65] LANDOWNERSHIP AMONG THE NEGROES 65 



the coast and extending inland across about three tiers 

 of counties ;  the other, in the southwestern part of the 

 state. The rise of the first and more important of these 

 centers of negro landownership may be explained as the 

 logical outcome of the situation in the region imme- 

 diately after the civil war. This struggle caused a 

 greater disorganization of the economic forces in the six 

 seaboard counties than elsewhere in the state. In ante- 

 bellum days these counties were distinguished for their 

 large plantations, and for the large number of slaves 

 worked upon them in the cultivation of rice and sea- 

 island cotton. Excepting Chatham, the county in which 

 Savannah is located, the average number of slaves per 

 slave-holder in this region in i860 was twenty, while the 

 average for the state was about eleven. In these six 

 counties were to be found more than one-fourth of all 

 the slave-holders owning over one hundred slaves each. 

 The war utterly destroyed the foundations underlying the 

 prosperity of these planters. 



An Englishman residing on one of these plantations 

 described the situation in a letter written to a friend in 

 England in the early seventies. He says that these rice 

 plantations were originally reclaimed and afterwards 

 maintained at great expense of labor, because of the 

 levees, etc., that had to be kept up ; owing to the lack 

 of capital and labor since the war much of this country 

 had returned to its original condition. After quoting 

 statistics to show the great decrease in rice production, 

 he continues : 



The original planters having been completely ruined by the 

 war, the planting in many cases has been carried on by negroes 



1 The counties in the region of the Okefinokee swamp must be ex- 

 cepted. 



