34 Negro Migration 



ever, that the change did not take place in a day. In many 

 instances the owners of land, in the endeavor to save its 

 fertility and to increase their crops are still endeavoring to 

 maintain the old gang system. In fact, most large farm 

 units which remain today are "mixed," — the owner hires as 

 many laborers as he can and farms the remaining land with 

 tenants. The result is that only the lower types can be 

 hired for wages. The higher types who are successful 

 farmers, move up into share tenancy or renting. They do 

 not like the labor system which makes them rise at the tap 

 of the farm bell in the early dawn and work under close 

 oversight until the evening. Only the marginal laborers, 

 those least able to bargain for a farm, are left to work as 

 laborers on the large plantations. 



Wages and Competition. One of the chief reasons why 

 the Negro was able to assert his desire to escape from the 

 supervision of the landlord is revealed by wage conditions 

 and the sharp competition between landlords for competent 

 laborers. During the period from 1865 to 1880 the action of 

 supply and demand enforced more freedom for the Negro 

 than any of the post-bellum amendments to the Constitu- 

 tion of the United States. The main factors in supply and 

 demand which enabled Negroes to pass from the status of 

 laborer to tenant may be summed up as follows : First, the 

 supply of laborers in the plantation area was reduced: 

 (a) by the withdrawal of numbers of women from field 

 work, and (b) by the movement of other laborers to cities 

 and rural districts in which higher wages could be offered. 

 Second, the demand was increased by (a) the high price 

 which cotton brought immediately after the war, and (b) 

 by the necessity of using the land, the only form of wealth 

 that remained in the South. This decrease in supply and 

 increase in demand led to competition for labor to which 

 the Negro responded in various ways. For some the re- 

 sponse was to seek the higher types of tenancy rather than 

 to remain as laborers. For a large majority, however, the 



