36 ♦ LETTER FROM MISSISSIPPI. 



has been found far more satisfactory to divide the crop at the gin- 

 house or at the depot, letting each market for himself, than to have 

 the land-owner sell it in bulk and account to the cultivator for 

 his share of the proceeds. The negroes, keeping no accounts and 

 not very careful in their habits, usually found, on settlement, that 

 they had eaten up their crop while it was growing, and were often 

 in debt after it had been sold and accounted for. No doubt, they 

 were sometimes cheated ; but, even when they were not, they sup- 

 posed they were. Esj^ecially when, as in 1866, the crop was a fail- 

 ure, and their share of it did not rej^ay the land-owner his advances, 

 they could not understand that, while " old master " had all there 

 was, they had less than nothing. The system was bad, so its results 

 were evil. It is far better where they have no credit, no advances, 

 and struggle through the year as they can, so that their share of the 

 crop, large or small, is all their own when it is ready for sale. On 

 the crop of 1869, those who worked on this basis generally made 

 money ; on that of 1870, which sold much lower, they made little 

 or nothing ; this year, I am assured, they generally grow Corn as 

 well as Cotton, hoping to make their own bread and meat, and leave 

 their Cotton clear. Some will succeed in this ; others will fail ; but, 

 taken in the average, I judge that the Freedmen of the Cotton 

 States are this day in as good circumstances as the Hired Workers 

 who till the soil of any European country. And I am confident 

 that the plantation laborers are rarely or never in want of employ- 

 ment or of homes. If there were profligate, idle, pilfering fellows 

 among them, they have drifted away to the cities, or to some other 

 covmtry than this. There is no place for such on plantations ; and 

 very few of them could stay there if they would. 



The old slaveholders, on whose testimony I have mainly relied 

 thus far, add that the Black women are not doing so well as the 

 men, but are widely intent on finery and idleness. The children 

 (the planters add) rule their parents, and do little or nothing ; so 

 that, when this generation of field-hands, trained to steady work as 

 slaves, shall have died off, matters will have changed for the worse. 

 In opposition to this, I proffer the testimony of my eyes. To say 

 that I have seen many more Black women than White persons 

 plowing and hoeing in the Corn, Cotton, and Cane-fields of Louisiana 

 and Texas, would be saying little ; I am sure I saw half as man^r 

 Black women as Black men working the crops ; and in many cases 

 father, mother, and one or two children, were at work together. On 



