67] LANDOWNERSHIP AMONG THE NEGROES 6y 



the negroes who can't think they are cheated when everything 

 is paid in full every Saturday night, nor can they forget in 

 that short time what days they have been absent or missed 

 work. 1 



The plan of paying wages enabled some of the more 

 alert and ambitious negroes to take advantage of the 

 cheapness of land and buy farms for themselves. For 

 instance, at the close of the year 1867 on one of these 

 plantations $6,000.00 were paid in cash as wages to the 

 negroes employed on it, many of them getting as much 

 as $200.00 or $300.00 each. The complaint is made that 

 as a result of this policy many of the negroes left the 

 plantation in order to buy land for themselves.* In some 

 cases they bought these lands from irresponsible per- 

 sons, secured no titles and consequently were soon driven 

 off. Sometimes they bought on the instalment plan, but 

 failing to make the necessary payments they had* to sur- 

 render their claims. But there were other cases in which 

 the negroes came into absolute possession of consider- 

 able tracts of land. . 



Nor was it in the counties of the coast alone that they 

 acquired farms. In reality by 1874 they owned more 

 land in the six counties to the northwest of the seaboard 

 counties than in the latter. This is explained by the fact 

 that coincident with the downfall of the rice plantations 

 there was a great migration of the negroes from the 

 coast to the interior counties. In these neighboring 

 interior counties the population was sparse, and| there 

 was an abundance of wild land obtainable at lowjrates. 

 In their flight, therefore, many of the negroes found per- 

 manent homes and acquired lands in this region. 3 



1 Leigh op. cit., p. 226. 3 Ibid., p. 79. 



3 The statistical revelation on the subject finds confirmation from a 



