ments were chiefly upon the rich and delightful Sea Islands, which the Rebel owners had abandoned, and which now became the paradise of the freedmen's hopes. "Go there," they said, "and every man can pick out his lot of forty acres, and have it secured to him."

With such fancies in his brain, the negro of the interior was not likely to remain contented on the old plantation, after learning that no acre of it was to be given him. He was naturally averse to accepting a white master, when he might be his own master elsewhere. His imaginative soul sang too, in its rude way:

"Oh, had we some sweet little isle of our own,

In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone!”

And so the emigration to the coast set in.

In October, 1865, orders were issued that no more allotments of land should be made to the Freedmen. But this did not avail to stop entirely the tide of emigration; nor did it inspire with contentment those who remained in the interior. "If a freedman has forty acres on the coast," they reasoned, "why should n't we have as much here?" Hence one of the most serious troubles the officers of the Bureau had to contend against.

In October, General Howard visited the Sea Islands with the intention of restoring to the pardoned owners the lands on which freedmen had been settled, under General Sherman's order. According to the President's theory, a pardon entitled the person pardoned to the immediate restoration of his property. Hence arose a conflict of authority and endless confusion. Secretary Stanton had approved of Sherman's order, and earnestly advised the freedmen to secure homesteads under the government's protection. General Saxton, Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau, had in every way encouraged them to do the same. So had General Hunter. Chief Justice Chase had given them similar counsel. General Howard found the land-owners urgent in pressing their claims, and the freedmen equally determined in resisting them.

CONFLICTING CLAIMS.-THE DIFFICULTY.

535

Impressed by the immense difficulty of the problem, he postponed its immediate solution by a compromise, leaving the main question to be settled by Congress. Congress settled it, after a fashion, in the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill; but that, in consequence of the President's veto, did not become a law.

66

By General Howard's plan, abandoned lands on which there were no freedmen settled under Sherman's order, or only “a few," were to be restored to pardoned owners. Other estates, on which there were more than "a few," were also to be restored, provided arrangements could be made, satisfactory to both the owners and the freedmen. So nothing was settled. The owners claimed the lands, and wished the freedmen to make contracts to work for them. The freedmen claimed the lands, and positively refused to make contracts.

The freedmen's crops for the past year had generally proved failures, or nearly so. Their friends argued that this result was owing to causes that could not be controlled, the lack of capital, of seed, of mules and farming implements, and the lateness of the season when most of them commenced work. The owners of the lands contended that the negro, under the best conditions, could not make a crop of cotton. The truth probably lies between these two extremes. The freedmen lacked experience in management, as well as planting capital; and I have no doubt but many of them thought more of a gun and a fishing-rod, sources of a pleasure so new to them, than of hard work in the field, which was anything but a novelty.

I regret to add that the freedmen's prospects for the coming year did not appear flattering. The uncertainty of their titles caused them deep trouble and discouragement, and they did not exhibit much energy in improving lands which might be taken from them at any moment. The feeling, "This is my home and my children's," seemed no longer to inspire them. The majority were at work; but others were sullenly waiting to see what the government would do.

This whole question is one of great embarrassment d

difficulty, and it is not easy to say how it should be decided. The plan proposed by Congress, of securing to the freedmen the possession of the lands for three years, did not seem to me a very wise one. It would take them about three years, under the most favorable circumstances, to overcome the obstacles against which their poverty and inexperience would have to struggle; and the knowledge that, after all, those homes were not to be permanently their own, would tend to discourage industry and promote vagabondism. It would be better to remove them at once, if they are to be removed at all; but then the question presents itself, can a great and mag nanimous government afford to break its pledges to these helpless and unfortunate people?

On the other hand, to make their titles perpetual, is to give over to uncertain cultivation, by a race supposed to exist only for the convenience of another, the most valuable cotton-lands of those States, for it is here alone that the incomparable long-fibred "Sea-Island" staple is produced, a conclusion deemed inadmissible and monstrous, especially by the Rebel owners of the lands.

NEGROES UNDER COAL-SHEDS.

537

CHAPTER LXXV.

A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND.

A COMPANY of South Carolina planters, who were going over to look at their estates on James Island, and learn if any arrangements could be made with the freedmen, invited me to accompany them; and on the morning of the day appointed, I left my hotel for the purpose.

Finding I was too early for the boat, I took a stroll along the wharves, and visited the colonies of homeless plantation negroes who had sought shelter under the open coal-sheds.

There were at that time in Charleston fifteen hundred freed · people of this class waiting for transportation back to their former homes, or to the plantations of new masters who had hired them. A more wretched and pitiable herd of human beings I never saw; nor had I witnessed anything like it out of South Carolina.

Families were cooking and eating their breakfasts around smoky fires. On all sides were heaps of their humble household goods, tubs, pails, pots and kettles, sacks, beds, barrels tied up in blankets, boxes, baskets, bundles. They had brought their live-stock with them; hens were scratching, pigs squealing, cocks crowing, and starved puppies whining.

One colony was going to Beaufort. "Mosser told we to go back. We 'se no money, and we 'se glad to git on gov'ment kindness, to git off." But the government was not yet ready to send them..

Many seemed deeply to trouble to the government. on our own hook. It's not a good time at all here. We does nothing but suffer from smoke and ketch cold. We wants to begin de planting business."

regret that they were so much "We wants to git away to work

Another colony had been two weeks waiting for transportation back to their old homes in Colleton District. Their sufferings were very great. Said an old woman, with a shawl over her head: "De jew and de air hackles we more 'n anyting. De rain beats on we, and de sun shines we out. My chil'n so hungry dey can't hole up. De Gov'ment, he han't gib we nottin'. Said dey would put we on board Saturday. Some libs and some dies. If dey libs dey libs, and if dey dies dey dies." Such was her dim philosophy. I tried to converse with others, who spoke a wild jargon peculiar to the plantations, of which I understood hardly one word in ten.

General Scott, who had recently succeeded General Saxton as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau in South Carolina, was hastening measures for the relief of these poor people, and to prevent any more from coming to the city.

I walked around by the delightful residences on East Bay and South Bay, commanding fine views of the harbor and Ashley River; and reached the wharf from which we were to embark.

Opposite lay James Island, with its marshy borders, and its dark-green line of pines. Boats-mostly huge cypress dugouts, manned by negroes-were passing to and fro, some coming from the island with loads of wood, others returning, heavily laden, with families of freedmen going to their new homes, and with household goods and supplies.

"This is interesting," said one of the planters, whom I found in waiting. "That wood comes from our plantations. The negroes cut it off, bring it over to the city, and perhaps sell it to the actual owners of the land they have taken it from. We are buying our own wood of the darkey squatters. The negroes are still going to the island, picking their lands, and staking out forty-acre lots, though. the Bureau is giving no more titles."

A large cypress dug-out came to the wharf, rowed by a black man and his son.

"These boats all belonged to the planters, till the negroes took possession of them. Now a man has to hire a passage