CHAPTER XLVIII.

FREEDMEN’S SCHOOLS AND THE FREEDMEN’S BUREAU.

By a census taken in June, 1865, there were shown to be 16,509 freedmen in Memphis. Of this number 220 were indigent persons, maintained, not by the city or the Bureau, but by the freed people themselves. During the past three years, colored benevolent societies in Memphis had contributed five thousand dollars towards the support of their own poor.

There were three thousand pupils in the freedmen’s schools. The teachers for these were furnished, here as elsewhere, chiefly by benevolent societies in the North. Such of the citizens as did not oppose the education of the blacks, were generally silent about it. Nobody said of it, “That is freedom! That is what the Yankees are doing for them!”

Visiting these schools in nearly all the Southern States, I did not hear of the white people taking any interest in them. With the exception of here and there a man or woman inspired by Northern principles, I never saw or heard of a Southern citizen, male or female, entering one of those humble school-rooms. How often, thinking of this indifference, and watching the earnest, Christian labors of that little band of refined and sensitive men and women and girls, who had left cheerful homes in the North and voluntarily exposed themselves to privation and opprobrium, devoting their noblest energies to the work of educating and elevating the despised race,—how often the stereotyped phrase occurred to me, “The Southern people were always their best friends!”

The wonder with me was, how these “best friends” could be so utterly careless of the intellectual and moral interests of the freedmen. For my own part, I could never enter one of those schools without emotion. They were often held in old buildings and sheds good for little else. There was not a school-room in Tennessee furnished with appropriate seats and desks. I found a similar condition of things in all the States. The pews of colored churches, or plain benches in the vestries, or old chairs with boards laid across them in some loft over a shop, or out-of-doors on the grass in summer,—such was the usual scene of the freedmen’s schools.

In the branches taught, and in the average progress made, these do not differ much from ordinary white schools at the North. In those studies which appeal to the imagination and memory, the colored pupil excels. In those which exercise the reflective and reasoning faculties, he is less proficient.

But it is in the contrasts of age and of personal appearance which they present, that the colored schools differ from all others. I never visited one of any size in which there were not two or three or half a dozen children so nearly white that no one would have suspected the negro taint. From these, the complexion ranges through all the indescribable mixed hues, to the shining iron black of a few pure-blooded Africans, perhaps not more in number than the seemingly pure-blooded whites. The younger the generation, the lighter the average skin; by which curious fact one perceives how fast the race was bleaching under the “peculiar” system of slavery.[15]

The contrast of features is no less than that of complexions. Here you see the rosy child, whose countenance shows a perfect Caucasian contour, shaded perhaps by light brown curls, reciting in the same class with thick-lipped girls and woolly-headed boys.

The difference in ages is even more striking. Six years and sixty may be seen, side by side, learning to read from the same chart or book. Perhaps a bright little negro boy or girl is teaching a white-haired old man, or bent old woman in spectacles, their letters. There are few more affecting sights than these aged people beginning the child’s task so late in life, often after their eyesight has failed. Said a very old man to a teacher who asked him his age, “I’m jammed on to a hundred, and dis is my fust chance to git a start.”

The scholars are generally well behaved. It is the restlessness and love of fun of the younger ones which prove the greatest trial to the teacher’s patience. The proportion of vicious mischief-makers is no greater than in white schools. In the evening-schools, attended chiefly by adults, all is interest and attention. The older pupils are singularly zealous and assiduous in their studies. The singing is usually excellent. Never shall I forget the joyous blending of sweet, rich, exultant childish voices, to which I often listened. The voices of singing children are always delightful and touching: how especially so the musical choruses of children, once slaves, singing the glad songs of freedom!

At Memphis, as at Nashville and other points in Tennessee, I saw much of the operations of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

General Fiske appeared to me peculiarly fitted for his position; and he was generally supported by firm and efficient officers; although, like all the Assistant-Commissioners I saw, he complained that the law establishing the Bureau did not permit him to choose his own agents. He had to take such army officers as were given him; some of whom were always found to be incompetent, or neglectful of their duties, or so prejudiced for or against the blacks that they were rendered incapable of administering justice. A few were in sympathy with slavery. Others, meaning to do right, were seduced from a straightforward course by the dinners to which they were invited by planters who had favors to ask. With such, the rights of the freedmen were sure to suffer, when into the opposite scale were thrown the aristocratic Rebel’s flattering attentions and the smiles of his fair daughters.

It was the practice of the agents of the Bureau to make frequent tours of their counties, and General Fiske himself was in the habit of running off every few days to visit some important point, where his organizing and conciliatory influence was necessary. Often he would find the planters and the freedmen separated by hedges of animosity and distrust. Usually his first step was to call together as large an audience as could be obtained of both classes, and explain to them the object of the Bureau, and the duty each class owed the other. In nearly every instance, earnestness and common sense prevailed; the freedmen came forward and made contracts with the land-owners, and the land-owners conceded to the freedmen advantages they had refused before.

Sometimes exciting and dramatic scenes occurred at these meetings. “Not long ago,” said General Fiske, “I addressed a mixed audience of three thousand persons at Spring Hill. The meeting was presided over by a black man. Rebel generals and Federal generals sat together on the platform. I made a short speech, and afterwards answered questions for anybody, white or black, that chose to ask them. I had said that the intention of the Bureau was to do justice to all, without respect to color; when there rose up in the audience a tall, well dressed, fine-looking woman, sallow, very pale, and much agitated, and wished to know if _she_ could have justice. Said she, ‘I was owned by a respectable planter in this neighborhood who kept me as his wife for many years. I have borne him five children. Two of them are dead. A short time ago he married another woman, and drove me and my three children off.’ The man was in the audience. Everybody present knew him, and there were a hundred witnesses that could vouch for the truth of the woman’s story. I told her justice should certainly be done in her case. The respectable planter now supports her and her three children.”

I have known many wrongs of this nature to be righted by the Bureau; the late slave-owners learning that instead of making their offspring by bondwomen profitable to them as chattels, in the new order of things they were to be held responsible for their maintenance.

The freedmen’s courts were designed to adjudicate upon cases which could not be safely intrusted to the civil courts.[16] They are in reality military courts, and the law by which they are governed is martial law. I found them particularly efficient in Tennessee. The annoying technicalities and legal quibbles by which, in ordinary courts, the truth is so often inextricably embarrassed, were here swept aside, and justice reached with admirable directness. I have watched carefully scores of cases decided by these tribunals, and do not remember one in which substantial justice was not done. No doubt exceptions to this rule occur, but I am satisfied that they are no more frequent than those which occur in common-law courts; and they are insignificant compared with the wholesale wrong to which the unprotected freedman would be subjected in communities where old slave codes and immemorial prejudice deny to him human rights.

The freedmen’s court is no respecter of persons. The proudest aristocrat and the humblest negro stand at its bar on an equal footing. I remember a case in which a member of the Tennessee Legislature was the defendant, and upwards of twenty freedmen hired by him were the plaintiffs. He had voted against the Negro Testimony Bill, which, if it had passed, would have placed his case in a civil court; and now he had the satisfaction of seeing eight of these blacks stand up and testify against him. He admitted that they were faithful and truthful men; and their testimony was so straightforward, I was astonished that he should have waited to have his accounts with them adjusted by the Bureau.

Many difficulties arise from honest misunderstandings between the contracting parties. These are decided by the Bureau according to general rules of equity, and nearly always to the satisfaction of both. I was assured by several of the most experienced officers of the Bureau in Tennessee, that, in cases where contracts were fully understood, they were much less frequently broken by the freedmen than by the whites.

Complaints of assaults upon freedmen, and even upon women and girls, were very common. Here is a simple story of wrong related to me by a girl of fourteen whom I saw, weary and famished and drenched, after she had walked thirty-four miles to obtain the protection of the Bureau, bearing the marks of cruel beatings upon her back.

“My name is Milly Wilson; I live in Wilson County; my mistress’s brother was my father. I have been kept a slave since Emancipation. I worked in de cornfield; I had to hoe and drap corn; I ho’ped gether the corn and shuck it. I had to cuke; and I had spinning to do. I ho’ped sow, hoe, and pick cotton. I had to pick bolls and bring ’em into house, and pick cotton out o’ bolls till chickens crowed for midnight. Dey never give me nothing. I didn’t dare ax ’em for wages; and dey said if I run away dey’d shoot me. My mistress tried to whoop me, but she couldn’t; I’d run from her. Den her son Tom whooped me with a soap-paddle till he broke it. He struck me side of head with his fist, and knocked me down.” (Her face was still discolored by the blow.) “His father said, ‘That’s no way to beat ’em; take ’em down and paddle ’em.’ Dat night I lef’. I told Jennie to tell ’em I’d gone to Murfreesboro’, so dey wouldn’t git on de right track; and I started for Nashville. It wasn’t long till day when I lef’. I walked till sun-up; and laid by de balance part of de day in an old barn. I had nothing to eat, but on’y jist de meat and bread I had for my supper I took and carried with me for de nex’ day. De nex’ night de moon riz. I couldn’t see de moon, but it give light enough so I could see how to walk. Two miles from Triune I found some friends, and dey give me breakfas’. Wednesday mornin’ it was sleetin’, and dey give me a shawl. Thursday I got to Nashville. Now I want to send for my clothes; for it was so dark when I lef’ I couldn’t see to find ’em. I lef’ my clothes, and a skillet and led, and a basket.” The court sent not only for these, but for Master Tom who had paddled her, and for Master Tom’s father who had abetted the outrage and held her enslaved after slavery was abolished. This is a very mild case compared with some that came to my knowledge, too horrible or too disgusting to be narrated.

The freedmen’s affairs in West Tennessee were giving the Bureau daily less and less trouble,—both whites and blacks beginning to learn that contracts were made to be kept, and that their mutual interests depended upon mutual good-will. The most aggravated and embarrassing cases were from Mississippi. The farce of opening the civil courts to the blacks in that State had caused a discontinuance of the freedmen’s courts, and the result was a stampede of wronged and outraged people across the line. During an hour I spent at the Bureau one morning, a stream of these cases kept coming in. The newly organized Mississippi militia, under pretence of searching for arms which the blacks were supposed to have provided for the forthcoming Christmas insurrections, had committed robberies, murders, and other outrages, against these unoffending and unprotected people. The Bureau at Memphis could do nothing but refer these cases to the Assistant-Commissioner at Vicksburg, who could do nothing but refer them to the civil courts, which let them alone. One case I recall, however, in which the officers at Memphis thought they could do something. A colored man, who had been managing a Mississippi plantation under contract for a quarter of the crop, came to Memphis for a redress of grievances. The owner had given him fifteen dollars, and refused to give him anything more for his labor. The cotton was baled, and ready for market. It would soon be in Memphis. “Keep watch of that cotton,” said the agent; “and as soon as it arrives, we will attach it, and you shall have your share.”

While I was there, two negroes came in from Parson Botts’s plantation, in De Soto County, (Mississippi,) bringing guns which they had run off with on the approach of the militia. The wife of one of these men had been beaten over the head with a pistol, and afterwards hung by the neck, to compel her to disclose where the guns were hidden. In this case there was no redress.

A great variety of business is brought before the Bureau. Here is a negro-man who has printed a reward offering fifty dollars for information to assist him in finding his wife and children, sold away from him in times of slavery: a small sum for such an object, you may say, but it is all he has, and he has come to the Bureau for assistance. Here is a free mulattress, who was stolen by a guerilla during the war, and sold into slavery in Arkansas, and she has come to enter a claim for wages earned during two years of enforced servitude. Yonder is a white woman, who has been warned by the police that she must not live with her husband because he is black, and who has come to claim protection in her marriage relation, bringing proof that she is in reality a colored woman. That poor old crippled negro was maimed for life when a slave by a cruel master, who will now be compelled to pension him. Yonder comes an old farmer with a stout colored boy, to get the Bureau’s sanction to a contract they wish to make. “Pull off your hat, Bob,” says the old man; “you was raised to that;” for he was formerly the lad’s owner. He claims to have been a Union man. “I was opposed to secession till I was swep’ plumb away.” He is very grateful for what the officers do for him, and especially for the good advice they give the boy. “I’ll do well by him, and larn him to read, if he’ll do well by me.”

As they go out, in comes a powerful, short-limbed black, in tattered overcoat, with a red handkerchief on his head, and with a lordly countenance, looking like a barbarian chief. He has made a crop; found everything—mules, feed, implements; hired his own help,—fifteen men and women; managed everything; by agreement he was to have one half; but, owing to an attempt to swindle him, he has had the cotton attached; and now it is not on his own account he has come, but he is owing his men wages, and they want something for Christmas, which he thinks reasonable, and he desires the Bureau’s assistance to raise three hundred dollars on the said cotton. “For I’m bound,” he says, “to be liberal with my men.”

Here is a boy, who was formerly a slave, to whom his father, a free man, willed a sum of money, which the boy’s owner borrowed, giving his note for it, but never repaid,—for did not the boy and all that he had belong to his master? The worn and soiled bit of paper is produced; and now the owner will have that money to restore, with interest. Lucky for the boy that he kept that torn and dirty scrap carefully hidden all these years! Such documents are now serving to right many an ancient wrong. I saw at the Freedmen’s Bureau at Richmond a large package of wills, made in favor of slaves, usually by their white fathers, all which had been suppressed by the legitimate heirs. One, a mere rotten and jaundiced rag, scarcely legible, had been carried sewed in the lining of a slave-woman’s dress for more than forty years,—the date of the will being 1823. Her son was legally emancipated by that instrument; but her owner, who claimed to be his owner by inheritance, threatened to kill her if the will was not destroyed, and he believed that it had been destroyed. That boy was now a middle-aged man, having passed the flower of his years in bondage; and his mother was an old woman, living to thank God that her son was free at last. The master, a rich man, had as yet no idea of the existence of that will, by which he was to be held responsible for the payment of over forty years’ wages to his unlawful bondman.

From another of these documents, made by a white master, I copied the following suggestive paragraph: “It is also my last will and desire that _my beloved wife_ SALLY DANDRIDGE, and _my son_ HARRISON, and _my daughters_ CHARITY and JULIA, should be free; and it is my wish and desire for them to be emancipated hereafter, and for them to remain as free people.” Another paragraph gave them property. This will, like nearly all the rest, had been registered and proved; and, like them, it had been suppressed,—the beloved wife and son and daughters remaining in bondage, until the slave system went down with the Rebellion, and a day of judgment came with the Freedmen’s Bureau.

Footnote 15:

At Vicksburg, Miss., in one school of 89 children, only three were of unmixed African blood. In another, there were two black and 68 mixed. In a school for adults, there were 41 black to 50 mixed. In a school of children on a Mississippi plantation, there were 46 black and 23 mixed. In another plantation school, there were 30 black and 7 mixed. These figures illustrate not only the rapid bleaching of the race, but also the difference in color between town and country.

Footnote 16:

See Paragraph VII. in Circular No. 5, issued by Major-General Howard, Commissioner of the Bureau, and approved by the President, June 2d, 1865:—

“In all places where there is an interruption of civil law, or in which local courts, by reason of old codes, in violation of the freedom guaranteed by the Proclamation of the President and the laws of Congress, disregard the negro’s right to justice before the laws, in not allowing him to give testimony, the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen being committed to this Bureau, the Assistant-Commissioners will adjudicate, either themselves or through officers of their appointment, all difficulties arising between negroes themselves, or between negroes and whites or Indians, except those in military service, so far as recognizable by military authority, and not taken cognizance of by the other tribunals, civil or military, of the United States.”