268 PROGRESS OF NEGROES. [CHAP. XIX. 



In the hope of elevating the character of some of his negroes, 

 and giving them more self-dependence, Mr. Couper, by way of 

 experiment, set apart a field for the benefit of twenty -five picked 

 men, and gave up to them half their Saturday s labor to -till it. 

 In order that they might know its value, they were compelled to 

 work on it for the first year, and the product, amounting to 1500 

 dollars, was divided equally among them. But when, at length, 

 they were left to themselves, they did nothing, and at the end of 

 two years the field was uncultivated. But there appears to me 

 nothing disheartening in this failure, which may have been chiefly 

 owing to their holding the property in common, a scheme which 

 was found not to answer even with the Pilgrim Fathers when 

 they first colonized Plymouth men whom certainly none will 

 accuse of indolence or a disposition to shrink from continuous 

 labor. The &quot; dolee far niente&quot; is doubtless the negro s paradise, 

 and I once heard one of them singing with much spirit at Will- 

 iamsburg an appropriate song : 



&quot; Old Virginia never tire. 

 Eat hog and hominy, and lie by the fire ;&quot; 



and it is quite enough that a small minority should be of this 

 mind, to make all the others idle and unwilling to toil hard for 

 the benefit of the sluggards. 



When conversing with different planters here, in regard to 

 the capabilities and future progress of the black population, I find 

 them to agree very generally in the opinion that in this part of 

 Georgia they appear under a great disadvantage. In St. Simon s 

 island it is admitted, that the negroes on the smaller estates are 

 more civilized than on the larger properties, because they asso 

 ciate with a greater proportion of whites. In Glynn County, 

 where we are now residing, there are no less than 4000 negroes 

 to 700 whites ; whereas in Georgia generally there are only 

 281,000 slaves in a population of 691,000, or more whites than 

 colored people. Throughout the upper country there is a large 

 preponderance of Anglo-Saxons, and a little reflection will satisfy 

 the reader how much the education of a race which starts orig 

 inally from so low a stage of intellectual, social, moral, and 



