CHAPTER III 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE CREDIT SYSTEM ON 

 LANDOWNERSHIP 



Having presented in some detail a statistical view of 

 the tendencies at work for a generation among the white 

 owners of land in Georgia, an endeavor will now be made 

 to show some of the inner economic forces which serve to 

 explain the above-mentioned tendencies, and which also 

 reveal certain counter movements too elusive in nature 

 to be detected in a general statistical survey. 



The suddenness with which the slaves were made free 

 and the consequent disorganized condition of labor pre- 

 vented the immediate natural readjustment of the 

 economic forces of the state. The large farmers who/ 

 had prospered under the old regime were unable to 

 adjust themselves to the new order of things so swiftly 

 brought upon them. They were not only confronted by 

 the necessity of making a new alignment of the produc- 

 tive forces, but they had to face the problem with greatly 

 curtailed resources. The war had left them without^ 

 money, and without any easy way of getting it. The 

 farms were large, and the logic of the situation demanded 

 the employment of the newly emancipated labor upon 

 them. This labor just at this juncture was extremely! 

 mobile, though its movements were not in every case 

 those of the "economic man." Out of these conditions, 

 instead of the rise and development of a wage system of 

 labor on the farms formerly worked by slaves, there arose 

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