will be in the case of the Negro. If we are to understand
the conditions on which his progress depends, we must pay some attention
to economic geography. That this will result in a recognition of the
need for shaping plans and methods according to local needs is obvious.
The present thesis does not pretend to be a completed study, much less
an attempt to solve the Negro problem. It is written in the hope of
calling attention to some of the results of this geographic location as
illustrated in the situation of the Negro farmer in various parts of the
South.
The attempt is made to describe the situation of the average man. It is
fully recognized that there are numbers of exceptions among the Negroes
as well as among the white school teachers, referred to above. That
there is much in the present situation, both of encouragement and
discouragement, is patent. Unfortunately, most of us shut our eyes to
one or the other set of facts and are wildly optimistic or pessimistic,
accordingly. That there may be no misunderstanding of my position, let
me say that I agree with the late Dr. J. L. M. Curry in stating that: "I
have very little respect for the intelligence or the patriotism of the
man who doubts the capacity of the negro for improvement or usefulness."
CHAPTER II. GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION.
The great Appalachian system, running parallel to the Atlantic coast,
and ending in northern Alabama, forms the geological axis of the
southern states. Bordering the mountains proper is a broad belt of hills
known as the Piedmont or Metamorphic region, marked by granite and other
crystalline rocks, and having an elevation decreasing from 1,000 to 500
feet. The soil varies according to the underlying rocks, but is thin and
washes badly, if carelessly tilled. The oaks, hickories and other
hardwoods, form the forests. In Virginia this section meets the lower
and flatter country known as Tide-Water Virginia. In the southern part
of this state we come to the Pine Hills, which follow the Piedmont and
stretch, interrupted only by the alluvial lands of the Mississippi, to
central Texas. The Pine Hills seldom touch the Piedmont directly, but
are separated by a narrow belt of Sand Hills, which run from North
Carolina to Alabama, then swing northward around the coal measures and
spread out in Tennessee and Kentucky. This region, in general of poor
soils, marks the falls of the rivers and the head of navigation. How
important this is may easily be seen by noticing the location of the
cities in Georgia, for instance, and remembering that the country was
settled before the day of railroads. In Alabama the Black Prairie is
interposed between the Pine Hills and the Sand Hills, and this prairie
swings northward into Mississippi. The Pine Hills give way to the more
level Pine Flats, which slope with a gradient of a few feet a mile to
the ocean or the gulf, which usually has a narrow alluvial border. Going
west from Alabama we cross the oak and hickory lands of Central
Mississippi, which are separated from the alluvial district by the cane
hills and yellow loam table lands. Beyond the bottom lands of the
Mississippi (and Red river) we come to the oak lands of Missouri,
Arkansas and Texas which stretch to the black prairies of Texas, which,
bordering the red lands of Arkansas, run southwest finally, merging in
the coast prairies near Austin. In the northern part of Arkansas we come
to the foothills of the Ozarks. These different regions are shown by the
dotted lines on the population maps.
The soils of these various regions having never been subjected to a
glacial epoch, are very diverse, and it would be a thankless task to
attempt any detailed classification on the basis of fertility. The soils
of the Atlantic side being largely from the crystalline rocks and
containing therefore much silica, are reputed less fertile than the
gulf soils. The alluvial lands of the Mississippi and other rivers are
beyond question the richest of all. Shaler says: "The delta districts of
the Mississippi and its tributaries and similar alluvial lands which
occupy broad fields near the lower portion of other streams flowing into
the gulf have proved the most enduringly fertile areas of the country."
Next to these probably stand the black prairies. In all states there is
more or less alluvial land along the streams, and this soil is always
the best. It is the first land brought into cultivation when the country
is settled, and remains most constantly in use. Each district has its
own advantages and its own difficulties. In the metamorphic regions, the
trouble comes in the attempt to keep the soil on the hills, while in the
flat lands the problem is to get proper drainage. In the present
situation of the Negro farmer the adaptability of the soil to cotton is
the chief consideration.
The first slaves were landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. The
importation was continued in spite of many protests, and the practice
soon came into favor. Almost without interruption, in spite of various
prohibitions, the slave traffic lasted right up to the very outbreak of
the war, most of the later cargoes being landed along the gulf coast.
Slavery proved profitable at the South; not so at the North, where it
was soon abandoned. It was by no means, however, equally profitable in
all parts of the South, and as time went on this fact became more
noticeable. Thus at the outbreak of the war, Kentucky and Virginia were
largely employed in selling slaves to the large plantations further
south. Few new slaves had been imported into Virginia in the last one
hundred years. The center of slavery thus moved southwest because of
changing economic conditions, not because of any inherent opposition to
the system. This gradual weeding out of the slaves in Virginia may very
possibly account for the general esteem in which Virginia negroes have
been held. To indicate the character of those sold South, Bracket[2]
gives a quotation from a Baltimore paper of 1851 which advertised some
good Negroes to be "exchanged for servants suitable for the South with
bad characters."
To trace the development of the slave-holding districts is not germain
to the present study, interesting as it is in itself. It may be worth
while to trace the progress in one state. In Georgia, in 1800, the
blacks outnumbered the whites in the seacoast counties, excepting
Camden, and were also in the majority in Richmond. In 1830 they also
outnumbered the whites along the Savannah river and were reaching
westward as far as Jones county. In 1850, besides the coast and the
river, they were in a majority in a narrow belt crossing the state from
Lincoln to Harris counties. By 1860 they had swung southward in the
western part of the state and were in possession of most of the
counties south of Troup, while the map of 1900 shows that they have
added to this territory. In other parts of the state they have never
been greatly in evidence. The influence of the rivers is again evident
when we notice that they moved up to the head of navigation, then swung
westward.
As slavery developed, it was accompanied by a great extension of cotton
growing, or, perhaps, it were truer to say that the gradual rise of
cotton planting made possible the increased use of slaves. The center of
the cotton industry had reached the middle of Alabama by 1850, was near
Jackson, Mississippi, in 1860, and has since moved slowly westward. The
most prosperous district of the South in 1860 was probably the alluvial
lands of the Mississippi. This gives us the key to the westward trend of
slavery. Let it be remembered, too, that the system of slavery demands
an abundance of new lands to take the place of those worn out by the
short-sighted cultivation adopted. Thus in the South little attention
was paid to rotation of crops or to fertilizers. As long as the new land
was abundant, it was not considered, and probably was not profitable to
keep up the old. The result was that "the wild and reckless system of
extensive cultivation practiced prior to the war had impoverished the
land of every cotton-producing state east of the Mississippi river." As
cotton became less and less profitable in the east the opening up of the
newer and richer lands in the west put the eastern planter in a more and
more precarious situation. Had cotton fallen to anything like its
present price in the years immediately preceding the war, his lot would
have been far worse.
Another influence should be noted. Slavery tended to drive out of a
community those who opposed the system, and also the poor whites,
non-slave holders. The planters sought to buy out or expel this latter
class, because of the temptation they were under to incite the slaves to
steal corn and cotton and sell it to them at a low price. There was also
trouble in many other ways. There was thus a tendency to separate the
mass of the blacks from the majority of the whites. That this
segregation actually arose a map of the proportionate populations for
Alabama in 1860 shows. It may be claimed that there were other reasons
for this separation, such as climatic conditions, etc. This may be
partially true, but it evidently cannot be the principal reason, for we
find the whites in the majority in many of the lowest and theoretically
most unhealthful regions, as in the pine flats. This is the situation
to-day also.
The influence of the rivers in determining the settlement of the country
has been mentioned. Nowhere was this more the case than in the alluvial
lands of the Mississippi, the so-called "Delta." This country was low
and flat, subject to overflows of the river. The early settlements were
directly on the banks of the navigable streams, because this only was
accessible, and because the land immediately bordering the streams is
higher than the back land. Levees were at once started to control the
rivers, but not until the railroads penetrated the country in 1884 was
there any development of the back land. Even to-day most of this is
still wild.
The war brought numerous changes, but it is only in place here to
consider those affecting the location of the people. The mobility of
labor is one of the great changes. Instead of a fixed labor force we now
have to deal with a body relatively free to go and come. The immediate
result is that a stream of emigration sets in from the border states to
the cities of the North, where there was great opportunity for servants
and all sorts of casual labor. The following table shows the number of
negroes in various northern cities in 1860 and also in 1900:
1860. 1900.
Washington 10,983 86,702
Baltimore 27,898 79,258
Philadelphia 22,185 62,613
New York 16,785 60,666
St. Louis 3,297 35,516
Chicago 955 30,150
Coincident with the movement to the more distant towns came a
development of southern cities. City life has been very attractive to
Negroes here also, as the following table indicates:
1860. 1900.
New Orleans 24,074 77,714
Atlanta 1,939 35,727
Richmond 14,275 32,230
Charleston 17,146 31,522
Savannah 8,417 28,090
Montgomery 4,502 17,229
Birmingham ... 16,575
Other cities show the same gains. As a rule, the negro has been the
common laborer in the cities and in the trades does not seem to hold the
same relative position he had in 1860. In recent years there has been
quite a development of small tradesmen among them.
A comparison of the two tables shows that Washington and Baltimore have
more Negroes than New Orleans; that St. Louis has more than Atlanta and
Richmond, while New York and Philadelphia contain double the number of
Savannah and Charleston. This emigration to the North has had great
effect upon many districts of the South. It seems also to be certain
that the Negroes have not maintained themselves in the northern cities,
and that the population has been kept up by constant immigration. What
this has meant we may see when we find that in 1860 the Negroes were in
the majority in five counties in Maryland, in two in 1900; in 43 in
Virginia in 1860, in 35 in 1900; in North Carolina in 19 in 1860, in 15
in 1900.
The map on page 13 shows the movement of the Negro population in
Virginia between 1890 and 1900. The shaded counties, 60 in number,
have lost in actual population (Negro). The total actual decrease in
these counties was over 27,000. Even in the towns there has been a loss,
for in 1890 the twelve towns of over 2,500 population contained 32,692
Negroes. In 1900 only 29,575. The only section in which there has been a
heavy increase is the seacoast from Norfolk and Newport News to the
north and including Richmond. A city like Roanoke also makes its
presence felt. When we remember that the Negroes in Virginia number over
600,000, and that the total increase in the decade was only 25,000, a
heavy emigration becomes clear.
=VIRGINIA, 1890-1900. MOVEMENT OF NEGRO POPULATION.
Shaded Counties show decrease. White Counties indicate increase. Figures
show extent of change.=
As a common laborer also the negro has borne his part in the development
of the economical resources of the South. He has built the railroads and
levees; has hewn lumber in the forests; has dug phosphate rock on the
coast and coal in the interior. Wherever there has been a development of
labor industry calling for unskilled labor he has found a place. All
these have combined to turn him from the farm, his original American
home. The changing agricultural conditions which have had a similar
influence will be discussed later.
Having thus briefly reviewed the influences which have had part in
determining his general habitat we are ready to examine more closely his
present location. The maps of the Negro population will show this for
the different states. A word regarding these maps. They are drawn on the
same scale, and the shading represents the same things for the different
states. The density map should always be compared with the proportionate
map to get a correct view of the actual situation. If this is not done,
confused ideas will result. On the density maps if a county has a much
heavier shading than surrounding ones, a city is probably the
explanation. The reverse may be true on the proportionate maps where the
lighter shading may indicate the presence of numbers of whites in some
city, as in Montgomery County, Alabama, or Charleston County, South
Carolina.
Beginning with Virginia, we find almost no Negroes in the western
mountain districts, but their numbers increase as we approach the coast
and their center is in the southeast. The heavy district in North
Carolina adjoins that in Virginia, diminishing in the southern part of
the state. Entering South Carolina we discover a much heavier
population, both actually and relatively. Geographical foundations
unfortunately (for our purpose) do not follow county lines. It is very
likely, however, that could we get at the actual location of the people,
we should find that they had their influence. Evidently the Sand 'Hills
have some significance, for the density map shows a lighter negro
population. So does the Pine Flats district, although in this state the
Negroes are in the majority in the region, having been long settled in
the race districts. In no other state do the blacks outnumber the whites
in the Pine Flats. In Georgia the northern part is in possession of the
whites, as are the Pine Flats. The Negroes hold the center and the
coast. In Florida the Negroes are in the Pine Hills. In Alabama they
center in the Pine Hills and Black Prairie. In Mississippi, Arkansas and
Louisiana they are in the alluvial regions, and in Texas they find their
heaviest seat near Houston. Outside of the city counties we do not find
a population of over 30 negroes to the square mile until South Carolina
is reached, and the heaviest settlement is in the black prairie of
Alabama and the alluvial region of Mississippi, and part of Louisiana.
In Tennessee they are found along the river and in the red lands of the
center, while in Kentucky they are chiefly located in the Limestone
district. Summarizing their location, we may say that they start in the
east-central portion of Virginia and follow the line of the Pine Hills
to Alabama, only slightly encroaching upon the Metamorphic district, and
except in South Carolina, on the pine flats. They occupy the black
prairie of Alabama and Mississippi, and the lands of the river states
with a smaller population in the Oak Hills of Texas, the red lands of
Tennessee and some of the limestone district of Kentucky. It is worth
while to examine one state more in detail and Alabama has been selected
as being typical. The Negro proportion in the state in 1860 was 45.4 per
cent, and in 1900 was 45.2 per cent.
An examination of a proportionate map for 1860 would show that the slave
owners found two parts of the state favorable to them. The first is
along the Tennessee river in the North, and the second, the black
prairie of the center. Of these the latter was by far the seat of the
heavier population. It has already been suggested that this was probably
the best land in the slave states, save the alluvial bottoms. Both
districts were accessible by water. The Tombigbee and Alabama rivers
reached all parts of the prairie, the Tennessee forming the natural
outlet of the North. By referring now to the map of 1900, it is evident
that some changes have taken place. The prairie country, the "Black
Belt," is still in the possession of the Negroes, and their percentage
is larger, having increased from 71 to 80. The population per square
mile is also heavier. Dallas, Sumter and Lowndes counties had a Negro
population of 23.6 per square mile in 1860, and 39.2 in 1900. In the
northern district an opposite condition exists. In 1860 the region
embracing the counties of Lauderdale, Limestone, Franklin, Colbert,
Lawrence and Morgan had a colored population forming 44.5 per cent of
the total. In 1900 the Negroes were but 33 per cent of the total. The
district contains some 4,609 square miles, and had in 1860 a Negro
population of 11 to the square mile; in 1900, 13.5. Of this increase of
2.5 per mile, about one-half is found to be in the four towns of the
district whose population is over 2,500 each. The smaller villages would
probably account for most of the balance, so it seems safe to say that
the farming population has scarcely increased in the last forty years.
Meantime the whites in the district have increased from 12 per square
mile to 25.4. The census shows that between 1890 and 1900 six counties
of North Alabama lost in the actual Negro population, and two others
were stationary, while in the black belt the whites decreased in four
counties and were stationary in two. It will be seen that the Negroes
have gained in Jefferson (Birmingham) and Talladega counties. The
opportunities for unskilled labor account largely for this, and
Talladega is also a good cotton county. In Winston and Cullman counties
there are practically no Negroes, the census showing but 28 in the two.
In 1860 they formed 3 per cent of the total in Winston and 6 percent in
Blount, which at that time included Cullman. The explanation of their
disappearance is found in the fact that since the war these counties
have been settled by Germans from about Cincinnati, and the Negroes have
found it convenient to move. Roughly speaking, the poor land of the Sand
Hills separates the white farmers from the colored. From 1890 to 1900
the Negroes lost relatively in the Metamorphic and Sand Hills, were
about stationary in the Prairie, from which they have overflowed and
gained in the Oak Hills, and more heavily in the Pine Hills. This
statement is based on an examination of five or six counties, lying
almost wholly within each of the districts, and which, so far as known,
were not affected by the development of any special industry. The period
is too short to do more than indicate that the separation of the two
races seems to be still going on. A similar separation exists in
Mississippi, where the Negroes hold the Black Prairie and the Delta, the
whites the hill country of the center.
It is evident that there is a segregation of the whites and blacks, and
that there are forces which tend to perpetuate and increase this. It is
interesting to note that whereas in slavery the cabins were grouped in
the "quarters," in close proximity to the "big house" of the master,
they are now scattered about the plantation so that even here there is
less contact. In the cities this separation is evident the blacks occupy
definite districts, while the social separation is complete. It seems
that in all matters outside of business relations the whites have less
and less to do with the blacks. If this division is to continue, we may
well ask what is its significance for the future.
This geographical segregation evidently had causes which were largely
economic. Probably the most potent factor to-day in perpetuating it is
social, i. e., race antagonism. The whites do not like to settle in a
region where they are to compete with the Negro on the farms as ordinary
field hands. Moreover, the Negroes retain their old-time scorn of such
whites and despise them. The result is friction. Mr. A. H. Stone cites a
case in point. He is speaking of a Negro serving a sentence for
attempted rape: "I was anxious to know how, if at all, he accounted for
his crime, but he was reluctant to discuss it. Finally he said to me:
'You don't understand--things over here are so different. I hired to an
old man over there by the year. He had only about forty acres of land,
and he and his old folks did all their own work--cooking, washing and
everything. I was the only outside hand he had. His daughter worked
right alongside of me in the field every day for three or four months.
Finally, one day, when no one else was round, hell got into me, and I
tried to rape her. But you folks over there can't understand--things are
so different. Over here a nigger is a nigger, and a white man is a white
man, and it's the same with the women.' ... Her only crime was a poverty
which compelled her to do work which, in the estimation of the Negro,
was reserved as the natural portion of his own race, and the doing of
which destroyed the relation which otherwise constituted a barrier to
his brutality."[3]
Mr. Stone has touched upon one of the most delicate questions in the
relationship of the races. It would be out of place to discuss it here,
but attention must be called to the fact that there is the least of such
trouble in the districts where the Negro forms the largest percentage of
the population. I would not be so foolish as to say that assaults upon
white women _may_ not take place anywhere, but as a matter of fact they
seem to occur chiefly in those regions where white and black meet as
competitors for ordinary labor. Beaufort County, South Carolina, has a
black population forming about 90 per cent of the total, yet I was told
last summer that but one case of rape had been known in the county, and
that took place on the back edge of the county where there are fewest
Negroes, and was committed by a non-resident black upon a non-resident
white. Certain it is that in this county, which includes many islands,
almost wholly inhabited by blacks, the white women have no fear of such
assaults. This is also the case in the Mississippi Delta. Mr. Stone
says: "Yet here we hear nothing about an ignorant mass of Negroes
dragging the white man down; we hear of no black incubus; we have few
midnight assassinations and fewer lynchings. The violation by a Negro of
the person of a white woman is with us an unknown crime; nowhere is the
line marking the social separation of the races more rigidly drawn,
nowhere are the relations between the races more kindly. With us race
riots are unknown, and we have but one Negro problem--though that
constantly confronts us--how to secure more Negroes." Evidently when we
hear reports of states of siege and rumors of race war, we are not to
understand that this is the normal, typical condition of the entire
South. If this is the real situation, it seems clear that the
geographical segregation plays no mean part in determining the relation
of the two races. It is safe to say that there is a different feeling
between the races in the districts where the white is known only as the
leader and those in which he comes into competition with the black. What
is the significance of this for the future?
The same condition exists in the cities, and of this Professor Dubois
has taken note: "Savannah is an old city where the class of masters
among the whites and of trained and confidential slaves among the
Negroes formed an exceptionally large part of the population. The result
has been unusual good feeling between the races, and the entrance of
Negroes into all walks of industrial life, with little or no
opposition." "Atlanta, on the other hand, is quite opposite in
character. Here the poor whites from North Georgia who neither owned
slaves nor had any acquaintance with Negro character, have come into
contact and severe competition with the blacks. The result has been
intense race feeling."[4] In one of the large towns of the Delta last
summer, a prosperous Negro merchant said to me, in discussing the
comparative opportunities of different sections: "I would not be allowed
to have a store on the main street in such a good location in many
places." Yet, his store is patronized by whites; and this would be true
in many towns in the black belt. Other evidences of the difference in
feeling towards the Negroes is afforded by the epithets of
"hill-billies" and "red-necks" applied to the whites of the hill country
by the lowland planters, and the retaliatory compliments
"yellow-bellies" and "nigger-lovers." Does this geographical segregation
help to explain the strikingly diverse reports coming from various parts
of the South regarding the Negro? Why does Dr. Paul Barringer, of
Virginia, find that race antagonism is rapidly growing, while Mr. Stone
of Mississippi, says that their problem is to get more Negroes?
The influence that this segregation has upon school facilities for both
races should not be overlooked. The separation of the two races in the
schools is to be viewed as the settled policy of the South. Here, then,
is a farming community in which there are only a few Negroes. What sort
of a separate school will be maintained for their children? Probably
they are unable to support a good school, even should they so desire.
The opportunities of their children must necessarily be limited. Will
they make greater progress than children in the districts where the
blacks are in large numbers and command good schools? If the situation
be reversed and there are a few whites in a black community, the whites
will be able to command excellent private schools for their children, if
necessary. At present among the males over 21, the greatest illiteracy
is found in the black counties. This may be accounted for by the
presence of the older generation, which had little chance in the
schools, and by the fact that perhaps those moving away have been the
more progressive. It is a matter of regret that the census does not
permit us to ascertain the illiteracy among the children from 10 to 21
years of age, to see if any difference was manifest. It would seem,
however, that this segregation, coupled with race antagonism, is bound
to affect the educational opportunities for the blacks. A problem which
becomes more serious as the states waken to the needs of the case and
attempt to educate their children.
Yet again, this fact of habitat should lead us to be very chary of
making local facts extend over the entire South and of making deductions
for the entire country based on observations in a few places. Neglect of
this precaution often leads to very erroneous and misleading conceptions
of actual conditions. For instance, on page 419, Vol. VI, Census of
1900, in discussing the fact that Negro receives nearly as much per acre
for his cotton as does the white, it is stated: "Considering the fact
that he emerged from slavery only one-third of a century ago, and
considering also his comparative lack of means for procuring the best
land or for getting the best results from what he has, this near
approach to the standard attained by the white man's experience for more
than a century denotes remarkable progress." This may or may not be
true, but the reason and proof are open to question. It assumes that the
land cultivated by the Negroes is of the same quality as that farmed by
the whites. This certainly is not true of Arkansas, of which it is
stated that "Arkansas shows a greater production per acre by colored
farmers for all three tenures." The three tenures are owners,
cash-tenants, share-tenants. Mississippi agrees with Arkansas in showing
higher production for both classes of tenants. Are we to infer that the
Negroes in Arkansas and Mississippi are better farmers than the whites,
and that, therefore, their progress has infinitely surpassed his? By no
means. The explanation is that in the two states mentioned the Negroes
cultivate the rich bottom land while the white farmers are found in the
hills. The alluvial land easily raises twice the cotton, and that of a
better quality, commanding about a cent a pound more in the market.
There may possibly be similar conditions in other states; certainly in
Alabama the black prairie tilled by the Negroes is esteemed better than
the other land. Since this was first written I have chanced upon the
report of the Geological Survey of Alabama for 1881 and 1882, in which
Mr. E. A. Smith sums up this same problem as follows:
"(1) That where the blacks are in excess of the whites, there are
the originally most fertile lands of the state. The natural
advantages of the soils are, however, more than counterbalanced by
the bad system prevailing in such sections, viz.; large farms
rented out in patches to laborers who are too poor and too much in
debt to merchants to have any interest in keeping up the fertility
of the soil, or rather the ability to keep it up, with the natural
consequence of its rapid exhaustion, and a product per acre on
these, the best lands of the state, lower than that which is
realized from the very poorest.
"(2) Where the two races are in nearly equal proportions, or where
the whites are in only a slight excess over the blacks, as is the
case in all sections where the soils are of average fertility,
there is found the system of small farms, worked generally by the
owners, a consequently better cultivation, a more general use of
commercial fertilizers, a correspondingly high product per acre
and a partial maintenance of the fertility of the soils.
"(3) Where the whites are greatly in excess of the blacks (three to
one and above) the soils are almost certain to be far below the
average in fertility, and the product per acre is low from this
cause, notwithstanding the redeeming influences of a comparatively
rational system of cultivation.
"(4) The exceptions to these general rules are nearly always due to
local causes which are not far to seek and which afford generally a
satisfactory explanation of the discrepancies."
If we are to base our reasoning on the table cited we might argue that
land ownership is a bad thing for Negroes, for tenants of both classes
among them produced more than did the owners. The white cash tenants
also produced more than white owners. In explaining this it is said:
"The fact that cash tenants pay a fixed money rental per acre causes
them to rent only such area as they can cultivate thoroughly, while many
owners who are unable to rent their excess acreage to tenants attempt to
cultivate it themselves, thus decreasing the efficiency of cultivation
for the entire farm." This may be true of the whites, but it is a lame
explanation for the blacks. Negro farmers who own more land than they
can cultivate appear to be better known at Washington than they are
locally. The trouble with the entire argument is that it assumes that
the Negro is an independent cultivator of cotton. This is not quite the
case. In all parts of the South the Negro, tenant or owner, usually
receives advances from white factors, and these spend a good part of
their time riding about to see that the land is cultivated in order to
insure repayment of their loans. If their advice and suggestions are not
followed, or if the crop is not cultivated, the supplies are shut off.
On many plantations even the portion of the land to be put in cotton is
stipulated. The great bulk of the cotton crop is thus raised under the
immediate oversight of the white man. There is little call for any great
skill on the part of the laborer. No wonder the crop of the Negro
approximates that of the white man. It is to be further remembered that
cotton raising has been the chief occupation of the Negro in America.
The Census gives another illustration of the unhappy effects of
attempting to cover very diverse conditions in one statement in the map
Vol. VI, plate 3. From this one would be justified in believing that the
average farm under one management in the alluvial lands of Mississippi
and Louisiana was small. As a matter of fact they are among the largest
in the country. The map gives a very misleading conception and it
results wholly from attempting to combine divergent conditions.
The quotation from Mr. Smith touched upon another result of this
segregation. Where the whites are the farmers the farms are smaller and
better cared for, more fertilizers are used, and better results are
obtained. The big plantation system has caused the deterioration of
naturally fertile soils. Of course, there must come a day of reckoning
wherever careless husbandry prevails.
City conditions are more or less uniform in all sections. The
geographical location of the farmer, however, is a matter of
considerable importance not only as determining in large measure the
crop he must raise, but as limiting the advance he may be able to make
under given conditions. It is estimated that about 85 per cent of the
men (Negroes) and 44 per cent of the women in productive pursuits are
farmers. Their general location has been shown. For convenience we may
divide the territory into five districts: (1) Virginia and Kentucky,
above the limit of profitable cotton culture. (2) The Atlantic Sea
Coast. (3) The Central belt running from Virginia to Central
Mississippi. This includes several different soils, but general
conditions are fairly uniform. (4) The Alluvial Lands, which may be
subdivided into the cotton and cane districts. (5) Texas. These
different districts will be treated separately, except Texas, which is
not included.
In summing up this chapter it may be said that the location of the mass
of the Negro farmers has been indicated, and also the fact that there is
a separation between the whites and the blacks which promises to have
important bearing on future progress, while the various agricultural
districts offer opportunities by no means uniform.
CHAPTER III. ECONOMIC HERITAGE.
=IN PLOWING TIME.=
Previous to the appearance of the European, West Central Africa for
untold hundreds of years had been almost completely separated from the
outside world. The climate is hot, humid, enervating. The Negro tribes
living in the great forests found little need for exertion to obtain the
necessities of savage life. The woods abounded in game, the rivers in
fish. By cutting down a few trees and loosening the ground with
sharpened sticks the plantains, a species of coarse banana, could be
made to yield many hundred fold. The greater part of the little
agricultural work done fell on the women, for it was considered
degrading by the men. Handicrafts were almost unknown among many tribes
and where they existed were of the simplest. Clothing was of little
service. Food preparations were naturally crude. Sanitary restrictions,
seemingly so necessary in hot climates, were unheard of. The dead were
often buried in the floors of the huts. Miss Kingsley says: "All
travelers in West Africa find it necessary very soon to accustom
themselves to most noisome odors of many kinds and to all sorts of
revolting uncleanliness." Morality, as we use the term, did not exist.
Chastity was esteemed in the women only as a marketable commodity.
Marriage was easily consummated and with even greater ease dissolved.
Slavery, inter-tribal, was widespread, and the ravages of the slave
hunter were known long before the arrival of the whites. Religion was a
mass of grossest superstitions, with belief in the magical power of
witches and sorcerers who had power of life and death over their
fellows. Might was right and the chiefs enforced obedience. It is not
necessary to go more into detail. In the words of a recent writer:
"It is clear that any civilization which is based on the fertility
of the soil, and not on the energy of man, contains within itself
the seed of its own destruction. Where food is easily obtained,
where there is little need for clothing or houses, where, in brief,
unaided nature furnishes all man's necessities, those elements
which produce strength of character and vigor of mind are wanting,
and man becomes the slave of his surroundings. He acquires no
energy of disposition, he yields himself to superstition and
fatalism; the very conditions of life which produced his
civilization set the limit of its existence."
It is evident from the foregoing that there had been almost nothing in
the conditions of Africa to further habits of thrift and industry. The
warm climate made great provision for the future unnecessary, not to say
impossible, while social conditions did not favor accumulation of
property. It is necessary to emphasize these African conditions, for
they have an important influence on future development. Under these
conditions Negro character was formed, and that character was not like
that of the long-headed blonds of the North.
The transfer to America marked a sharp break with the past. One needs
but to stop to enumerate the changes to realize how great this break
was. A simple dialect is exchanged for a complex language. A religion
whose basic principle is love gradually supplants the fears and
superstitions of heathenhood. The black passes from an enervating, humid
climate to one in which activity is pleasurable. From the isolation and
self-satisfaction of savagery he emerges into close contact with one of
the most ambitious and progressive of peoples. Life at once becomes far
more secure and wrongs are revenged by the self-interest of the whites
as well as by the feeble means of self-defense in possession of the
blacks. That there were cruelties and mistreatment under slavery goes
without saying, but the woes and sufferings under it were as nothing
compared to those of the life in the African forests. This fact is
sometimes overlooked. With greater security of life came an emphasis,
from without, to be sure, on better marital relations. In this respect
slavery left much to be desired, but conditions on the whole were
probably in advance of those in Africa. Marriage began to be something
more than a purchase. Sanitation, not the word, but the underlying idea,
was taught by precept and example. There came also a dim notion of a new
sphere for women. Faint perceptions ofttimes, but ideas never dreamed of
in Africa. I would not defend slavery, but in this country its evil
results are the inheritance of the whites, not of the blacks, and the
burden today of American slavery is upon white shoulders.
Many of the changes have been mentioned, but the greatest is reserved
for the last. This is embraced in one word--WORK. For the first time the
Negro was made to work, not casual work, but steady, constant labor.
From the Negro's standpoint this is the redeeming feature of his slavery
as perhaps it was for the Israelites in Egypt of old. Booker Washington
has written:[5] "American slavery was a great curse to both races, and I
would be the last to apologize for it, but, in the providence of God, I
believe that slavery laid the foundation for the solution of the problem
that is now before us in the South. During slavery the Negro was taught
every trade, every industry, that constitutes the foundation for making
a living."
Dr. H. B. Frissell has borne the same testimony:
"The southern plantation was really a great trade school where
thousands received instruction in mechanic arts, in agriculture, in
cooking, sewing and other domestic occupations. Although it may be
said that all this instruction was given from selfish motives, yet
the fact remains that the slaves on many plantations had good
industrial training, and all honor is due to the conscientious men
and still more to the noble women of the South who in slavery times
helped to prepare the way for the better days that were to come."
Work is the essential condition of human progress. Contrast the training
of the Negro under enforced slavery with that of the Indian, although it
should not be thought that the characters were the same, for the life in
America had made the Indian one who would not submit to the yoke, and
all attempts to enslave him came to naught. Dr. Frissell out of a long
experience says:
"When the children of these two races are placed side by side, as
they are in the school rooms and workshops and on the farms at
Hampton, it is not difficult to perceive that the training which
the blacks had under slavery was far more valuable as a preparation
for civilized life than the freedom from training and service
enjoyed by the Indian on the Western reservations. For while
slavery taught the colored man to work, the reservation pauperized
the Indian with free rations; while slavery brought the black into
the closest relations with the white race and its ways of life, the
reservation shut the Indian away from his white brothers and gave
him little knowledge of their civilization, language or religion."
The coddled Indian, with all the vices of the white man open to him, has
made little, if any, progress, while the Negro, made to work, has held
his own in large measure at least.
Under slavery three general fields of service were open to the blacks.
The first comprised the domestic and body servants, with the
seamstresses, etc., whose labors were in the house or in close personal
contact with masters and mistresses. This class was made up of the
brightest and quickest, mulattoes being preferred because of their
greater aptitude. These servants had almost as much to do with the
whites as did the other blacks and absorbed no small amount of learning.
Yet the results were not always satisfactory. A southern lady after
visiting for a time in New York said on leaving:[6]
"I cannot tell you how much, after being in your house so long, I
dread to go home, and have to take care of our servants again. We
have a much smaller family of whites than you, but we have twelve
servants, and your two accomplish a great deal more and do their
work a great deal better than our twelve. You think your girls are
very stupid and that they give much trouble, but it is as nothing.
There is hardly one of our servants that can be trusted to do the
simplest work without being stood over. If I order a room to be
cleaned, or a fire to be made in a distant chamber, I can never be
sure I am obeyed unless I go there and see for myself.... And when
I reprimand them they only say that they don't mean to do anything
wrong, or they won't do it again, all the time laughing as though
it were a joke. They don't mind it at all. They are just as playful
and careless as any wilful child; and they never will do any work
if you don't compel them."
The second class comprised the mechanics, carpenters, blacksmiths,
masons and the like. These were also a picked lot. They were well
trained ofttimes and had a practical monopoly of their trades in many
localities. In technical knowledge they naturally soon outstripped their
masters and became conscious of their superiority, as the following
instance related by President G. T. Winston shows:
"I remember one day my father, who was a lawyer, offered some
suggestions to one of his slaves, a fairly good carpenter, who was
building us a barn. The old Negro heard him with ill-concealed
disgust, and replied: 'Look here, master, you'se a first-rate
lawyer, no doubt, but you don't know nothin' 'tall 'bout
carpentering. You better go back to your law books.'"
The training received by these artisans stood them in good stead after
the war, when, left to themselves, they were able to hold their ground
by virtue of their ability to work alone.
The third class was made up of all that were left, and their work was in
the fields. The dullest, as well as those not needed elsewhere, were
included. Some few became overseers, but the majority worked on the
farms. As a rule little work was required of children under 12, and when
they began their tasks were about of the adult's. Thence they passed to
"half," "three-quarter" and "full" hands. Olmsted said:[7]
"Until the Negro is big enough for his labor to be plainly
profitable to his master he has no training to application or
method, but only to idleness and carelessness. Before children
arrive at a working age they hardly come under the notice of their
owner.... The only whipping of slaves I have seen in Virginia has
been of these wild, lazy children, as they are being broke in to
work. They cannot be depended upon a minute out of sight. You will
see how difficult it would be if it were attempted to eradicate the
indolent, careless, incogitant habits so formed in youth. But it is
not systematically attempted, and the influences that continue to
act upon a slave in the same direction, cultivating every quality
at variance with industry, precision, forethought and providence,
are innumerable."
In many places the field hands were given set tasks to do each day, and
they were then allowed to take their own time and stop when the task was
completed. In Georgia and South Carolina the following is cited by
Olmsted as tasks for a day:[7]
"In making drains in light clean meadow land each man or woman of
the full hands is required to dig one thousand cubic feet; in swamp
land that is being prepared for rice culture, where there are not
many stumps, the task for a ditcher is five hundred feet; while in
a very strong cypress swamp, only two hundred feet is required; in
hoeing rice, a certain number of rows equal to one-half or
two-thirds of an acre, according to the condition of the land; in
sowing rice (strewing in drills), two acres; in reaping rice (if it
stands well), three-quarters of an acre, or, sometimes a gang will
be required to reap, tie in sheaves, and carry to the stack yard
the produce of a certain area commonly equal to one-fourth the
number of acres that there are hands working together; hoeing
cotton, corn or potatoes, one-half to one acre; threshing, five to
six hundred sheaves. In plowing rice land (light, clean, mellow
soil), with a yoke of oxen, one acre a day, including the ground
lost in and near the drains, the oxen being changed at noon. A
cooper also, for instance, is required to make barrels at the rate
of eighteen a week; drawing staves, 500 a day; hoop-poles, 120;
squaring timber, 100 feet; laying worm fence, 50 panels per day;
post and rail fence, posts set two and a half to three feet deep,
nine feet apart, nine or ten panels per hand. In getting fuel from
the woods (pine to be cut and split), one cord is the task for a
day. In 'mauling rails,' the taskman selecting the trees (pine)
that he judges will split easiest, 100 a day, ends not sharpened.
"In allotting the tasks the drivers are expected to put the weaker
hands where, if there is any choice in the appearance of the
ground, as where certain rows in hoeing corn would be less weedy
than others, they will be favored.
"These tasks would certainly not be considered excessively hard by
a northern laborer, and, in point of fact, the more industrious and
active hands finish them often by two o'clock. I saw one or two
leaving the field soon after one o'clock, several about two, and
between three and four I met a dozen women and several men coming
to their cabins, having finished their day's work.... If, after a
hard day's labor he (the driver) sees that the gang has been
overtasked, owing to a miscalculation of the difficulty of the
work, he may excuse the completion of the tasks, but he is not
allowed to extend them."
In other places the work was not laid out in tasks, but it is safe to
say that, judging from all reports and all probabilities, the amount of
work done did not equal that of the free labor of the North, then or
now. If it had the commercial supremacy of the South would have been
longer maintained.
Some things regarding the agricultural work at once become prominent.
All work was done under the immediate eye of the task master. Thus there
was little occasion for the development of any sense of individual
responsibility for the work. As a rule the methods adopted were crude.
Little machinery was used, and that of the simplest. Hoes, heavy and
clumsy, were the common tools. Within a year I have seen grass being
mowed with hoes preparatory to putting the ground in cultivation. Even
today the Negro has to be trained to use the light, sharp hoe of the
North. Corn, cotton and, in a few districts, rice or tobacco were the
staple crops, although each plantation raised its own fruit and
vegetables, and about the cabins in the quarters were little plots for
gardens. The land was cultivated for a time, then abandoned for new,
while in most places little attention was paid to rotation of crops or
to fertilizers. The result was that large sections of the South had been
seriously injured before the war. As some one has said:
"The destruction of the soils by the methods of cultivation prior
to the war was worse than the ravages of the war. The _post bellum_
farmer received as an inheritance large areas of wornout and
generally unproductive soils."
Yet all things were the master's. A failure of the crop meant little
hunger to the black. Refusal to work could but bring bodily punishment,
for the master was seldom of the kind who would take life--a live Negro
was worth a good deal more than a dead one. Clothing and shelter were
provided, and care in sickness. The master must always furnish tools,
land and seed, and see to it that the ground was cultivated. There was
thus little necessity for the Negro to care for the morrow, and his
African training had not taught him to borrow trouble. Thus neither
Africa nor America had trained the Negro to independent, continuous
labor apart from the eye of the overseer. The requirements as to skill
were low. The average man learned little of the mysteries of fruit
growing, truck farming and all the economies which make diversified
agriculture profitable.
Freedom came, a second sharp break with the past. There is now no one
who is responsible for food and clothing. For a time all is in
confusion. The war had wiped out the capital of the country. The whites
were land poor, the Negroes landless. It so happened that at this time
the price of cotton was high. The Negro knew more about cotton than any
other crop. _Raise cotton_ became the order of the day. The money
lenders would lend money on cotton, even in advance, for it had a
certain and sure ready sale. Thus developed the crop-lien system which
in essence consists in taking a mortgage on crops yet to be raised. The
system existed among the white planters for many years before the war.
A certain amount of food and clothing was advanced to the Negro family
until the crop could be harvested, when the money value of the goods
received was returned with interest. Perhaps nothing which concerns the
Negro has been the subject of more hostile criticism than this crop-lien
system. That it is easily abused when the man on one side is a shrewd
and cunning sharpster and the borrower an illiterate and trusting Negro
is beyond doubt. That in thousands of cases advantage has been taken of
this fact to wrest from the Negro at the end of the year all that he had
is not to be questioned. Certainly a system which makes it possible is
open to criticism. It should not be forgotten, however, that the system
grew out of the needs of the time and served a useful purpose when
honestly administered, even as it does today. No money could be gotten
with land as security, and even today the land owner often sees his
merchant with far less capital get money from the bank which has refused
his security. The system has enabled a poor man without tools and work
animals without food to get a start and be provided with a modicum of
necessities until the crops were harvested. Thousands have become more
or less independent who started in this way. The evil influences of the
system, for none would consider it ideal, have probably been that it has
made unnecessary any saving on the part of the Negro, who feels sure
that he can receive his advances and who cares little for the fact that
some day he must pay a big interest on what he receives. Secondly, this
system has hindered the development of diversified farming, which today
is one of the greatest needs of the South. The advances have been
conditioned upon the planting and cultivating a given amount of cotton.
During recent years no other staple has so fallen in price, and the
result has been hard on the farmers. All else has faded into
insignificance before the necessity of raising cotton. The result on the
fertility of the soil is also evident. Luckily cotton makes light
demands on the land, but the thin soil of many districts has been unable
to stand even the light demands. Guano came just in time and the later
commercial fertilizers have postponed the evil day. The development of
the cotton mills has also served to give a local market, which has
stimulated the production of cotton. It seems rather evident, however,
that the increasing development of western lands will put a heavier
burden upon the Atlantic slope. This, of course, will not affect the
culture of sea-island cotton, which is grown in only a limited area. To
meet this handicap a more diversified agriculture must gradually
supplant in some way the present over-attention to cotton. In early days
Virginia raised much cotton, now it stands towards the bottom of the
cotton states. Perhaps it is safe to say that Virginia land has been as
much injured by the more exhaustive crop, tobacco, as the other states
by cotton. Large areas have been allowed to go back to the woods and
local conditions have greatly changed. How this diversification is to be
brought about for the Negro is one of the most important questions.
Recent years have witnessed an enormous development of truck farming,
but in this the Negro has borne little part. This intensive farming
requires a knowledge of soil and of plant life, coupled with much
ability in marketing wares, which the average Negro does not possess.
Nor has he taken any great part in the fruit industry, which is steadily
growing. The question to which all this leads may be stated as follows.
To what extent is the Negro taking advantage of the opportunities he now
has on the farm? What is his present situation?
CHAPTER IV. THE PRESENT SITUATION.
The southern states are not densely populated. Alabama has an average of
35 per square mile; Georgia, 37; South Carolina, 44. These may be
compared with Iowa, 40; Indiana, 70, taking two of the typical northern
farming states, while Connecticut has 187. In the prairie section of
Alabama the Negro population ranges from 30 to 50 per square mile, and
this is about the densest outside of the city counties. There is thus an
abundance of land. As a matter of fact there is not the least difficulty
for the Negro farmer to get plenty of land, and he has but to show
himself a good tenant to have the whites offering him inducements.
=A CABIN INTERIOR.=
Negroes on the farms may be divided into four classes: Owners, cash
tenants, share tenants, laborers. Share tenants differ from the same
class in the North in that work animals and tools are usually provided
by the landlord. Among the laborers must also be included the families
living on the rice and cane plantations, who work for cash wages but
receive houses and such perquisites as do other tenants and whose
permanence is more assured than an ordinary day hand. They are paid in
cash, usually through a plantation store, that debts for provisions,
etc., may be deducted. Both owners and tenants find it generally
necessary to arrange for advances of food and clothing until harvest.
The advances begin in the early Spring and continue until August or
sometimes until the cotton is picked. In the regions east of the
alluvial lands advances usually stop by the first of August, and in the
interim until the cotton is sold odd jobs or some extra labor, picking
blackberries and the like, must furnish the support for the family. The
landlord may do the advancing or some merchant. Money is seldom
furnished directly, although in recent years banks are beginning to loan
on crop-liens. The food supplied is often based on the number of working
hands, irrespective of the number of children in the family. This is
occasionally a hardship. The customary ration is a peck of corn meal and
three pounds of pork per week. Usually a crop-lien together with a bill
of sale of any personal property is given as security, but in some
states landlords have a first lien upon all crops for rent and advances.
In all districts the tenant is allowed to cut wood for his fire, and
frequently has free pasture for his stock. There is much complaint that
when there are fences about the house they are sometimes burned, being
more accessible than the timber, which may be at a distance and which
has to be cut. The landlords and the advancers have found it necessary
to spend a large part of their time personally, or through agents called
"riders," going about the plantations to see that the crops are
cultivated. The Negro knows how to raise cotton, but he may forget to
plow, chop, or some other such trifle, unless reminded of the necessity.
Thus a considerable part of the excessive interest charged the Negro
should really be charged as wages of superintendence. If the
instructions of the riders are not followed, rations are cut off, and
thus the recalcitrant brought to terms.
For a long time rations have been dealt out on Saturday. So Saturday has
come to be considered a holiday, or half-holiday at least. Early in the
morning the roads are covered with blacks on foot, horse back, mule back
and in various vehicles, on their way to the store or village, there to
spend the day loafing about in friendly discussion with neighbors. The
condition of the crops has little preventive influence, and the handicap
to successful husbandry formed by the habit is easily perceived. Many
efforts are being made to break up the custom, but it is up-hill work.
Another habit of the Negro which militates against his progress is his
prowling about in all sorts of revels by night, thereby unfitting
himself for labor the next day. This trait also shows forth the general
thoughtlessness of the Negro. His mule works by day, but is expected to
carry his owner any number of miles at night. Sunday is seldom a day of
rest for the work animals. It is a curious fact that wherever the
Negroes are most numerous there mules usually outnumber horses. There
are several reasons for this. It has often been supposed that mules
endure the heat better than horses. This is questionable. The mule,
however, will do a certain amount and then quit, all inducements to the
contrary notwithstanding. The horse will go till he drops; moreover,
will not stand the abuse which the mule endures. The Negro does not bear
a good reputation for care of his animals. He neglects to feed and
provide for them. Their looks justify the criticism. The mule, valuable
as he is for many purposes, is necessarily more expensive in the long
run than a self-perpetuating animal.
In all parts it is the custom for the Negroes to save a little garden
patch about the house, which, if properly tended, would supply the
family with vegetables throughout the year. This is seldom the case. A
recent Tuskegee catalog commenting on this says:
"If they have any garden at all, it is apt to be choked with weeds
and other noxious growths. With every advantage of soil and
climate, and with a steady market if they live near any city or
large town, few of the colored farmers get any benefit from this,
one of the most profitable of all industries."
As a matter of fact they care little for vegetables and seldom know how
to prepare them for the table. The garden is regularly started in the
Spring, but seldom amounts to much. I have ridden for a day with but a
glimpse of a couple of attempts. As a result there will be a few
collards, turnips, gourds, sweet potatoes and beans, but the mass of the
people buy the little they need from the stores. A dealer in a little
country store told me last summer that he would make about $75 an acre
on three acres of watermelons, although almost every purchaser could
raise them if he would. In many regions wild fruits are abundant, and
blackberries during the season are quite a staple, but they are seldom
canned. Some cattle are kept, but little butter is made, and milk is
seldom on the bill of fare, the stock being sold when fat (?). Many
families keep chickens, usually of the variety known as "dunghill
fowls," which forage for themselves. But the market supplied with
chickens by the small farmers, as it might easily be. Whenever
opportunity offers, hunting and fishing become more than diversions, and
the fondness for coon and 'possum is proverbial.
In a study of dietaries of Negroes made under Tuskegee Institute and
reported in Bulletin No. 38, Office of Experimental Stations, U. S.
Dept. of Agriculture, it is stated:
"Comparing these negro dietaries with other dietaries and dietary
standards, it will be seen that--
"(1) The quantities of protein are small. Roughly speaking, the
food of these negroes furnished one-third to three-fourths as much
protein as are called for in the current physiological standards
and as are actually found in the dietaries of well fed whites in
the United States and well fed people in Europe. They were, indeed,
no larger than have been found in the dietaries of the very poor
factory operatives and laborers in Germany and the laborers and
beggars in Italy.
"(2) In fuel value the Negro dietaries compare quite favorably with
those of well-to-do people of the laboring classes in Europe and
the United States."
This indicates the ignorance of the Negro regarding the food he needs,
so that in a region of plenty he is underfed as regards the muscle and
bone forming elements and overfed so far as fuel value is concerned. One
cannot help asking what effect a normal diet would have upon the sexual
passions. It is worthy of notice that in the schools maintained by the
whites there is relatively little trouble on this account. Possibly the
changed life and food are in no small measure responsible for the
difference.
Under diversified farming there would be steady employment most of the
year, with a corresponding increase of production. As it is there are
two busy seasons. In the Spring, planting and cultivating cotton, say
from March to July, and in the Fall, cotton picking, September to
December. The balance of the time the average farmer does little work.
The present system entails a great loss of time.
The absence of good pastures and of meadows is noticeable. This is also
too true of white farmers. Yet the grasses grow luxuriantly and nothing
but custom or something else accounts for their absence; the something
else is cotton. The adaptability of cotton to the Negro is almost
providential. It has a long tap root and is able to stand neglect and
yet produce a reasonable crop. The grains, corn and cane, with their
surface roots, will not thrive under careless handling.
The average farmer knows, or at least utilizes few of the little
economies which make agriculture so profitable elsewhere. The Negro is
thus under a heavy handicap and does not get the most that he might from
present opportunities. I am fully conscious that there are many farmers
who take advantage of these things and are correspondingly successful,
but they are not the average man of whom I am speaking. With this
general statement I pass to a consideration of the situation in the
various districts before mentioned.
TIDE WATER VIRGINIA.
The Virginia sea shore consists of a number of peninsulas separated by
narrow rivers (salt water). The country along the shore and the rivers
is flat, with low hills in the interior. North of Old Point Comfort the
district is scarcely touched by railroads and is accessible only by
steamers.
Gloucester County, lying between York River and Mob Jack Bay, is an
interesting region. The hilly soil of the central part sells at from $5
to $10 per acre, while the flat coast land, which is richer although
harder to drain, is worth from $25 to $50. The immediate water front has
risen in price in recent years and brings fancy prices for residence
purposes. Curiously enough some of the best land of the county is that
beneath the waters of the rivers--the oyster beds. Land for this use may
be worth from nothing to many hundreds of dollars an acre, according to
its nature. The county contains 250 square miles, 6,224 whites and 6,608
blacks, the latter forming 51 per cent of the population.
This sea coast region offers peculiar facilities for gaining an easy
livelihood. There are few negro families of which some member does not
spend part of the year fishing or oystering. There has been a great
development of the oyster industry. The season lasts from September 1 to
May 1, and good workmen not infrequently make $2 a day or more when they
can work on the public beds. This last clause is significant. It is
stated that the men expect to work most of September, October and
November; one-half of December and January; one-third of February; any
time in March is clear gain and all of April. According to a careful
study[8] of the oyster industry it was found that the oystermen, _i. e._,
those who dig the oysters from the rocks, make about $8 a month, while
families occupied in shucking oysters earn up to $400 a year,
three-fourths of them gaining less than $250. The public beds yield less
than formerly and the business is gradually going into the hands of
firms maintaining their own beds, with a corresponding reduction in
possible earnings for the oystermen.
The effect of this industry is twofold; a considerable sum of money is
brought into the county and much of this has been invested in homes and
small farms. This is the bright side; but there is a dark side. The boys
are drawn out of the schools by the age of 12 to work at shucking
oysters, and during the winter months near the rivers the boys will
attend only on stormy days. The men are also taken away from the farms
too early in the fall to gather crops, and return too late in the spring
to get the best results from the farm work. The irregular character of
the employment reacts on the men and they tend to drift to the cities
during the summer, although many find employment in berry picking about
Norfolk. Another result has been to make farm labor very scarce. This
naturally causes some complaint. I do not say that the bad results
outweigh the good, but believe they must be considered.
The population is scattered over the county, there being no towns of any
size, and is denser along the rivers than inland. The relations between
the two races are most friendly, although less satisfactory between the
younger generation. The Negroes make no complaints of ill treatment. In
the last ten years there have been only four Negroes sentenced to the
state prison, while in the twelve months prior to May 1, 1903, I was
told that there was but one trial for misdemeanor. It may be that the
absence of many of the young men for several months a year accounts in
part for the small amount of crime. The jail stands empty most of the
time. The chief offenses are against the fish and oyster laws of the
state. Whites and blacks both claim that illegitimate children are much
rarer than formerly. I was told of a case in which a young white man was
fined for attempting to seduce a colored girl. The races have kept in
touch. White ministers still preach in negro churches, address
Sunday-schools, etc.
In all save a few of the poorer districts the old one-roomed cabin has
given place to a comfortable house of several rooms. The houses are
often white-washed, although their completion may take a good many
years. Stoves have supplanted fireplaces. The fences about the yards are
often neat and in good repair. So far as housing conditions are
concerned, I have seen no rural district of the South to compare with
this. The old cabin is decidedly out of fashion.
Turning to the farm proper, there are other evidences of change. There
are no women working in the fields, their time being spent about the
house and the garden. The system of crop liens is unknown. Each farmer
raises his own supplies, smokes his own meat or buys at the store for
cash or on credit. Wheat and corn are ground in local mills. The heavy
interest charges of other districts are thus avoided. It is stated that
a great number of the Negroes are buying little places, and this bears
out the census figures, which show that of the Negro farmers 90.9 per
cent in this county are owners or managers; the average for the negroes
as a whole is 27.1 per cent.
Although so many earn money in the oyster business, there are others who
have gotten ahead by sticking to the farm. T---- now owns part of the
place on which he was a slave, and his slave-time cabin is now used as a
shed. He began buying land in 1873, paying from $10 to $11.50 per acre,
and by hard work and economy now owns sixty acres which are worth much
more than their first cost. With the help of his boys, whom he has
managed to keep at home, he derives a comfortable income from his land.
His daughter, now his housekeeper, teaches school near by during the
winter. What he has done others can do, he says.
Y---- is another who has succeeded. His first payments were made from
the sale of wood cut in clearing the land. In 1903 his acres were
planted as follows:
Orchard 2 acres.
Woodland 8 acres.
Pasture 10 acres.
Corn 8 acres.
Rye 3/4 acres.
Potato patch
Garden and yard.
His children are being trained at Hampton, and he laughingly says that
one boy is already telling him how to get more produce from his land.
B---- is an oysterman during the winter. He has purchased a small place
of four acres, for which he paid $18 per acre. This ground he cultivates
and has a few apple, plum and peach trees in his yard. His case is
typical.
Wages in the county are not high. House servants get from $3 to $8 per
month. Day laborers are paid from 50 to 75 cents a day. Farm hands get
about $10 a month and two meals daily (breakfast and dinner). I have
already mentioned that farm laborers were getting fewer, and those left
are naturally the less reliable. Many white farmers are having
considerable difficulty in carrying on their places. The result is that
many are only partially cultivating the farms, and many of the younger
men are abandoning agriculture. What the final result will be is hard to
tell.
In summarizing it may be said that agriculture is being somewhat
neglected and that the opportunity to earn money in the oyster industry
acts as a constant deterrent to agricultural progress, if it is not
directly injurious. Here, as elsewhere, there is room for improvement in
methods of tilling the soil and in rotation of crops, use of animal
manures, etc.
The general social and moral improvement has been noted. It is a
pleasure to find that one of the strongest factors in this improvement
is due to the presence in the county of a number of graduates of Hampton
who, in their homes, their schools and daily life, have stood for better
things.
CENTRAL VIRGINIA.
The difficulty of making general statements true in all districts has
elsewhere been mentioned. The reader will not be surprised, therefore,
to find many things said in the immediately preceding pages inapplicable
to conditions in the tobacco districts. The little town of Farmville,
Va., is the market for some 12,000,000 pounds of tobacco yearly. The
county Prince Edward contained in 1890 9,924 Negroes and in 1900 but
9,769, a decrease of 155. The county does not give one the impression of
agricultural prosperity. The surface is very rolling, the soil sandy and
thin in many places. Along the bottoms there is good land, of less value
than formerly because of freshets. Practically all of the land has been
under cultivation at some time, and in heavily wooded fields the corn
rows may often be traced. On every side are worn-out fields on which
sassafras soon gets a hold, followed by pine and other trees.
Labor conditions have been growing worse, according to common report. It
is harder to get farm hands than formerly, and this difficulty is most
felt by those who exact the most. The day laborer gets from 40 to 50
cents and his meals, while for special work, such as cutting wheat, the
wage may rise to $1.50. Women no longer work in the fields, and about
the house get 35 cents per day. Formerly women worked in the fields, and
wages for both sexes were lower. Hands by the month get $7 to $8 and
board. In this county are many small white farmers who work in the
fields with the men, and the white housewife not infrequently cooks the
food for the Negroes--quite a contrast to typical southern practice.
The movement from the farm is not an unmixed evil in that it is
compelling the introduction of improved machinery, such as mowing
machines, binders. On many a farm only scythes and cradles are known.
Another element in the problem is the fact that many negroes have been
getting little places of their own and therefore do less work for
others. There are many whites who think this development a step forward
and believe that the land owners are better citizens. There are others
who claim that the net result is a loss, in that they are satisfied
merely to eke out some sort of an existence and are not spurred on to
increased production. It is quite commonly reported that there were some
organizations among the Negroes whose members agreed not to work for the
whites, but I cannot vouch for their existence.
Although agriculture here is much more diversified than in the cotton
belt, the Negro finds it necessary to get advances. These are usually
supplied by commission merchants, who furnish the fertilizers and
necessary food, taking crop liens as security. Advances begin in the
spring and last until the following December, when the tobacco is
marketed. The interest charged is 6 per cent, but the goods sold on this
plan are much enhanced in price; interest is usually charged for a year,
and the merchant receives a commission of 2-1/2 per cent for selling the
tobacco, so the business appears fairly profitable.
It is difficult to estimate the average value of an acre of tobacco, as
it varies so much in quality as well as quantity. It is probably safe to
say that the Negroes do not average over $20 per acre, ranging from $15
to $25, and have perhaps three or four acres in tobacco. It is generally
expected that the tobacco will about pay for the advances. This would
indicate, and the commission men confirm it, that the average advance is
between $50 and $75 per year. The rations given out are no longer merely
pork and meal, with which it is stated that the Negroes are not now
content, but include a more varied diet.
The customary rent is one-fourth of all that is produced, the landlord
paying one-fourth of the fertilizer (universally called guano in this
district). Tobacco makes heavy demands on the soil and at least 400
pounds, a value of about $4.50 per acre, should be used. When the
landlord furnishes the horse or mule he pays also one-half of the
fertilizer and gets one-half of the produce. The rent on tobacco land is
thus large, but the average cash rental is between $2 and $3.
The standard rotation of crops is tobacco, wheat, clover, tobacco. The
clover is not infrequently skipped, the field lying fallow or
uncultivated until exhausted. The average farmer thus has about as many
acres in wheat as in tobacco and raises perhaps twelve bushels of wheat
per acre. Some corn is also raised, and I have seen fields so exhausted
that the stalk at the ground was scarcely larger than my middle finger.
The corn crop may possibly average 10 to 15 bushels per acre, or, in
Virginia terminology, 2 to 3 barrels.
The average farmer under present conditions just about meets his
advances with the tobacco raised. He has about enough wheat to supply
him with flour; perhaps enough corn and hay for his ox or horse;
possibly enough meat for the family. The individual family may fall
short on any of these. The hay crop is unsatisfactory, largely through
neglect. In May, 1903, on a Saturday, I saw wagon after wagon leaving
Farmville carrying bales of western hay. This is scarcely an indication
of thrift.
The impression one gets from traveling about is that the extensive
cultivation of tobacco, in spite of the fact that it is the cash crop
and perhaps also the most profitable, is really a drawback in that other
possibilities are obscured. It may be that the line of progress will not
be to abandon tobacco, but to introduce more intensive cultivation, for
the average man, white or black, does not get a proper return from an
acre. To-day there is always a likelihood that more tobacco will be
planted than can be properly cultivated, for it is a plant which demands
constant and careful attention until it is marketed.
B---- has a big family of children and lives in a large cabin, one room
with a loft. He owns a pair of oxen and manages to raise enough to feed
them. He also raises about enough meat for his family. During the season
of 1902 he raised $175 worth of tobacco; corn valued at $37.50 and 16
bushels of wheat, a total of about $221. Deducting one-fourth for rent
and estimating his expenses for fertilizer at $25, he had about $140 out
of which to pay all other expenses. B---- is considered a very good man,
who tends carefully and faithfully to his work. It is evident, however,
that his margin is small.
The farmer has opportunities to supplement his earnings. Cordwood finds
ready sale in the towns at $2 per cord, and I have seen many loads of
not over one-fourth of a cord hauled to market by a small steer. Butter,
eggs and chickens yield some returns and the country produces
blackberries in profusion.
There are some Negroes who are making a comfortable living on the farms
and whose houses and yards are well kept. As has been said, this is not
the general impression made by the district. Considerable sums of money
are sent in by children working in the northern cities. This is offset,
however, by those who come back in the winter to live off their parents,
having squandered all their own earnings elsewhere.
The situation in a word is: A generation or more of reliance on one
crop, neglect of other crops and of stock, resulting in deteriorated
land. The labor force attracted to the towns and the North by higher
wages. Natural result: Decadence of agricultural conditions, affording
at the same time a chance for many Negroes to become land owners. When
the process will stop or the way out I know not. Perhaps the German
immigrants who are beginning to buy up some of the farms may lead the
way to a better husbandry.
For an interesting account of conditions in the town of Farmville see
"The Negroes of Farmville," by W. E. B. DuBois, Bulletin Department of
Labor, January, 1898.
THE SEA COAST.
=A SEA-ISLAND CABIN.=
The low-lying coast of South Carolina and Georgia, with its fringe of
islands, has long been the seat of a heavy Negro population. Of the
counties perhaps none is more interesting than Beaufort, the
southernmost of South Carolina. The eastern half of the county is cut up
by many salt rivers into numerous islands. Broad River separates these
from the mainland. The Plant System has a line on the western edge of
the county, while the Georgia Railroad runs east to Port Royal.
According to the census, the county contains 943 square miles of land
and a population of 32,137 blacks and 3,349 whites, the Negroes thus
forming 90 per cent of the total. There are 37 persons to the square
mile. With the exception of Beaufort and Port Royal, the whites are
found on the western side of the county. The islands are almost solid
black. Just after the war many of the plantations were sold for taxes
and fell into the hands of the Negroes, the funds realized being set
apart for the education of the blacks, the interest now amounting to
some $2,000 a year. In the seventies there was a great development of
the phosphate industry, which at its height employed hundreds of
Negroes, taken from the farms. Enormous fertilizer plants were erected.
Most of this is now a thing of the past and the dredges lie rotting at
the wharves. It is the general opinion that the influence of this
industry was not entirely beneficial, although it set much money in
circulation. It drew the men from the farms, and now they tend to drift
to the cities rather than return.
A livelihood is easily gained. The creeks abound with fish, crabs and
oysters. There is plenty of work on the farms for those who prefer more
steady labor. Land valued at about $10 per acre may be rented for $1.
More than ten acres to the tenant is not usual, and I was told that it
is very common for a family to rent all the land it wants for $10 per
year, the presumption being that not over ten acres would be utilized.
The staple crop for the small farmer is the sea island cotton. Under the
present culture land devoted to this lies fallow every other year. The
islands are low and flat, subject to severe storms, that of 1893 having
destroyed many lives and much property. The county was originally
heavily wooded and there is still an abundance for local purposes,
though the supply is low in places. On the islands the blacks have been
almost alone for a generation and by many it is claimed that there has
been a decided retrogression. By common consent St. Helena Island, which
lies near Beaufort, is considered the most prosperous of the Negro
districts. On this island are over 8,000 blacks and some 200 whites. The
cabins usually have two rooms, many having been partitioned to make the
second. They are of rough lumber, sometimes whitewashed, but seldom
painted. There are few fences and some damage is done by stock.
Outbuildings are few; privies are almost unknown--even at the schools
there are no closets of any kind. The wells are shallow, six feet or so
in depth with a few driven to 12 or 17 feet. A few have pumps, the rest
are open. At present there is no dispensary on the island but there are
a number of "blind tigers." The nearest physician is at Beaufort and the
cost of a single visit is from five to ten dollars. The distance from
the doctors is said not to be an unmixed evil as it saves much foolish
expenditure of money in fancied ills.
In slavery times there were 61 plantations on the island and their
names, as Fripps Corner, Oaks, still survive to designate localities.
There was in olden times little contact with the whites as Negro drivers
were common. Each plantation still has its "prayer house" at which
religious services are held. Meetings occur on different nights on the
various plantations to enable the people to get all the religion they
need. These meetings are often what are known as "shouts," when with
much shouting and wild rhythmic dancing the participants keep on till
exhausted. The suggestion of Africa is not vague. The Virginia Negro
views these gatherings with as much astonishment as does any white. Many
of the blacks speak a strange dialect hard to understand. "Shum," for
instance, being the equivalent for "see them."
The land is sandy and should have skillful handling to get the best
results. Yet the farming is very unscientific. The first plowing is
shallow and subsequent cultivation is done almost entirely with hoes.
When a Hampton graduate began some new methods last year the people came
for miles to see his big plow. It is said that there was more plowing
than usual as a result. The daily life of the farmer is about as
follows: Rising between four and five he goes directly to the field,
eating nothing until eight or nine, when he has some "grits," a sort of
fine hominy cooked like oat meal. Many eat nothing until they leave the
field at eleven for dinner, which also consists of grits with some crabs
in summer and fish in winter. Some have only these two meals a day. Corn
bread and molasses are almost unknown and when they have molasses it is
eaten with a spoon. Knives and forks are seldom used. One girl of
eighteen did not know how to handle a knife. There are numbers of cows
on the island, but milk is seldom served, the cattle being sold for
beef. The draft animals are usually small oxen or ponies, called "salt
marsh tackies," as they are left to pick their living from the marshes.
Some chickens and turkeys are raised, but no great dependence is placed
on them. There are no geese and few ducks. Little commercial fertilizer
is used, the marsh grass, which grows in great abundance, being an
excellent substitute of which the more progressive take advantage. The
following statement will illustrate the situation of three typical
families, an unusual, a good, and an average farmer. The figures are for
1902:
No. 1. No. 2. No. 3.
Number in family 8 13 4
Number rooms 6 5 2
Number outbuildings 5 3 0
Number horses 4 1 0
Number cows 9 5 1
Number hogs 10 3 0
Number other animals 1 dog 2 goats 1 dog
1 dog
Number fowls 90 30 10
Acres of land owned 55 21 0
Acres of land rented 0 0 10-5/8
Acres in cotton 10 3.5 5
Acres in corn 8 5 5
Acres in sweet potatoes 3 3.5 3/8
Acres in white potatoes 1/4 0 0
Acres in peas (cow) 5.5 1.5 1/4
Acres in rice 1.5 0 0
Garden Very small Poor None
The rice is grown without flooding and known as "Providence Rice."
With the great ease of getting a livelihood the advances necessarily are
small. From January 1, 1902, to July 15 (which is near the close of the
advancing season) several average families had gotten advances averaging
$15.00. The firm which does most of the advancing on the island writes:
"We have some that get more. A few get $50.00 or about that amount, but
we make it a point not to let the colored people or our customers get
too much in debt. We have to determine about what they need and we have
always given them what was necessary to help them make a crop according
to their conditions and circumstances as they present themselves to us."
The firm reports that they collect each year about 90 per cent of their
outstanding accounts.
Below are given the customary forms of the Bill of Sale and the Crop
Lien given to secure advances:
THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA,
COUNTY OF BEAUFORT.
Know all men by these presents, that ............ of the said
County, in consideration of the sum of ............ dollars, to be
advanced in merchandise by ............, of Beaufort County and
State, have bargained and sold unto the said ............ the
following personal property, ............, now in my possession,
and which I promise to deliver on demand of the said ............
(Signed) .....................
$............
On the .... day of 19.., I promise to pay to the order of
............ ..........., at Beaufort, South Carolina, ............
dollars for money and supplies to be advanced and furnished me by
the said ............, merchants, Beaufort, South Carolina, for use
in the cultivation of crops on the plantation or farm cultivated by
me in Beaufort County, South Carolina, known as the ............
plantation, and containing about ............ acres, during the
year 190...
And in consideration of the said advance made me I hereby give,
make and grant to the said ............ a lien to the extent of
said advance on all the crops which may be grown on the said
plantation or farm during the year 190.., wherever said crops or
parts of them are found.
This lien hereby given is executed and to be enforced in accordance
with the laws of the State of South Carolina.
I, the said ............, in consideration of the foregoing, do
hereby agree to advance to the said ........... ..... dollars, as
above stated.
Witness the hands and seals of both parties.
In the presence of ............, L. S.
............ ............, L. S.
This is then recorded in the County Court as is an ordinary mortgage.
On this island considerable money has been saved and is now deposited
with a firm of merchants in whom the people have confidence. In July,
1902, there were about 100 individual depositors having some $4,000 to
their credit. The money can be withdrawn at any time, all debts to the
firm being first settled. Interest at five per cent. is allowed. Some of
this money comes from pensions. There are round about Beaufort a
considerable number of U. S. pensioners, as the city was headquarters
for Union soldiers for a long time. The effect of the pensions is
claimed both by whites and blacks to be bad.
A great deal of the credit for the good conditions, relatively speaking,
which prevail on St. Helena is given to the Penn School which for years
has come into close touch with the lives of the people. The Negroes have
also been in touch with a good class of whites, who have encouraged all
efforts at improvement. Wherever the credit lies, the visitor is struck
by the difference between conditions here and on some other islands, for
instance, Lady's Island, which lies between St. Helena and Beaufort.
Even here it is claimed that the older generation is more industrious.
In the trucking industry, which is very profitable along the coast, the
Negroes have only been engaged as ordinary laborers. On the main land,
wherever fresh water can be obtained, is the seat of a considerable rice
industry. In recent years, owing to the cutting of the forests in the
hills, the planters are troubled by freshets in the spring and droughts
in the summer. The work is done by Negroes under direction of white
foremen. The men work harder on contract jobs, but work by the day is
better done. Women are in better repute as laborers than the men and it
is stated that more women support their husbands than formerly was the
case. Wages range from $.35 to $.50 per day, varying somewhat according
to the work done. They are paid in cash and the planters have given up
the plantation store in many cases. All work must be constantly
supervised and it is said to be harder and harder to get work done. A
planter found it almost impossible in the winter of 1901 to get fifty
cords of wood cut, the work being considered too heavy. When I left the
train at Beaufort and found twelve hacks waiting for about three
passengers it was evident where some of the labor force had gone.
In this county there is a great development of burial and sick benefit
societies. The "Morning Star", "Star of Hope", "Star of Bethlehem" are
typical names. The dues are from five to ten cents a week. Many of the
societies have good sized halls, rivaling ofttimes the churches, on the
various islands, which are used for lodge and social purposes.
Beaufort and the other towns offer the country people an opportunity to
dispose of fish and any garden produce they may raise, while it is not
uncommon to see a little ox dragging a two-wheeled cart and perhaps a
quarter of a cord of wood to be hawked about town. During part of the
summer a good many gather a species of plant which is used in
adulterating cigarettes and cigars.
This little account indicates that, so far as the farmers are concerned,
there are few evidences of any decided progress save in the district
which has been under the influence of one school. The ease of getting a
livelihood acts as a deterrent to ambition. Yet the old families say
that they have the "best niggers of the South" and certain it is that
race troubles are unknown.
CENTRAL DISTRICT.
=THE OLD CABIN.=
In the central district life is a little more strenuous than on the sea
coast. The cabins are about the same. The average tenant has a "one mule
farm," some thirty or thirty-five acres. Occasionally the tenant has
more land, but only about this amount is cultivated and no rent is paid
for the balance. The area of the land is usually estimated and only
rarely is it surveyed. This land ranges in value from $5.00 to $15.00
per acre on the average. The customary rental for a "one mule farm" is
about two bales of cotton, whose value in recent years would be in the
neighborhood of $75.00, thus making the rental about $3.00 per acre. On
this farm from four to six bales of cotton are raised. The soil has been
injured by improper tillage and requires an expenditure of $1.75 to
$2.00 per acre for fertilizers if the best results are to be obtained.
As yet the Negroes do not fully appreciate this. The farmer secures
advances based on 1 peck of meal and 3 pounds of "side meat," fat salt
pork, per week for each working hand. About six dollars a month is the
limit for advances and as these are continued for only seven months or
so the average advance received is probably not far from $50.00 per
year. An advance of $10.00 per month is allowed for a two horse farm.
The advancer obligates himself to furnish only necessities and any
incidentals must be supplied from sale of poultry, berries and the like.
Clothing may often be reckoned as an incidental. The luxuries are bought
with cash or on the installment plan and are seldom indicated by the
books of the merchant. The cost of the average weekly advances for a
family in 1902 was:
10 pounds meat (salt port sides) @ 13-1/2c $1.35
1 bushel corn meal .90
1 plug tobacco (reckoned a necessity) .10
------
$2.35
=THE NEW HOUSE.=
Conditions throughout this district are believed to be fairly uniform,
but the following information was gathered in Lowndes County, Alabama,
so has closest connection with the prairie region of that state:
Lowndes County lies just southwest of Montgomery and there are 47
persons to the square mile. The Negroes form 86 per cent. of the
population. East and West throughout the county runs the Chennenugga
Ridge, a narrow belt of hills which separate the prairie from the pine
hills to the South. The ridge is quite broken and in places can not be
tilled profitably. The county is of average fertility, however.
There are not an unusual number of one-room cabins. Out of 74 families,
comprising 416 people, the average was 7 to the room, the greatest
number living in one room was 11. The families were housed as follows:
No. No. Largest No. Average No.
Families. Rooms. Persons. Persons.
17 1 11 6
31 2 12 (3 fam.) 6
16 3 9 5
7 4 14 6
3 5 9 5
The cabins are built of both boards and logs as indicated by cuts on
pages 43 and 44 while the interior economy is well shown by the
photograph on page 29.
Field work is from sun to sun with two hours or so rest at noon. The man
usually eats breakfast in the field, the wife staying behind to prepare
it. It consists of pork and corn bread. The family come from the field
about noon and have dinner consisting of pork and corn bread, with
collards, turnip greens, roasting ears, etc. At sundown work stops and
supper is eaten, the menu being as at breakfast. The pork eaten by the
Negroes, it may be said, is almost solid fat, two or three inches thick,
lean meat not being liked. The housewife has few dishes, the food being
cooked in pots or in small ovens set among the ashes. Stoves are a
rarity. Lamps are occasionally used, but if the chimney be broken it is
rarely replaced, the remainder being quite good enough for ordinary
purposes. The cabins seldom have glass windows, but instead wooden
shutters, which swing outward on hinges. These are shut at night and
even during the hottest summer weather there is practically no
ventilation. How it is endured I know not, but the custom prevails even
in Porto Rico I am told. In winter the cabins are cold. To meet this the
thrifty housewife makes bed quilts and as many as 25 or 30 of these are
not infrequently found in a small cabin. The floors are rough and not
always of matched lumber, while the cabins are poorly built. The usual
means of heating, and cooking, is the big fireplace. Sometimes the
chimney is built of sticks daubed over with mud, the top of the chimney
often failing to reach the ridge of the roof. Fires sometimes result.
Tables and chairs are rough and rude. Sheets are few, the mattresses are
of cotton, corn shucks or pine straw, and the pillows of home grown
feathers.
The following regarding the cooking of the Alabama Negro is taken from a
letter published in Bulletin No. 38, U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Office of the Experiment Stations:
"The daily fare is prepared in very simple ways. Corn meal is mixed
with water and baked on the flat surface of a hoe or griddle. The
salt pork is sliced thin and fried until very brown and much of the
grease tried out. Molasses from cane or sorghum is added to the
fat, making what is known as 'sap,' which is eaten with the corn
bread. Hot water sweetened with molasses is used as a beverage.
This is the hill of fare of most of the cabins on the plantations
of the 'black belt' three times a day during the year. It is,
however, varied at times; thus collards and turnips are boiled with
the bacon, the latter being used with the vegetables to supply fat
'to make it rich.' The corn meal bread is sometimes made into
so-called 'cracklin bread,' and is prepared as follows: A piece of
fat bacon is fried until it is brittle; it is then crushed and
mixed with corn meal, water, soda and salt, and baked in an oven
over the fireplace.... One characteristic of the cooking is that
all meats are fried or otherwise cooked until they are crisp.
Observation among these people reveals the fact that very many of
them suffer from indigestion in some form."
As elsewhere the advances are supplied by the planter or some merchant.
The legal rate of interest is 8 per cent, but no Negro ever borrows
money at this rate. Ten per cent. per year is considered cheap, while on
short terms the rate is often 10 per cent. per week. The average tenant
pays from 12.5 per cent. to 15 per cent. for his advances, which are
sold at an average of 25 per cent. higher than cash prices on the
average. To avoid any possible trouble it is quite customary to reckon
the interest and then figure this into the face of the note so that none
can tell either the principal or the rate. Below is an actual copy of
such a note, the names being changed:
$22.00. Calhoun, Alabama, June 2, 1900.
On the first day of October, 1900, I promise to pay to the order of
A. B. See Twenty Two Dollars at ............
Value received.
And so far as this debt is concerned, and as part of the
consideration thereof, I do hereby waive all right which I or
either of us have under the Constitution and Laws of this or any
other State to claim or hold any personal property exempt to me
from levy and sale under execution. And should it become necessary
to employ an attorney in the collection of this debt I promise to
pay all reasonable attorney's fees charged therefor.
ATTEST: C. W. JAMES. his
A. T. JONES. JOHN X. SMITH.
mark.
The possibility of extortion which this method makes possible is
evident.
It is worth while also to reproduce a copy, actual with the exception of
the names, of one of the blanket mortgages often given. The italics are
mine.
THE STATE OF ALABAMA,
LOWNDES COUNTY.
On or before the first day of October next I promise to pay Jones
and Co., or order, the sum of $77.00 at their office in Fort
Deposit, Alabama. And I hereby waive all right of exemption secured
to me under and by the Laws and Constitution of the State of
Alabama as to the collection of this debt. And I agree to pay all
the costs of making, recording, probating or acknowledging this
instrument, together with a reasonable attorney's fee, and all
other expenses incident to the collection of this debt, whether by
suit or otherwise. And to secure the payment of the above note, as
well as all other indebtedness I may now owe the said Jones and Co.,
and all future advances I may purchase from the said Jones and Co.
during the year 1900, whether due and payable during the year 1900
or not, and for the further consideration of one Dollar to me in
hand paid by Jones and Co., the receipt whereof I do hereby
acknowledge, I do hereby grant, bargain, sell and convey unto said
Jones and Co. the _entire crops_ of corn, cotton, cotton seed,
fodder, potatoes, sugar cane and its products and _all other crops
of every kind and description_ which may be made and grown during
the year 1900 on lands owned, leased, rented or farmed on shares
for or by the undersigned in Lowndes County, Alabama, or elsewhere.
Also any crops to or in which the undersigned has or may have any
interest, right, claim or title in Lowndes County or elsewhere
_during and for each succeeding year until the indebtedness secured
by this instrument is fully paid_. Also all the corn, cotton,
cotton seed, fodder, peas, and all other farm produce now in the
possession of the undersigned. Also all the live stock, vehicles
and farming implements now owned by or furnished to the undersigned
by Jones and Co. during the year 1900. Also one red horse "Lee,"
one red neck cow "Priest," and her calf, one red bull yearling.
Said property is situated in Lowndes County, Alabama. If, after
maturity, any part of the unpaid indebtedness remains unpaid, Jones
and Co., or their agents or assigns, are authorized and empowered
to seize and sell all or any of the above described property, at
private sale or public auction, as they may elect, for cash. If at
public auction, before their store door or elsewhere, in Fort
Deposit, Alabama, after posting for five days written notice of
said sale on post office door in said town, and to apply the
proceeds of said sale to the payment, first of all costs and
expenses provided for in the above note and expense of seizing and
selling said property; second, to payment in full of debt or debts
secured by said mortgage, and the surplus, if any, pay to the
undersigned. And the said mortgagee or assigns is hereby authorized
to purchase at his own sale under this mortgage. I agree that no
member of my family, nor anyone living with me, nor any person
under my control, shall have an extra patch on the above described
lands, unless covered by this mortgage; and I also agree that this
mortgage shall cover all such patches. It is further agreed and
understood that any securities held by Jones and Co. as owner or
assignee on any of the above described property executed by me
prior to executing this mortgage shall be retained by them, and
shall remain in full force and effect until the above note and
future advances are paid in full, and shall be additional security
for this debt. There is no lien or encumbrance upon any property
conveyed by this instrument except that held by Jones and Co. and
the above specified rents. If, before the demands hereby secured
are payable, any of the property conveyed herein shall be in
_danger of (or from) waste, destruction or removal, said demands
shall be then payable and all the terms, rights and powers of this
instrument operative and enforceable, as if and under a past due
mortgage_.
Witness my hand and seal this 10th day of January, 1900.
ATTEST: B. C. COOK. SAM SMALL. L. S.
R. J. BENNETT.
It may be granted that experience has shown all this verbiage to be
necessary. In the hands of an honest landlord it is as meaningless as
that in the ordinary contract we sign in renting a house. In the hands
of a dishonest landlord or merchant it practically enables him to make a
serf of the Negro. The mortgage is supposed to be filed at once, but it
is sometimes held to see if there is any other security which might be
included. The rascally creditor watches the crop and if the Negro may
have a surplus he easily tempts him to buy more, or more simply still,
he charges to his account imaginary purchases, so that at the end of the
year the Negro is still in debt. The Negro has no redress. He can not
prove that he has not purchased the goods and his word will not stand
against the merchant's. Practically he is tied down to the land, for no
one else will advance him under these conditions. Sometimes he escapes
by getting another merchant to settle his account and by becoming the
tenant of the new man. When it is remembered that land is abundant and
good labor rare, the temptation to hold a man on the land by fair means
or foul is apparent. Moreover, the merchant by specious reasoning often
justifies his own conduct. He says that the Negro will spend his money
at the first opportunity and that he might just as well have it as some
other merchant. I would not be understood as saying that this action is
anything but the great exception but there are dishonest men everywhere
who are ready to take advantage of their weaker fellows and the Negro
suffers as a result, just as the ignorant foreigner does in the cities
of the North.
The interest may also be reckoned into the face of the mortgage. In any
case it begins the day the paper is signed, although the money or its
equivalent is only received at intervals and a full year's interest is
paid, often on the face of the mortgage, even if only two-thirds of it
has actually been advanced to the Negro, no matter when the account is
settled. The helplessness of the Negro who finds himself in the hands of
a sharper is obvious when that sharper has practical control of the
situation. In many and curious ways the landlord seeks to hold his
tenants. He is expected to stand by them in time of trouble, to protect
them against the aggressions of other blacks and of whites as well. This
paternalism is often carried to surprising lengths.
The size of a man's family is known and the riders see to it that he
keeps all the working hands in the field. If the riders have any trouble
with a Negro they are apt to take it out in physical punishment, to
"wear him out," as the phrase goes. Thus resentment is seldom harbored
against a Negro and there are many who claim that this physical
discipline is far better than any prison regime in its effects upon the
Negro. In spite of all that is done it is claimed that the Negroes are
getting less reliable and that the chief dependence is now in the older
men, the women and the children. One remark, made by a planter's wife,
which impressed me as having a good deal of significance, was, "the
Negroes do not sing as much now as formerly."
To get at anything like an accurate statement of the income and expenses
of a Negro family is a difficult matter. The following account of three
families will give a fair idea of their budget for part of the year at
least.
Family No. 1 consists of five adults (over 14) and one child. They live
in a two-roomed cabin and own one mule, two horses two cows. Their
account with the landlord for the years 1900 and 1901 was:
1900.
To balance 1899 $ 32.60
Cash ($25.00) for mule 36.00
Clothing 19.68
Feed 15.20
Provisions 23.00
Tools 2.03
Interest and Recording Fee 16.87
-------
$145.38
1901.
To balance 1900 $ 15.21
Cash 26.57
Clothing 9.55
Feed and seed 44.19
Provisions 26.29
Tools .55
Interest and Recording Fee 16.34
-------
$138.70
Their credit for 1901 was $10392, thus leaving a deficit for the
beginning of the next year. As the advances stop in August or September,
and the balance of the purchases are for cash and may be at other
stores, there is no way of getting at them. In 1900 the family paid $201
toward the 85 acres they are purchasing, part of this sum probably
coming from the crop of 1899, and in 1901 they made a further payment of
$34. This family is doing much better than the average. It may be
interesting to see a copy of his account for the year 1901 taken from
the ledger of the planter.
Jan. 1. Balance 1900 $ 15.21
Jan. 12. 10 bu. corn, $5.00; fodder, $1.20; cash, $8.00 14.20
Jan. 19. Cash for tax, $1.43; recording fee, $1.00; cash, $13.25 15.68
Feb. 2. Plowshoes, $1.40; gents' hose, 10c; 20 yds. check, $1.00;
2 straw hats, $1.20 3.70
Feb. 2. 23.5 bu. corn, $14.94; cash, 79c; shoes, $1.50; plow
lines, 20c 17.43
Mar. 15. 15 yds. drilling, $1.20; 15 yds. check, 75c; 4.5 lbs.
bacon, 48c 2.43
Apr. 6. 10 bu. corn, $7.00; 5 bu. cotton seed, $1.75; 4.5 lbs.
bacon, 53c 9.28
Apr. 12. Bu. meal, 65c; spool cotton, 5c; tobacco, 10c; 7 lbs.
bacon, 81c; 5 bu. corn. $3.50 5.11
May 1. Cash, $1.00; 30 lbs. bacon, $3.45; work shoes, $1.10;
gents' shoes, $1.25; half bu. meal, 35c 7.15
May 1. 30 lbs. bacon, $3.45; (25) 30 lbs. bacon, $3.30; sack
meal, $1.35 8.10
June 8. 2-3 bu. oats, 35c; 1-3 bu. corn, 25c; bu. meal, 70c; sack
feed, $2.50 3.80
June 14. Sack meal, $1.35; 12 lbs. bacon, $1.32; cash, $1.00; (22)
12 lbs. bacon, $1.38 5.05
June 22. Sack meal, $1.35; sack feed, $2.50; plow sweep, 35c 4.20
July 1. 6 lbs. bacon, 69c; (5) sack feed, $2.60; half bu. meal,
35c; (9) bu. meal, 75c; 10 lbs. bacon, $1.15 5.54
July 18. 8 lbs. bacon, 92c; (19) sack feed, $2.60; (25) bu. meal,
90c 4.42
Aug. 6. Half bu. meal, 50c; 4 lbs. bacon, 46c; cash, 35c 1.31
Aug. 6. Interest 15.34
Oct. 6. Cash, 75c .75
-------
$138.70
The second family consists of three adults and three children. They have
three one-roomed cabins, own one mule and two cows, and are leasing
fifty acres of land, the effort to buy it having proven too much. Their
account for 1900 and 1901 was as follows:
1900.
Balance Jan. 1 $ .50
Cash 9.00
Clothing 9.79
Feed 11.50
Provisions 13.48
Tobacco .80
Tools, etc. .40
Interest and recording fee 5.77
------
$52.24
1901.
Balance Jan. 1 $ 4.15
Cash 2.82
Clothing 7.55
Feed 21.22
Provisions 17.69
Tobacco .55
Tools, etc. .70
Interest and fee 7.90
------
$62.48
The debit for 1900 was all paid by November first and by November first,
1901, $58.40 of the charge for that year had been paid. In 1900 the man
paid $94.61 towards his land but has since been leasing.
The third family consists of two adults and three children. They live in
a board cabin of two rooms, have one mule, one cow and one horse. They
are purchasing 50 acres of land. Their accounts for 1900 and 1901 stand
between the two already given.
1900.
Balance 1899 $17.24
Cash 23.20
Clothing 4.73
Provisions 19.80
Tools 4.40
Interest and fee 8.04
------
$77.41
1901.
Balance 1900 $13.93
Cash 21.28
Clothing 6.30
Feed 26.50
Provisions 21.36
Tools 3.50
Interest and fee 12.40
-------
$109.28
By November 30, 1901, they had paid $79.13 of their account. In 1900
they paid $180 towards their land and $29.60 in 1901.
All of these families are a little above the average. The income is
supplemented by the sale of chickens, eggs and occasionally butter. In
hard years when the crops are poor the men and older boys seek service
in the mines of North Alabama or on the railroads during the summer
before cotton picking begins, and again during the winter.
The outfit of the average farmer is very inexpensive and is somewhat as
follows:
Harness, $1.50; pony plow, $3.00; extra point, 25c $4.75
Sweepstock (a), 75c; 3 sweeps, 90c; scooter (b), 10c 1.75
2 hoes, 80c; blacksmith (yearly average), 50c 1.30
-----
Total $7.80
(a) A sweep is a form of cultivator used in cleaning grass and weeds from
the rows of cotton.
(b) A scooter or "bull-tongue" is a strip of iron used in opening the
furrow for the cotton seed.
A cow costs $25, pigs $2 to $2.50, wagon (seldom owned) $45. A mule now
costs from $100 to $150, but may be rented by the year for $20 or $25.
Owners claim there is no profit in letting them at this price and the
Negroes assert that if one dies the owner often claims that it had been
sold and proceeds to collect the value thereof. From either point of
view the plan seems to meet with but little favor.
The following table will give some idea of the condition and personal
property of a number of families in Lowndes County:
----------+----+----+----+----+----+---+-----+---+---+----+---+----+
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L |
----------+----+----+----+----+----+---+-----+---+---+----+---+----+
Family 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |[9]0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
" 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
" 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
" 4 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
" 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
" 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
" 7 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
" 8 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
" 9 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
" 10 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
----------+----+----+----+----+----+---+-----+---+---+----+---+----+
10 | 35 | 16 | 11 | 8 | 25 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 2 | 10 |
----------+----+----+----+----+----+---+-----+---+---+----+---+----+
Key to columns:
A Adults
B Children under 14
C Log Cabins
D B'd Cabins
E No. Rooms
F Sewing Machines
G Mules
H Horses
I Oxen
J Cows
K Pigs
L Dogs
It will be seen that the number of oxen is small. I should not be
surprised if some of the hogs escaped observation.
An account of this district would not be complete without reference to
the herb doctors who do a thriving business, charging from twenty-five
cents per visit up. They make all sorts of noxious compounds which are
retailed as good for various ailments. The medicines are perhaps no more
harmful than the patent compounds of other places. There are also witch
doctors, of whom the Negroes stand in great awe and many a poor sufferer
has died because it was believed that he or she was bewitched by some
evil person, hence physicians could have no power.
The budgets given indicate, and this is my own belief, that the farmers
in this district are just about holding their own. They are not trained
to take advantage of their environment to the full so they do not
prosper as they might, while occasional designing persons take great
advantage of them, thereby rendering them discouraged. The introduction
of a more diversified farming, the greater utilization of local
resources in fruits and vegetables, thereby giving variety in the diet,
the development of pastures and stock raising would enable them to break
away from the mortgage system, which retards them in many ways.
This view that the farmers here are about able to make a living is
supported by the investigations of Professor Du Bois.[10] He gives the
following report of 271 families in Georgia:
Year, 1898. Price of cotton low.
Bankrupt and sold out 3
$100 or over in debt 61
$25 to $100 in debt 54
$1 to $25 in debt 47
Cleared nothing 53
Cleared $1 to $25 27
Cleared $25 to $100 21
Cleared $100 and over 5
----
271
Regarding the general situation he says: "A good season with good prices
regularly sent a number out of debt and made them peasant proprietors; a
bad season, either in weather or prices, still means the ruin of a
thousand black homes." Under existing conditions the outlook does not
seem to me especially hopeful.
ALLUVIAL DISTRICT.
=A DOUBLE CABIN IN THE DELTA.=
The Mississippi river, deflected westward by the hills of Tennessee, at
Memphis sweeps in a long arc to the hills at Natchez. The oval between
the river and the hills to the East is known as the "Delta." The land is
very flat, being higher on the border of the river so that when the
river overflows the entire bottom land is flooded. The waters are not
restrained by a good system of levees and the danger of floods is
reduced. There are similar areas in Arkansas and Louisiana and along the
lower courses of the Red and other rivers, but what is said here will
have special reference to Mississippi conditions. The land is extremely
fertile, probably there is none better in the world, and is covered with
a dense growth of fine woods, oak, ash, gum and cypress. The early
settlements, as already stated, were along the navigable streams, but
the great development of railroads is opening up the entire district.
The country may still be called new and thousands of acres may be
purchased at a cost of less than $10 per acre, wild land, of course.
Cultivated land brings from $25 up.
Considering its possibilities the region is not yet densely populated,
but a line of immigration is setting in and the indications are that the
Delta will soon be the seat of the heaviest Negro population in the
country. Already it rivals the black prairie of Alabama. There have been
many influences to retard immigration, the fear of fevers, malaria and
typhoid, commonly associated with low countries, and the dread of
overflows. Because of the lack of the labor force to develop the country
planters have been led to offer higher wages, better houses, etc. There
is about the farming district an air of prosperity which is not
noticeable to the East. The country is particularly adapted to cotton,
the yield is heavier, about a bale to the acre if well cultivated,
though the average is a little less, the staple is longer, and the price
is about a cent a pound higher, than in the hills. Fertilizers are
seldom used and are not carried in the stores. Some of the lands which
have been longest in use have been harmed by improper tillage, but the
injury may easily be repaired by intelligent management.
In the Delta the average size of the plantations is large, but the
amount of land under the care of the tenant is smaller than in other
sections. About 20 acres is probably the average to one work animal. The
soil is heavier, requiring longer and more constant cultivation. For
this land a rental of from $6 to $8 per acre is paid, while plantations
will rent for a term of years at an acre. A good deal of new land is
brought in cultivation by offering it rent free to a Negro for three
years, the tenant agreeing to clear off the timber and bring the soil
under cultivation. On some plantations no interest is charged on goods
advanced by the Negro usually pays 25 per cent. for all money he
borrows. The white planter has to pay at least 8 per cent and agree to
sell his cotton through the factor of whom the money is obtained and pay
him a commission of 2.5 per cent. for handling the cotton.
The plantation accounts of three families follow for the year 1901. They
live in Washington County, Mississippi, in which the Negroes form 89 per
cent. of the total population.
The first family consists of three adults and one child under 14. They
own two mules, two cows, ten pigs and some chickens. They also have a
wagon and the necessary farm implements.
Their expenses were enlarged, as were those of the other families, by an
epidemic of smallpox.
Debit. Credit.
Doctor $39.50 Cotton $826.80
Blacksmith 1.85 Cotton seed 147.00
Implements 15.05 -------
Clothes 102.55 $973.80
Provisions 42.10 856.95
Rent 175.07 -------
Extra labor 53.50 Balance $116.85
Seed 31.30
Ginning Cotton 61.30
Cash drawn 334.73
-------
$856.95
Their account at the close of the year showed thus a balance of $116.85.
The family raised 2 bales of cotton and had besides 180 bushels of corn
from six acres.
The second family came to the plantation in 1900 with nothing, not even
with decent clothing. Now they have two mules, keep some pigs, own a
wagon and farming tools. There are five adults in the family and two
children. They live in a three-roomed cabin and till 30 acres of land,
four acres being wood land taken for clearing, for which there is no
rent.
Debit. Credit.
Doctor $ 35.35 Cotton $1,091.28
Feed 5.00 Cotton seed 196.00
Mule (balance) 77.00 ---------
Rations and clothes 284.10 $1,287.28
Rent 175.50 1,035.82
Extra labor 67.60 ---------
Ginning 101.25 Balance $ 251.46
Cash drawn 290.02
---------
$1,035.82
The third family is of different type. They are always behind, although
the wife is a good worker and the man is willing and seems to try. They
are considered one of the poorest families on the plantation. There are
two adults and one child. They own farming implements, one mule and some
pigs. They have a two-roomed cabin and farm 18 acres for which they pay
a crop rent of 1,800 pounds of cotton.
Debit. Credit.
Doctor $ 24.45 Cotton $498.57
Mule 33.00 Cotton seed 91.00
Clothing 53.40 -------
Rations 60.00 $589.57
Feed 11.25 576.55
Rent 130.50 -------
Extra labor 179.45 Balance $ 13.02
Seed 11.90
Ginning 43.50
Cash down 53.50
-------
$576.55
An examination of the accounts reveals that there is a charge for extra
labor, which for the third family was very heavy. This results from the
fact that the average family _could_, but _does not_ pick all the cotton
it makes, so when it is seen that enough is on hand to pay all the bills
and leave a balance it is very careless about the remainder. Planters
have great difficulty in getting all the cotton picked and a
considerable portion is often lost. Extra labor must be imported. This
is hard to get and forms, when obtained, a serious burden on the income
of the tenant.
On the plantation from whose books the above records were taken the
system of bookkeeping is more than usually careful and the gin account
thus forms a separate item so that although all planters charge for the
ginning the charge does not always appear on the books.
These three families are believed to be average and indicate what it is
possible for the typical family to do under ordinary conditions. It is
but fair to state that the owners of this plantation make many efforts
to get their tenants to improve their condition and will not long keep
those whose accounts do not show a credit balance at the end of the
year. A copy of the lease in use will be of interest and its
stipulations form quite a contrast to the one quoted from Alabama. The
cash and share leases are identical save for necessary changes in form.
The names are fictitious.
"This Contract, made this date and terminating December 31, 1902,
between Smith and Brown, and John Doe, hereinafter called tenant,
Witnesses: That Smith and Brown have this day rented and set apart
to John Doe for the year 1902 certain twenty acres of land on James
Plantation, Washington County, Mississippi, at a rental price per
acre of seven dollars and fifty cents. Smith and Brown hereby agree
to furnish, with said land, a comfortable house and good pump, and
to grant to the said tenant the free use of such wood as may be
necessary for his domestic purposes and to advance such supplies,
in such quantity and manner as may be mutually agreed upon as being
necessary to maintain him in the cultivation of said land; it being
now mutually understood that by the term "supplies" is meant meat,
meal, molasses, tobacco, snuff, medicine and medical attention,
good working shoes and clothes, farming implements and corn. It is
also hereby mutually agreed and understood that anything other than
the articles herein enumerated is to be advanced to the said tenant
only as the condition of his crops and account and the manner of
his work shall, in the judgment of Smith and Brown, be deemed to
entitle him. They also agree to keep said house and pump in good
repair and to keep said land well ditched and drained.
Being desirous of having said tenant raise sufficient corn to
supply his needs during the ensuing year, in consideration of his
planting such land in corn as they may designate, they hereby agree
to purchase from said tenant all corn over and above such as may be
necessary for his needs, and to pay therefor the market price; and
to purchase all corn raised by him in the event be wishes to remove
from James plantation at the termination of this contract. In
consideration of the above undertaking on Smith and Brown's part,
the said tenant hereby agrees to sell to them all surplus corn
raised by him and in the event of his leaving James' plantation at
the termination of this contract to sell to them all corn he may
have on hand: in each case at the market price.
The said Smith and Brown hereby reserve to themselves all liens
for rent and supplies on all cotton, cotton seed, corn and other
agricultural products, grown upon said land during the year 1902,
granted under Sections 2495 and 2496 of the Code of 1892. They
hereby agree to handle and sell for the said tenant all cotton and
other crops raised by him for sale, to the best of their ability,
and to account to him for the proceeds of the same when sold. They
also reserve to themselves the right to at all times exercise such
supervision as they may deem necessary over the planting and
cultivating of all crops to be raised by him during the year 1902.
The said John Doe hereby rents from Smith and Brown the above
mentioned land for the year 1902 and promises to pay therefor seven
dollars and a half per acre on or before November the first, 1902,
and hereby agrees to all the terms and stipulations herein
mentioned.
He furthermore represents to Smith and Brown that he has sufficient
force to properly plant and cultivate same, and agrees that if at
any time in their judgment his crops may be in need of cultivation,
they may have the necessary work done and charge same to his
account.
He furthermore agrees to at all times properly control his family
and hands, both as to work and conduct, and obligates himself to
prevent any one of them from causing any trouble whatsoever, either
to his neighbors or to Smith and Brown.
He also agrees to plant and cultivate all land allotted to him,
including the edges of the roads, turn rows, and ditch banks, and
to keep the latter at all times clean and to plant no garden or
truck patches in his field.
He also agrees to gather and deliver all agricultural products
which he may raise for sale to said Smith and Brown, as they may
designate to be handled and sold by them, for his account.
He also agrees not to abandon, neglect, turn back or leave his
crops or any part of them, nor to allow his family or hands to do
so, until entirely gathered and delivered.
In order that Smith and Brown may be advised of the number of
tenants which they may have to secure for the ensuing year, in
ample time to enable them to provide for the same, the said tenant
hereby agrees to notify them positively by December 10, 1902,
whether or not he desires to remain on James' Plantation for the
ensuing year. Should he not desire to remain, then he agrees to
deliver to Smith and Brown possession of the house now allotted to
him by January 1st, 1903. In order that said tenant may have ample
time in which to provide for himself a place for the ensuing year,
Smith and Brown hereby agree to notify him by December 10, 1902,
should they not want him as a tenant during the ensuing year.
Witness our signatures, this the 15th day of December, 1901.
SMITH AND BROWN.
JOHN DOE.
Witness: J. W. JAMES.
The owners have been unable to carry out their efforts in full, but the
result has been very creditable. The lease is much preferable to the one
given on page 46.
If, as I believe, the families above reported are average and are living
under ordinary conditions, it seems evident that a considerable surplus
results from their labors each year. I wish I could add that the money
were being either wisely spent or saved and invested. This does not seem
to be the case and it is generally stated that the amount of money
wasted in the fall of the year by the blacks of the Delta is enormous.
In the cabins the great catalogs of the mail order houses of Montgomery
Ward & Co., and Sears, Roebuck & Co., of Chicago are often found, and
the express agents say that large shipments of goods are made to the
Negroes. Patent medicines form no inconsiderable proportion of these
purchases, while "Stutson" hats, as the Negro says, are required by the
young bloods. The general improvidence of the people is well illustrated
by the following story related by a friend of the writer. At the close
of one season an old Negro woman came to his wife for advice as to the
use to be made of her savings, some $125. She was advised to buy some
household necessities and to put the remainder in a bank, above all she
was cautioned to beware of any who sought to get her to squander the
money. The woman left but in about two weeks' time returned to borrow
some money. It developed that as she went down the street a Jewess
invited her to come in and have a cup of coffee. The invitation was
accepted and during the conversation she was advised to spend the money.
This she did, and when the transactions were over the woman had one
barrel of flour, one hundred pounds of meat, ten dollars or so worth of
cheap jewelry, some candy and other incidentals and no money. Foolish
expenditures alone, according to the belief of the planters, prevent the
Negroes from owning the entire land in a generation. I would not give
the impression that there are no Negro land owners in this region.
Thousands of acres have been purchased and are held by them, but we are
speaking of average families.
Some curious customs prevail. The planters generally pay the Negroes in
cash for their cotton seed and this money the blacks consider as
something peculiarly theirs, not to be used for any debts they may have.
Although the prices for goods advanced are higher than cash prices, the
Negroes will often, when spring comes, insist that they be advanced, so
have the goods charged even at the higher prices, even though they have
the cash on hand. This great over-appreciation of present goods is a
drawback to their progress.
In this district I found little dissatisfaction among the Negro farmers.
They felt that their opportunities were good. Those who come from the
hills can scarce believe their eyes at the crops produced and constantly
ask when the cotton plants are going to turn yellow and droop. That
there is little migration back to the hills is good evidence of the
relative standing of the two districts in their eyes.
Wages for day labor range from 60 to 75 cents, but the extra labor
imported for cotton picking makes over double this.
THE SUGAR REGION.
South of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the alluvial district is largely given
over to the growing of sugar cane with occasional fields of rice. The
district under cultivation stretches back from the river a couple of
miles or so to the edge of the woods beyond which at present there is no
tillable ground, though drainage will gradually push back the line of
the forest. These sugar lands are valued highly, $100 or so an acre, and
the capital invested in the great sugar houses is enormous. Probably
nowhere in agricultural pursuits is there a more thorough system of
bookkeeping than on these plantations. This land is cultivated by hired
hands, who work immediately under the eye of overseers. Nowhere is the
land let out in small lots to tenants. Conditions are radically
different from those prevailing in the cotton regions. The work season,
it is claimed, begins on the first day of January and ends on the 31st
of December, and every day between when the weather permits work in the
fields there is work to be done.
=CABINS ON SUGAR PLANTATION.=
These plantations present an attractive appearance. The cabins are not
scattered as in the cotton country, but are usually ranged on either
side of a broad street, with rows of trees in front. The cabins are
often for two families and each has a plot of ground for a garden. The
planters say the Negroes will not live in the houses unless the garden
plots are provided, even if they make no use of them. To each family is
allotted a house so long as they are employed on the place. Wood is free
and teams are provided for hauling it from the forest. Free pasture for
stock is often provided.
From the fact that the men would seldom work more than five and a half
days a week arose the custom of paying off every eleven days. Each
workman has a time book and as soon as he has completed his eleven days
his pay is due. This avoids a general pay day and the demoralization
that would likely follow. Work is credited by quarters of a day: Sunrise
to breakfast, breakfast to dinner, dinner to about 3:00 p. m., 3:00 p. m.
to sunset. Wages vary according to the season, being much larger during
autumn when the cane is being ground. For field work men get 70 cents
per day, women 55 to 60 cents. During the grinding season the men earn
from $1 to $1.25, the women about 85 cents, children from 25 cents up.
Wages are usually paid through a store which may or may not be under the
direct ownership of the plantation. All accounts against the store are
deducted, but the balance must be paid in cash if it is so desired.
Nominally the men are free to trade where they will, but it is easy to
see that pressure might be brought to bear to make it advantageous to
trade at the local store.
During the year 1901 two families were able to earn the following
amounts. The first family consists of three adults and two children, but
the wife did not work in the field.
$10.50 7.00 13.80 12.60 10.85 12.60 11.55
10.85 6.65 13.80 12.95 15.40 14.50 11.20
2.62 1.25 2.25 4.35
------------------------------------------
$23.97 14.90 27.60 25.55 26.25 29.35 27.10
11.55 8.40 9.80 20.60 25.75 28.75 Man
11.20 7.35 9.80 7.95 16.00 10.15 Son
4.35 3.05 1.20 6.40 18.15 15.75 Boy
1.85 10.12 6.75 Boy
--------------------------------------------
27.10 18.80 20.80 36.80 70.02 61.40--$382.54
During the grinding season the men's wages were increased to $1 a day
and the boys' to 40 cents and the father had chances to make extra time
as nightwatchman, etc. This family own a horse and buggy, keep poultry
and have a fair garden. They are rather thrifty and have money stowed
away somewhere.
The second family consists of the parents and eight children. Their
income is fair, but they are always "hard up." They spend their money
extravagantly. The man is head teamster on the plantation and makes 80
cents per day, which is increased to $1.30 during the grinding season.
The wife in this family also did no work save in the fall.
$16.00 14.40 17.60 15.40 18.40 16.80 17.80
7.87 6.85 10.10 9.25 9.65 10.10 11.00
12.60 8.75 12.60 13.30 15.55 14.50 11.90
2.90 1.50 4.50
1.25 1.80 .65
------------------------------------------
$40.62 33.30 45.45 37.95 43.60 41.40 40.70
17.80 18.00 16.60 23.30 44.95 43.05 Man
11.00 10.25 4.00 6.00 19.30 18.00 Boy
11.90 12.40 11.70 19.25 25.75 23.00 Son
6.75 17.25 14.75 Girl
1.60 Boy
2.10 8.00 5.25 Boy
3.00 15.15 13.50 Woman
----------------------------------------------
40.70 40.65 32.30 60.40 130.30 119.15--665.82
These families are typical so far as known. In comparing their incomes
with those in other districts it must be borne in mind that they have no
rent to pay and their only necessary expenses are for food and clothes
and incidentals. Certainly both of the families should have money to
their credit at the end of the year. The total wages depends not only on
the willingness to work, but also on weather conditions. One gets the
impression that in some places conditions are pretty bad and even by
some white residents of the state it is claimed that a state of
servitude almost prevails on many plantations. In any case the Negroes
do not seem satisfied. The labor is rather heavy. For this or other
reasons there has been quite an exodus to the cotton country in recent
years, which has caused the cane planters much trouble and they will
make many concessions to keep their tenants. To meet this emigration for
some time efforts have been made to import Italian labor but the results
have not been wholly satisfactory. The Italians are more reliable and
this is a great argument in their favor, but with this exception they
are not considered much better workers than the blacks. The storekeepers
much prefer the Negroes, who spend their money more freely.
The planters claim that the labor is unreliable and say they never know
on Saturday how many workers they will have on Monday. They also say it
is hard to get extra labor done. In 1900 on one plantation the women
were offered ten cents a day extra for some hoeing, but only four held
out. Higher wages were offered if some cane were cut by the ton instead
of by the day, but after a week the hands asked to return to the gang at
the lower wage.
In the rice fields along the river about the same wages prevail as for
the field hands in the cane plantations. The rice crop, however, is but
a six months crop, so other employment must be found for part of the
year if nothing but rice is raised. It is usual in this region to raise
rice as a side crop.
CHAPTER V. SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.
=COUNTRY CHURCH AND SCHOOL.=
Hitherto we have had to do chiefly with the economic situation of the
Negro farmer. There is, however, another set of forces which may not be
ignored if we are to understand the situation which confronts us. These
are, of course, the social forces. In discussing these it is more than
ever essential to remember that a differentiation has been taking place
among the Negroes and that there are large numbers who are not to be
grouped with the average men and women whom we seek to describe. It may
even be true that there are communities which have gained a higher
level. Any statement of the social environment of 8,000,000 people must
necessarily be false if applied strictly to each individual. The
existence of the higher class must not, however, be allowed to blind us
to the condition of the rest.
The average Negro boy or girl is allowed to grow. It is difficult to
say much more for the training received at home. We must remember that
there is an almost total absence of home life as we understand it. The
family seldom sits down together at the table or do anything else in
common. The domestic duties are easily mastered by the girls and chores
do not weigh heavily on the boys. At certain periods of the year the
children are compelled to assist in the farm operations, such as picking
cotton, but most of the time they are care free. Thus they run almost
wild while the parents are at work in the fields, and the stranger who
suddenly approaches a cabin and beholds the youngsters scattering for
shelter will not soon forget the sight. Obedience, neatness, punctuality
do not thrive in such an atmosphere. The introduction to the country
school a little later does not greatly improve conditions. The teachers
are often incompetent and their election often depends upon other things
than fitness to teach; upon things, indeed, which are at times far from
complimentary to the school trustees. The school year seldom exceeds
four months and this may be divided into two terms, two months in the
fall and two in the spring. School opens at an indefinite time in the
morning, if scheduled for nine it is just as likely as not that it
begins at ten thirty, while the closing hour is equally uncertain. The
individual attention received by the average child is necessarily small.
The schools are poorly equipped with books or maps. The interior view
given on page 61 is by no means exceptional.
It may not be out of place to mention the fact that recognition of these
evils is leading in many places in the South to the incorporation of
private schools, which then offer their facilities to the public in
return for partial support at the public expense. Public moneys are
being turned over to these schools in considerable amounts. In some
counties the public does not own a school building. Without questioning
the fact that these schools are an improvement over existing conditions,
history will belie itself if this subsidizing of private organizations
does not some day prove a great drawback to the proper development of
the public school system, unless it may be, that the courts will declare
the practice illegal and unconstitutional.
The home and the school being from our point of view unsatisfactory, the
next social institution to which we turn is the church. Since the war
this has come to be the most influential in the opinion of the Negro and
it deserves more careful study than has yet been given to it. Only some
of the more obvious features can here be considered. The first thing to
impress the observer is the fact that time is again no object to the
Negro. The service advertised for eleven may get fairly under way by
twelve and there is no predicting when it will stop. The people drift in
and out, one or two at a time, throughout the service. Families do not
enter nor sit together. Outside is always a group talking over matters
of general interest. The music, lined out, consists of the regulation
church hymns, which are usually screeched all out of time in a high key.
The contrast between this music and the singing of the plantation songs
at Hampton or some other schools which impresses one as does little
music he hears elsewhere is striking. The people have the idea that
plantation songs are out of place in the church. The collection is taken
with a view to letting others know what each one does. At the proper
time a couple of the men take their places at a table before the pulpit
and invite the people to come forward with their offerings. The people
straggle up the aisle with their gifts, being constantly urged to hasten
so as not to delay the service. After half an hour or so the results
obtained are remarkable and the social emulation redounds to the benefit
of the preacher. It is difficult for the white visitor to get anything
but hints of the real possibilities of the preacher, for he is at once
introduced to the audience and induced to address them if it is
possible. Even when this is not done there is usually an air of
restraint which is noticeable. Only occasionally does the speaker forget
himself and break loose, as it were. The study then presented is
interesting in the extreme. While the minister shouts, the audience are
swaying backward and forward in sympathetic rhythm, encouraging the
speaker with cries of "Amen", "That's right", "That's the Gospel", "Give
it to 'em bud", "Give 'em a little long sweetening". There is no
question that they are profoundly moved, but the identity of the spirit
which troubles the waters is to me sometimes a question. The forms of
the white man's religion have been adopted, but the content of these
forms seems strangely different. Seemingly the church, or rather,
religion, is not closely identified with morality. I am sorry to say
that in the opinion of the best of both races the average country (and
city) pastor does not bear a good reputation, the estimates of the
immoral running from 50 to 98 per cent. of the total number. It is far
from me to discount any class of people, but if the situation is
anything as represented by the estimate, the seriousness of it is
evident. This idea is supported by the fact that indulgence in
immorality is seldom a bar to active church membership, and if a member
be dismissed from one communion there are others anxious to receive him
or her. There are churches and communities of which these statements are
not true. It is interesting to note that the churches are securing their
chief support from the women. As an organization the church does not
seem to have taken any great interest in the matters which most vitally
affect the life of the people, except to be a social center. If these
things be considered it is easy to see why the best informed are seeking
for the country districts men who can be leaders of the people during
the week on the farms as well as good speakers on Sunday. It is a
pleasure to note that here and there some busy pastor is also spending a
good deal of his time cultivating a garden, or running a small farm,
with the distinct purpose of setting a good example. The precise way in
which the church may be led to exert a wider and more helpful influence
on the people is a matter of great importance, but it must be solved
from within.
Turning from religious work we find the church bearing an important
place in the social life and amusements. Besides its many gatherings and
protracted meetings which are social functions, numbers of picnics and
excursions are given. These may be on the railroads to rather distant
points, and because of the lack of discrimination as to participants,
many earnest protests have been filed by the better class of Negroes.
The amusements of the blacks are simple. Nearly all drink, but
drunkenness is not a great vice. Dances are in high esteem, and are
often accompanied by much drinking and not infrequently by cutting
scrapes, for the Negro's passions lie on the surface and are easily
aroused. In South Carolina the general belief seems to be that the
dispensary law has been beneficial. There is also a universal fondness
for tobacco in all its forms. Gambling prevails wherever there is ready
money and not infrequently leads to serious assaults. Music has great
charms while a circus needs not the excuse of children to justify it in
the Negro's eyes. Some of the holidays are celebrated, and when on the
coast the blacks dubbed the 30th of May "Desecration Day," there were
those who thought it well named. Active sports, with the occasional
exception of a ball game, are not preferred to the more quiet pleasure
of sitting about in the sunshine conversing with friends. America can
not show a happier, more contented lot of people than these same blacks.
If we turn our attention to other characteristics of the Negro we must
notice his different moral standard. To introduce the little I shall say
on this point let me quote from a well known anthropologist. "There is
nothing more difficult for us to realize, civilized as we are, than the
mental state of the man far behind us in cultivation, as regards what we
call par excellence 'morality.' It is not indecency; it is simply an
animal absence of modesty. Acts which are undeniably quite natural,
since they are the expression of a primordial need, essential to the
duration of the species, but which a long ancestral and individual
education has trained us to subject to a rigorous restraint, and to the
accomplishment of which, consequently, we can not help attaching a
certain shame, do not in the least shock the still imperfect conscience
of the primitive man." From somewhat this standpoint we must judge of
the Negro. Two or three illustrations will suffice. Talking last summer
to a porter in a small hotel, I asked him if he had ever lived on a
farm. He replied that he had and that he often thought of returning.
Asking him why he did not he said that it would be necessary for him to
get a wife and a lot of other things. I suggested the possibility of
boarding in another family. He shook his head and said: "Niggers is
queer folks, boss. 'Pears to me they don' know what they gwine do. Ef I
go out and live in a man's house like as not I run away wid dat man's
wife." The second illustration is taken from an unpublished manuscript
by Rev. J. L. Tucker of Baton Rouge.
There is a negro of good character here in Baton Rouge whose name
is ---- ----. He is a whitewasher by trade and does mainly odd jobs
for the white people who are his patrons, and earns a good living.
He is widely known through the city as a good and reliable man.
Some time ago he had trouble with his wife's preacher, who came to
his house too often. The trouble culminated in his wife leaving
him. Soon thereafter he sent or went into the country and brought
home a negro woman whom he installed in his house to cook and
otherwise serve him. Explaining the circumstances to Mr. ----, he
said: "I a'in' got no use for nigga preachers. Dey is de debbil wid
de wimmen. I tol' dat ar fellah to keep away fr'm my house or I'd
hunt him wid a shotgun, an' I meant it. But he got her'n spite a
me. She went off to 'im. Now I's got me a wife from way back in de
country, who don' know the ways of nigga preachers. I kin keep her,
I reckon, a while, anyway. I pays her wages reg'lar, an' she does
her duty by me. I tell yeh, Mr. ----, a hired wife's a heap
better's a married wife any time, yeh mark dat. Ef yeh don' line er
yer can sen' her off an' get anudder, an' she's nutten to complain
'bout a' longs yeh pay her wages. Yes siree, yeh put dat down; de
hired wife's nuff sight better'n de married one. I don' fus no mo'
wid marryin' wives, I hires 'em. An I sent word to dat preacher dat
if he comes roun' my house now I lays for 'im shore wid buck shot."
Commenting, Mr. Tucker says that the man had no idea of moral wrong, the
real wife has lost no caste, the preacher stands just as well with his
flock and the "new wife" is well received. The third instance occurred
on a plantation. A married woman, not satisfied with the shoes she
received from the store, wanted a pair of yellow turned shoes. The
planter would not supply them. The woman was angry and finally left her
husband, went to a neighboring place and "took up" with another man.
These cases sufficiently illustrate prevailing conceptions of the
sacredness of the marriage tie. Certainly this involves a theory of home
life which differs from ours. Many matings are consummated without any
regular marriage ceremony and with little reference to legal
requirements, and divorces are equally informal. Moral lapses seldom
bring the Negro before the courts. All these things but indicate the
handicap which has to be overcome. Within the family there is often
great abuse on the part of the men. The result of it all is that many
Negroes do not know their own fathers and so little are the ties of
kinship' regarded that near relatives are often unknown, and if possible
less cared for. This may be substantiated by the records of any charity
society in the North which has sought to trace friends of its Negro
applicants. To attempt a quantitative estimate of the extent of sexual
immorality is useless. It is sufficient to realize that a different
standard prevails and one result today is a frightful prevalence of
venereal diseases to which any practising physician in the South can
bear witness. I am glad to say there are sections which have risen above
these conditions.
The transition from slavery to freedom set in operation the forces of
natural selection, which are sure and steadily working among the people
and are weeding out those who for any reason can not adapt themselves to
the new environment. Insanity, almost unknown in slavery times, has
appeared and has been increasing among the Negroes of the South at a
rate of about 100 per cent. a decade since 1860. Of course, the number
affected is still small, but the end is perhaps not reached. We have
witnessed also the development of the pauper and criminal classes. This
was to be expected. There is also some evidence of an increase in the
use of drugs, cocaine and the like. The point to be noted is that there
is taking place a steady division of the Negroes into various social
strata and in spite of race traits it is no longer to be considered as
on a level.
I have sought to represent the situation as it appears to me, neither
seeking to overemphasize the virtues or the vices of the race. It is
clear to me that in spite of the obvious progress the road ahead is long
and hard. While I do not anticipate any such acceleration of speed as
will immediately bring about an economic or social millenium I believe
that proper measures may be found, indeed, are already in use, which if
widely adopted will lead to better things. How many of the race will
fall by the way is, in one sense, a matter of indifference. In the long
run, for the whites as well as the blacks, they will survive who adapt
their social theories and, consequently, their modes of life to their
environments.
CHAPTER VI. THE OUTLOOK.
"One of the things which militates most against the Negro here is his
unreliability. * * * His mental processes are past finding out and he
can not be counted on to do or not to do a given thing under given
circumstances. There is scarcely a planter in all this territory who
would not make substantial concessions for an assured tenantry." A
Northern man, now resident in the South and employing Negro labor, says:
"I am convinced of one thing and that is that there is no dependence to
be placed in 90 per cent. of the Negro laborers if left to themselves
and out of the overseer's sight." These quotations from men who are
seeking to promote the success of the Negroes with whom they come in
contact might be multiplied indefinitely from every part of the South.
The statements are scarce open to discussion, so well recognized is the
fact. If I have rightly apprehended the nature of the training afforded
by Africa and slavery there was little in them to develop the habits of
forethought, thrift and industry, upon which this reliability must be
based.
I am not arguing the question as to whether this unreliability marks a
decadence of Negro standards or whether it is due to the present higher
standards of the white. For argument, at least, I am willing to admit
that in quality of workmanship, in steadfastness and self-control there
has really been great progress. My interest is in the present and future
rather than the past. I have tried to show that, judged by present
standards, the Negro is still decidedly lacking. Personally I am not
surprised at this. I should be astonished if it were otherwise. The
trouble is that we at the North are unable to disabuse ourselves of the
idea that the Negro is a dark skinned Yankee and we think, therefore,
that if all is not as it should be that something is wrong, that
somebody or some social condition is holding him back. We accuse
slavery, attribute it to the hostility of the Southern white. Something
_is holding him back_, but it is his inheritance of thousands of years
in Africa, not slavery nor the Southern whites. It is my observation
that the white of the black belt deal with the Negro more patiently and
endure far more of shiftless methods than the average Northerner would
tolerate for a day. It is interesting to note that Northern white women
who go South filled with the idea that the Negro is abused can scarce
keep a servant the first year or so of their stay. Of course there are
exceptions, few in number, who say as did a lumberman in Alabama last
summer: "I never have any trouble with the Negro. Have worked them for
twenty years. Why, I haven't had to kill one yet, though I did shoot one
once, but I used fine shot and it didn't hurt him much." We have
attempted to have the Negro do in a few years what it has taken us
thousands to accomplish, and are surprised that he has disappointed us.
There is no room for discouragement. Contrast the Negro in Africa and
America to see what has been done.
Unless this unreliability is overcome it will form even a greater
handicap for the future. Southern methods of agriculture have been more
wasteful of small economies than have Northern. That a change is
imperative, in many districts at least, has been shown. Is the Negro in
a position to take advantage of these changes? At present it must be
admitted that he does not possess the knowledge to enable him to utilize
his environment and make the most out of it. It has been shown that he
is bearing little part in the development of the trucking industry, nay
more, that he does not even raise enough garden truck for his own
support. In a bulletin of the Farmer's Improvement Society of Texas I
find the following:
Very many, in the first place, do not try to make their supplies at
home. Very often much is lost by bad fences. Lots of them don't know
where their hoes, plows, single-trees, etc., are at this minute. Lots
of them buy butter, peas, beans, lard, meat and hay. * * * Well,
really, to sum up, if there's anything like scientific methods among
the vast majority of our people I don't know it. * * * I venture to
say that not one negro farmer in a hundred ever saw the back of one
of these bulletins (agricultural), much less the inside.
If some of these primary lessons have not been mastered what chance is
there that the Negro will overcome, unaided, the crop lien system and
his other handicaps and introduce diversified agriculture, stock
raising, etc.? Slavery taught him something about work and he is willing
to work, and work hard, under leadership. Herein lies the possibility of
his economic salvation. He is not yet ready as a race to stand alone and
advance at the pace demanded by America of the twentieth century. He
must be taught and the teaching must be by practice as well as by
precept. Viewed from this standpoint, though it is equally true from
another, one of the great needs of the South is that its white farmers
should pay more attention to other things than cotton. So long as land
is considered too valuable to use for pasture, for hay, for the various
crops on which stock live and fatten, or so long as it is considered
profitable to sell cotton seed for $5 a ton and throw away four or five
times this amount in the food and manure which the same seed contains,
the Negro will not see the advantage of a different system. Nor does the
sight of thousands of tons of rice straw dumped into the Mississippi
each year, just as a generation ago the oat straw in Iowa was burned,
lead him to suspect unused sources of wealth. The possibilities of
Southern agriculture are great, but the lead must be taken by the
whites.
The Negro has a great advantage over the Italian or other European
peasant in that the white man prefers him as a helper. He is patient,
docile and proud of his work. He is wanted by the native whites, and if
the reader doubts this let him go to any Southern community and attempt
to bring about any great exodus of the Negroes and he will be surprised
to find how soon he is requested to move on. This interest on the part
of the whites is a factor which must be considered. It would be a happy
day for the Negro if the white woman of the South took her old personal
interest in his welfare. This friendly sentiment will not increase with
time and each succeeding generation will emphasize, more and more,
industrial efficiency, and the Negro will not be preferred.
Corresponding to this is the fact that the Negro respects and willingly
follows the white man, more willingly and more trustingly than he does
another Negro. He is personally loyal, as the care received by the
soldiers during war time illustrated. But slavery is gone and the
feudalism which followed it is slowly yielding to commercialism, which
gives the palm to the more efficient.
Hitherto the Negro has tilled much of the best land of the South.
Meantime the great prairies have been settled and about all the good
cheap land of the northwest taken. A tide of immigration is setting in
towards the Southern states. Already the rice industry of Louisiana has
been revolutionized by white immigrants. What may this mean for the
Negro if these incoming whites defy race prejudice and seek the rich
bottom lands of the Mississippi or elsewhere? Will the Negro be in a
position of independence or will he only assist the white? Will he till
in the future the best lands or will he be forced to the less fertile?
With the knowledge of the present regarding yellow fever, malaria and
typhoid the dread of the lowlands is disappearing. If the indications
point, as many believe, towards the South as the seat of the next great
agricultural development these questions become of vital importance to
the Negro. Can he become economically secure before he is made to meet a
competition which he has never yet faced? Or does the warmer climate
give him an advantage, which the whites can not overcome? I must confess
that I doubt it. In "The Cotton Plant" (page 242), Mr. Harry Hammond
states that in 39 counties of the Black Prairie Region of Texas, in
which the whites predominate, the average value of the land is $12.19
per acre, as against $6.40 for similar soil in twelve counties of the
Black Prairie of Alabama, in which the Negroes are in the majority. He
says further: "The number and variety of implements recently introduced
in cotton culture here, especially in the prairies of Texas, is very
much greater than elsewhere in the cotton belt." This would indicate
that heat alone is no insurmountable obstacle.
If these things be true, then as the late Mr. J. L. M. Curry said:
"It may be assumed that the industrial problem lies at the heart of
the whole situation which confronts us. Into our public and other
schools should be incorporated industrial training. If to
regularity, punctuality, silence, obedience to authority, there be
systematically added instruction in mechanical arts, the results
would be astounding."
The question of classical education does not now concern us. The
absolutely essential thing is that the Negro shall learn to work
regularly and intelligently. The lesson begun in slavery must be
mastered. As Dr. E. G. Murphy puts it:
The industrial training supplied by that school (slavery) is now
denied to him. The capacity, the equipment, and the necessity for
work which slavery provided are the direct cause of the superiority
of the old time darkey. Is freedom to have no substitute for the
ancient school? * * * The demand of the situation is not less
education, but more education of the right sort.
I would not say that I thought all Negroes should be farmers, but I do
feel that the farm offers the mass of the race the most favorable
opportunity for the development of solid and enduring character. It
seems to me that the following words from one of our broadest minded men
apply with special force to the Negro:
If I had some magic gift to bestow it would be to make our country
youth see one truth, namely, that science as applied to the farm,
the garden and the forest has as splendid a dignity as astronomy;
that it may work just as many marvels and claim just as high an
order of talent."
CHAPTER VII. AGRICULTURAL TRAINING.
There remain to be considered some of the agencies at work to better the
lot of the farmer. In this I shall not attempt to give a list of
institutions and outline of courses but to indicate various lines of
work which seem promising.
In discussing the training of the Negro farmer credit must first be
given to the white planters under whom he has learned so much of what he
knows. Under the changing conditions of agriculture this training, or
the training received on the average farm is not sufficient and must be
supplemented by special training if the desired results are to be
obtained.
It probably lay in the situation that the Negro should get the idea that
education meant freedom from labor. It is none the less unfortunate for
him. To counteract this idea has been a difficult matter and the
influence of the average school has not been of any special help. The
country school taught by a teacher, usually incompetent from any
standpoint, whose interest has been chiefly in the larger salary made
possible by his "higher education" has not been an unmixed blessing. The
children have learned to read and write and have preserved their notion
that if only they could get enough education they might be absolved from
manual labor. Even today Hampton and Tuskegee and similar schools have
to contend with the opposition of parents who think their children
should not be compelled to work, for they are sent to school to enable
them to avoid labor. Quite likely it could not be expected that the
country school should hold up a higher ideal, for here we have to do
with the beginnings of a system of instruction which had to make use of
such material as it could find for teachers. The same excuse does not
suffice to explain the attitude taken by the bulk of schools maintained
by the northern whites for the Negroes. Their inability to comprehend
the needs of the case can only be ascribed to the conception of a Negro
as a white man with a black skin and a total failure to recognize the
essential conditions of race progress. When the Roman monks penetrated
the German woods the chief benefits they carried were not embalmed in
Latin grammars and the orations of Cicero, but were embodied in the
knowledge of agriculture and the arts which, adopted by the people, made
possible later the German civilization. The old rescue mission sought to
yank the sinner out of the slough of despond, the social settlement
seeks to help him who has fallen in the contest of life or him to whom
the opportunity has not been offered, to climb, recognizing that
morality and religion attend, not recede progress. The old charity gave
alms and the country was overrun with hordes of beggars; the new seeks
to help a man to help himself. A similar change must come in the efforts
for the Negro. It has been sought to give him the fruits of civilization
without its bases. It will immediately be argued that this is wrong,
that the chief educational work has been but primary and that little
so-called "higher education" has been given. This is true, even to the
extent that it is possible to find a town of 5,000 inhabitants one-half
Negroes, in which the city provides but one teacher for the black
children and the balance are trained in a school supported by the gifts
of northern people. But, and this is the important thing, the spirit of
the education has been clear and definite and that the plan has not been
carried out has not been due to lack of faith in it. General Armstrong,
thanks to his observations in Hawaii, perceived that a different course
was necessary. His mantle fell on H. F. Frissell and Booker T.
Washington, so Hampton and Tuskegee have been the chief factors in
producing the change which has been noted as coming. Now that industrial
training is winning support it is amusing to note the anxiety of other
schools to show that they have always believed in it. I can but feel
that had the plans of General Armstrong been widely adopted, had the
teachers been trained to take the people where they were and lead them
to gradual improvement, that the situation today would be radically
different. It is, however, not too late to do this yet and the
widespread founding of schools modeled after Hampton and Tuskegee
indicates a general recognition of the needs of the situation.
Yet, even these schools have not turned out as many farmers as is often
supposed. On examination of the catalog of Tuskegee for 1901 I find only
sixteen graduates who are farming and thirteen of these have other
occupations (principally teaching). The combination, I think, desirable
rather than otherwise. Three others are introducing cotton raising in
Africa under the German Government. From the industrial department nine
have received certificates in agriculture and six in dairying, but their
present occupations are not given. Asking a prominent man at Tuskegee
for the reason, he exclaimed, rather disgustedly, that they disliked
work and preferred to teach. This merely indicates the handicap Tuskegee
has to overcome, and perhaps the average agricultural college of the
North cannot show a higher percentage of farmers. An official of the
Department of Agriculture tells me that only 5 per cent of the graduates
of the agricultural colleges become farmers. To show how much
agricultural training is given at Tuskegee the following statement for
the year 1902-3 is of interest: No pupil is counted twice. One hundred
and eighty-one students are engaged in the actual operations of the
farm, truck garden, orchard, etc. Seventy-nine are taking the dairying,
etc., and 207 are taking agriculture as part of their academic work.
Yet, more of the graduates become professional men (lawyers, preachers,
etc.) than farmers, the proportion being about three to one. In citing
Tuskegee I am, of course, not forgetting that other schools, such as
Tougaloo and Talladega, have excellent farms and are seeking (though
their chief emphasis is elsewhere) to give agricultural training.
Reverting to the different lines of work which seem hopeful, the subject
may be subdivided into several sections. We have first to do with the
efforts to make the young child appreciate Nature and become interested
in her processes. Perhaps Hampton has developed this side most
extensively, both in the little garden plots cultivated by the children
and the nature study leaflets prepared for use in other schools.
Personally I can but feel that there is a possibility of vastly
extending such instruction by means of the country schools. If they may
be consolidated, and this is being done in many sections, I think a way
can be found to make the school house the social center of the district
in such a way as will greatly help conditions.
Actual instruction in practical farming, dairying, horticulture, etc.,
is given in an increasing number of schools, but the opportunities are
still very inadequate to the needs. If it be possible the way must be
found to enable the Negro to use more and better machinery. The average
planter does not care to introduce expensive machinery lest it be ruined
by careless and ignorant tenants.
These industrial schools can never hope to reach more than a certain
percentage of the people. There must be measures adopted to widen the
influence of the school. Tuskegee may be mentioned for its attempts to
reach out. For many years an annual Farmers' Conference has been held
which bids fair to become the Mecca of the Negro farmer. The influence
exerted cannot be measured, but it is believed to be great. One weak
spot in many of the schools is that they have little if any direct
influence upon the life of the community in which they are situated.
There are, however, some exceptions. The Calhoun Colored School has a
farmer's association meeting monthly. This is made up chiefly of men who
are purchasing land through a company formed by the school. Topics of
local interest, methods of farming, etc., are the subjects for
discussion. There is also a mother's meeting with subjects of more
domestic interest, with a savings department for co-operative buying.
Curiously enough the formation of the mother's meeting was at first
opposed by the men (and by some whites), as it took the women out of the
fields occasionally. Now it is more favored. As Tuskegee and many other
places there are similar farmers' associations, of which no special
mention need be made. Tuskegee has an outpost some miles from the school
which is doing a general neighborhood work. The following papers
circulated by the school will give a general idea of their conceptions
of the needs as well as of their efforts to influence conditions for the
better:
MY DAILY WORK.
I may take in washing, but every day I promise myself that I will
do certain work for my family.
I will set the table for every meal. I will wash the dishes after
every meal.
Monday, I will do my family washing. I will put my bedclothes out
to air. I will clean the safe with hot water and soap.
Tuesday, I will do my ironing and family patching.
Wednesday, I will scrub my kitchen and clean my yard thoroughly.
Thursday, I will clean and air the meal and pork boxes. I will
scour my pots and pans with soap and ashes.
Friday, I will wash my dish cloth, dish towels and hand towels. I
will sweep and dust my whole house and clean everything thoroughly.
Sunday, I will go to church and Sunday school. I will take my
children with me. I will stay at home during the remainder of the
day. I will try to read something aloud helpful to all.
QUESTIONS THAT I WILL PLEDGE MYSELF TO ANSWER AT THE END OF THE
YEAR.
1. How many bushels of potatoes, corn, beans, peas and peanuts have
we raised this year?
2. How many hogs and poultry do we keep?
3. How much poultry have we raised?
4. How many bales of cotton have we raised?
5. How much have we saved to buy a home?
6. How much have we done towards planting flowers and making our
yard look pretty?
7. How many kinds of vegetables did we raise in our home garden?
8. How many times did we stay away from miscellaneous excursions
when we wished to go? What were our reasons for staying at home?
9. How have we helped our boys and girls to stay out of bad
company?
10. What paper have we taken, and why have we taken our children to
church and had them sit with us?
HOW TO MAKE HOME HAPPY.
Keep clean, body and soul. Remember that weak minds, diseased
bodies, bad acts are often the result of bad food.
Remember that you can set a good table by raising fruit,
vegetables, grains and your meat.
Remember that you intend to train your children to stay at home out
of bad company.
Remember that if you would have their minds and yours clean, you
will be obliged to help them learn something outside the school
room. Remember, that you can do this in no better way than by
taking a good paper--the New York Weekly Witness or The Sabbath
Reading, published in New York, cost very little. Have your
children read to you from the Bible and from the papers.
YOUR NEEDS.
You need chairs in your house. Get boxes. Cover with bright calico,
and use them for seats until you can buy chairs.
You need plates, knives and forks, spoons and table cloths. Buy
them with the tobacco and snuff money.
You need more respect for self. Get it by staying away from street
corners, depots and, above all, excursions.
You need to stay away from these excursions to keep out of bad
company, out of court, out of jail, and out of the disgust of every
self-respecting person.
You need more race pride. Cultivate this as you would your crops.
It will mean a step forward.
You need a good home. Save all you can. Get your home, and that
will bring you nearer citizenship.
You can supply all these needs. When will you begin? Every moment
of delay is a loss.
HOW TO BECOME PROSPEROUS.
1. Keep no more than one dog.
2. Stay away from court.
3. Buy no snuff, tobacco and whisky.
4. Raise your own pork.
5. Raise your vegetables.
6. Put away thirty cents for every dollar you spend.
7. Keep a good supply of poultry. Set your hens. Keep your chickens
until they will bring a good price.
8. Go to town on Thursday instead of Saturday. Buy no more than you
need. Stay in town no longer than necessary.
9. Starve rather than sell your crops before you raise them. Let
your mind be fixed on that the first day of January, and stick to
that every day in the year.
10. Buy land and build you a home.
The various states are beginning to establish institutions in which
agriculture and industrial training may be given. Among these may be
mentioned that of Alabama at Normal, and of Mississippi at Westside.
Alabama has also established an experiment station in connection with
the Tuskegee Institute.
In Texas there is an interesting movement among the Negro farmers known
as the "Farmers' Improvement Society." The objects are:
1. Abolition of the credit system.
2. Stimulate improvements in farming.
3. Co-operative buying.
4. Sickness and life insurance.
5. Encouragement of purchase of land and home.
The Association holds a fair each year which is largely attended.
According to the Galveston _News_ of October 12, 1902, the society has
about 3,000 members, who own some 50,000 acres of land, more than 8,000
cattle and 7,000 horses and mules. This organization, founded and
maintained entirely by Negroes, promises much in many ways. In October,
1902, a fair was held in connection with the school at Calhoun, Ala.,
with 83 exhibitors and 416 entries, including 48 from the school and a
very creditable showing of farm products and live stock.
Besides these general lines which seem to be of promise it is in place
to mention a couple of attempts to get the Negroes to purchase land.
There have been not a few persons who have sold land to them on the
installment plan with the expectation that later payments would be
forfeited and the land revert. There are some enterprises which are
above suspicion. I am not referring now to private persons or railroad
companies who have sold large tracts to the Negroes, but to
organizations whose objects are to aid the blacks in becoming
landholders. The Land Company at Calhoun. Ala., started in 1896, buying
1,040 acres of land, which was accurately surveyed and divided into
plots of fifty acres, so arranged that each farm should include
different sorts of land. This was sold to the Negroes at cost price, $8
per acre, the purchasers to pay 8 per cent on deferred payments. The
sums paid by the purchasers each year have been as follows:
1896--$ 741.03. Found later to be borrowed money in the main.
1897--$1,485.15. Largely borrowed money.
1898--$ 367.34. Men paying back borrowed money. Advances large.
1899--$ 374.77.
1900--$1,649.25. Money not borrowed. Advances small.
1901--$ 871.49. Bad year. Poor crops. Money not borrowed.
1902--$2,280.42. Advances very small. Outlook encouraging.
There have been some failures on part of tenants, and it has been
necessary to gradually select the better men and allow the others to
drop out. The company has paid all expenses and interest on its capital.
A second plantation has been purchased and is being sold. There is a
manager who is a trained farmer, and by means of the farmers'
association already mentioned much pressure is brought to bear on the
Negroes to improve their condition. The results are encouraging. In
Macon County the Southern Land Company has purchased several thousand
acres which it is selling in much the same way, but it is too early to
speak of results. Even at Calhoun but few of the men have yet gotten
deeds for their land.
A word regarding the methods of the Southern Land Company will be of
interest. The land was carefully surveyed in forty-acre plots. These are
sold at $8 per acre, the payments covering a period of seven years. The
interest is figured in advance, and to each plot is charged a yearly fee
of $5 for management. In this total is also included the cost of house
and well (a three-roomed cabin is furnished for about $100, a well for
$10). This sum is then divided into seven equal parts so that the
purchaser knows in advance just what he must pay each year. The object
of the company is to encourage home ownership. Until the place is paid
for control of the planting, etc., remains with the manager of the
company. Advances are in cash (except fertilizers), as no store is
conducted by the company and interest is charged at 8 per cent for the
money advanced and for the time said money is used.
On this place in 1902, H. W., a man aged 68, with wife and three
children, owning a horse, a mule and two cows, did as follows. He and
his son-in-law are buying eighty acres. They made a good showing for the
first year under considerable difficulties and on land by no means rich:
Debits. Credits.
Fertilizer $ 34.88 Cotton $390.32
Whitewashing 3.00
Liming 19.76
Lease contract 180.00
Cash 130.36
Interest 3.12
-------
$371.12
-------
Balance Jan. 1, 1903 $ 19.20
This leads me to mention the question of land ownership on the part of
the Negroes. This has not been mentioned hitherto for several reasons.
In the first place the data for any detailed knowledge of the subject
are not to be had. Few states make separate record of land owned by the
blacks as distinct from general ownership. The census has to depend upon
the statements of the men themselves, and I have heard tenants solemnly
argue that they owned the land. Again a very considerable proportion of
the land owned is also heavily mortgaged, and these mortgages are not
always for improvements. Nor is it by any means self evident that land
ownership necessarily means a more advanced condition than where land is
rented. Moreover, a considerable proportion of the _farms_ owned are so
small that they do not suffice to support the owners. Conditions vary in
different districts. In Virginia it has been possible to buy a few acres
at a very low price. In parts of Alabama, or wherever the land has been
held in large estates in recent years, it has often been impossible for
the Negro to purchase land in small lots. Thus, though I believe
heartily in land ownership for the blacks and believe that well
conducted land associations will be beneficial, I cannot think that this
alone will solve the questions confronting us. Retrogression is possible
even with land ownership. Other things are necessary. On the basis of
existing data the best article with which I am acquainted on this
subject appeared in the _Southern Workman_ for January, 1903, written by
Dr. G. S. Dickerman, in which he showed that among the Negro farmers the
owners and managers formed 59.8 per cent of the total in Virginia, 57.6
per cent in Maryland, 48.6 per cent in Kentucky, falling as we go South
to 15.1 per cent in Alabama, 16.4 per cent in Mississippi, and 16.2 per
cent in Louisiana, rising to 30.9 per cent in Texas. Evidently the
forces at work are various.
Within a few months, at the suggestion of Mr. Horace Plunkett, of the
Irish Agricultural Organization Society, a new work has been taken up,
whose course will be watched with great interest. I quote from a letter
of Mr. Plunkett to Dr. Wallace Buttrick, of the General Education Board:
From what I have seen of the negro character, my own impression is
that the race has those leader-following propensities which
characterize the Irish people. It has, too, I suspect, in its
mental composition the same vein of idealism which my own
countrymen possess, and which makes them susceptible to
organization, and especially to those forms of organization which
require the display of the social qualities to which I have alluded
and which you will have to develop. These characteristics which
express themselves largely, the old plantation songs, in the form
of religions exercises, and in the maintenance of a staff of
preachers out of all proportion I should think, to the spiritual
requirements, should, in my opinion, lend themselves to associative
action for practical ends if the organizing machinery necessary to
initiate such action were provided.
What, then, is my practical suggestion? It is that your board, if
it generally approves of the idea, should take one, two, or, at the
most, three communities, such as that we inquired about, and organize
them on the Irish plan. The farmers should at first he advised to
confine their efforts to some simple object, such as the joint
purchase of their immediate agricultural requirements. * * * I would
at first deal solely with the colored people, beginning in a very
small way, leaving larger developments for the future to decide.
Hampton Institute has taken up the suggestion and is planning to
organize a community. Everything will, of course, depend on the
management as well as on the people. If the results are as satisfactory
as they have been in Ireland the efforts will be well expended.
With this brief and incomplete account we must take leave of the Negro
farmer. Throughout the thesis I have attempted to keep two or three
fundamental propositions constantly in sight. Briefly summarized these
are that we have to do with a race whose inherited characteristics are
largely of African origin; that these have been somewhat modified under
American influences, but are still potent; that the economic environment
in America is not a unit and must finally result in the creation of
different types among the blacks; that the needs of the different
habitats are various; that the segregation from the mass of the whites
is fraught with serious consequences; that measures of wider application
must be adopted if the Negro is to bear his proper part in the progress
of the country; that owing to the great race differences the whites must
take an active interest in the blacks; that in spite of the many
handicaps under which the Negro struggles the outlook is not hopeless if
his willingness to work can so be directed that a surplus will result.
To my mind the Negro must work out his salvation, economic and social.
It cannot be given without destroying the very thing we seek to
strengthen--character. This is the justification for the emphasis now
laid upon industrial training. This training and the resulting character
are the pre-requisites of all race progress. Industrial education is
thus not a fad nor a mere expedient to satisfy the selfish demands of
southern whites. It is the foundation without which the superstructure
is in vain. If I have fairly stated the difficulties in the way and have
shown the possibility of ultimate success, I am content. For the future
I am hopeful.
MAPS SHOWING THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEGROES IN THE SOUTHERN STATES
These maps are particularly referred to in Chapter II. The chief
geological districts are indicated. The figures are based upon the
census of 1900. The maps are here included in the hope that they
may prove of value to students of the problems herein discussed.
=VIRGINIA
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION, 1900
Total Negroes 660,722
Total Whites 1,192,855
Negroes form 35.6% of total=
=VIRGINIA
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 40,125
Average Negroes per Mile 16.4
Average Whites per Mile 29.7=
=NORTH CAROLINA
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION, 1900
Total Negroes 624,469
Total Whites 1,263,603
Negroes form 33% of total=
=NORTH CAROLINA
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 48,580
Average Negroes per Mile 12.8
Average Whites per Mile 26=
=SOUTH CAROLINA
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION, 1900
Total Whites in State 557,807
Total Negroes in State 782,321
---------
1,340,128
Negroes form 58.4% of total=
=SOUTH CAROLINA
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 30,170
Average Negroes to Square Mile 25.1
Average Whites to Square Mile 17.9=
=GEORGIA
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION, 1900
Total Whites in State 1,181,294
Total Negroes in State 1,034,813
---------
2,216,107
Negroes form 46.7% of total=
=GEORGIA
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 58,980
Average Negroes per Square Mile 17.6
Average Whites per Square Mile 19.9=
=FLORIDA
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION, 1900
Total Whites 297,333
Total Negroes 230,730
-------
528,063
Negroes form 43.7% of total=
=FLORIDA
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square miles in State 54,240
Average Negroes per Mile 4.2
Average Whites per Mile 5.4
=ALABAMA
Total Whites in State 1,001,152
Total Negroes in State 827,307
---------
1,828,459
Negroes form 45.2% of total=
=ALABAMA
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 51,540
Average Negroes per Mile 16
Average Whites per Mile 19.4=
=MISSISSIPPI
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION, 1900
Negro Percentage in State 58.5
Total Whites 641,200
Total Negroes 907,630
---------
1,548,830=
=MISSISSIPPI
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Average Negroes per Square Mile 19.58
Average Whites per Square Mile 13.82
Square Miles in State 46,340
=TENNESSEE
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION, 1900
Total Negroes 480,243
Total Whites 1,540,186
Negroes form 23.8% of total=
=TENNESSEE
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 41,750
Average Negroes per Mile 11.2
Average Whites per Mile 36.8=
=KENTUCKY
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION, 1900
Total Negroes 284,706
Total Whites 1,862,309
Negroes form 13.3% of total=
=KENTUCKY
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 40,000
Average Negroes per Mile 7.1
Average Whites per Mile 46.5=
=ARKANSAS
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION, 1900
Negro Percentage in State 28
Total Whites in State 944,850
Total Negroes in State 366,856
---------
1,301,706=
=ARKANSAS
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 53,045
Average Negroes per Sq. Mile 6.9
Average Whites per Sq. Mile 17.8=
=LOUISIANA
NEGRO PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION, 1900
Total Whites in State 729,612
Total Negroes in State 650,804
---------
1,380,416
Negroes form 47.1% of total=
=LOUISIANA
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles in State 45,420
Average Negroes per Mile 14.3
Average Whites per Mile 16.1=
=EASTERN TEXAS
Whites in District 1,747,052
Negroes in District 608,301
Negro Percentage in State 20.4
In District Covered 25=
=EASTERN TEXAS
NEGROES PER SQUARE MILE, 1900
Square Miles included 60,453
Average Negro .10
Average White 28.8
Includes all Counties with one Negro per Square Mile=
Footnotes:
[1] See article by A. H. Stone. Atlantic Monthly, May, 1903.
[2] "The Negro in Maryland."
[3] The Negro in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.
[4] Bulletin, Department of Labor, No. 35.
[5] The Future of the American Negro.
[6] Olmsted, F. L.--The Cotton Kingdom.
[7] Olmsted, F. T. The Cotton Kingdom.
[8] Negroes of Litwalton, Va.--Bulletin Department of Labor, No. 37.
[9] Rents a mule.
[10] Bulletin, Department of Labor, No. 35.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate
both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as
presented in the original text.
Inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been
retained from the original.
Misprints corrected:
"entrepeneurs" corrected to "entrepreneurs" (page 6)
"optomistic" corrected to "optimistic" (page 8)
"from" corrected to "form" (page 9)
"Atantic" corrected to "Atlantic" (page 9)
"stdy" corrected to "study" (page 10)
"Talledega" corrected to "Talladega" (page 16)
"inhabitated" corrected to "inhabited" (page 17)
"sevaral" corrected to "several" (page 31)
"carefuly" corrected to "carefully" (page 37)
"Tusgekee" corrected to "Tuskegee" (page 73)
"Talledega" corrected to "Talladega" (page 73)
"charactertistics" corrected to "characteristics" (page 77)
Two footnotes are marked [7]; both refer to the same footnote.
The key to the table on page 51 was extracted from the column headings
of the original table that were printed vertically.
Wide tables have been split in half with one column repeated.
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