SOCIAI, AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE NEGRO FARMERS 99 



The increase of negro rural holdings has been very slow and only 

 in recent years has it been accelerated. A fairly long time had to pass be- 

 fore the mass of the negroes could persuade themselves of the possibiHty 

 of their becoming absolute lords and masters of a piece of land, however 

 small. But when they were convinced, the desire to attain this end spread. 

 We must remember there was no inherited property: they had to begin 

 with nothing, relying only on their own hard work and their persistent 

 economy. 



Booker T. Washington, one of the most enlightened of the negroes 

 to whom his race owes much of its advance, tells us the story of a negro, 

 who, when Uberated from slavery was already an old man, and attained pro- 

 sperity as a rural landowner. We think it well to quote the story as an 

 interesting and characteristic example of the way in which many negroes 

 formed their agricultural holdings (i). 



"When he (the old negro) was "turned loose", as he put 

 it, at the end of the Civil War, he was, about sixty years of age, and at 

 that age, he began life, as a great majority of my race began at that time, 

 with nothing. 



He did not own a house ; he had but little clothing, and no food 

 but a bag of meal and a strip of bacon. He had gotten out of slavery, 

 however, a close and intimate acquaintance with the soil and the habit of 

 work. 



After freedom came, he left the plantation on which he had been a slave 

 and went to work on an adjoining place as a " renter " . He told me that when 

 he was first free he had to move about a little, just to find out what free- 

 dom was Uke. But he soon found that in most respects there was very little 

 difference between his condition in freedom and his condition in slavery. 

 The man of whom he rented furnished him rations, directed his planting 

 and kept after him to see that he made his crop. 



At the end of the year the charges for rent and interest had eaten up 

 all that he had earned, so that from one year to another he was not any 

 better off than he had been the year before. When he did come out with 

 a little money to his credit the storekeeper soon got it all, and, if he fell 

 sick or anything happened to his family, he sometimes found himself in 

 debt at the end of the year, and then he was worse off than if he had 

 nothing. 



One of the chief privileges of freedom he found to be the opportunity 

 for getting into debt, but after he had succeeded in getting into |debt he 

 learned that he had lost even the privilege which had remained to him of 

 moving from one plantation to another ", as frequently the law in the 

 Southern States prevents a tenant from leaving the plantation until he 

 has paid his debt. 



" Gradually the old coloured farmer began to see that he was making no 

 headway and that his condition might easily become worse. 



(i) See Booker T. Washington. The Story of the Negro, vol. II, pp. (S et scqq. 



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