CHAPTER LVII.

POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR.

Through the courtesy of the Mayor I became acquainted with some of the radical Union men of New Orleans. Like the same class in Richmond and elsewhere, I found them extremely dissatisfied with the political situation and prospects. “Everything,” they said, “has been given up to traitors. The President is trying to help the nation out of its difficulty by restoring to power the very men who created the difficulty. To have been a good Rebel is now in a man’s favor; and to have stood by the government through all its trials is against him. If an original secessionist, or a time-serving, half-and-half Union man, ready to make any concession for the convenience of the moment, goes to Washington, he gets the ear of the administration, and comes away full of encouragement for the worst enemies the government ever had. If a man of principle goes to Washington, he gets nothing but plausible words which amount to nothing, if he isn’t actually insulted for his trouble.”

I heard everywhere the same complaints from this class. And here I may state that they were among the saddest things I had to endure in the South. Whatever may be thought of the intrinsic merits of any measures, we cannot but feel misgivings when we see our late enemies made jubilant by them, and loyal men dismayed.

The Union men of New Orleans were severe in their strictures on General Banks. “It was he,” they said, “who precipitated the organization of the State government on a Rebel basis. Read his _General Orders No. 35_, issued March 11th, 1864, concerning the election of delegates to the Convention. Rebels who have taken the amnesty oath are admitted to the polls, and loyal colored men are excluded. Section 4th reads, ‘Every free white man,’ &c. Since his return to Massachusetts he has been making speeches in favor of negro suffrage. He is in favor of it there, where it is popular as an abstraction, and a man gets into Congress on the strength of it; but he was not in favor of it here, where there was a chance of making it practical. His excuse was, that if black men voted white men would take offence, and keep away from the polls. Very likely some white men would, but loyal white men wouldn’t. That he had the power to extend the franchise to the blacks, or at least thought he had, may be seen by his apology for not doing so, in which he says: ‘I did not decide upon this subject without very long and serious consideration,’ and so forth. So he let the great, the golden opportunity slip, of organizing the State government on a loyal basis,—of demonstrating the capacity of the colored man for self-government, and, of setting an example to the other Rebel States.”

Being one day in the office of Mr. Durant, a prominent lawyer and Union man, I was much struck by the language and bearing of a gentleman who called upon him, and carried on a long conversation in French. Having understood that the Creoles were nearly all secessionists, I was surprised to hear this man give utterance to the most enlightened Republican sentiments. After he had gone out, I expressed my gratification at having met him.

“That,” said Mr. Durant, “is one of the ablest and wealthiest business men in New Orleans. He was educated in Paris. But there is one thing about him you do not seem to have suspected. He belongs to that class of Union men the government has made up its mind to leave politically bound in the hands of the Rebels. That man, whom you thought refined and intelligent, has not the right which the most ignorant, Yankee-hating, negro-hating Confederate soldier has. He is a colored man, and has no vote.”

There were six daily newspapers published in New Orleans,—five in English and one in English and French,—besides several weeklies. There was but one loyal sheet among them, and that was a “nigger paper,” the _Tribune_, not sold by any newsboy, and, I believe, by but one news-dealer.

I called on General T. W. Sherman, in command of the Eastern District of Louisiana, who told me that, in order to please the people, our troops had been withdrawn from the interior, and that the militia, consisting mostly of Rebel soldiers, many of whom still wore the Rebel uniform, had been organized to fill their place. The negroes, whom they treated tyrannically, had been made to believe that it was the United States, and not the State government, that had thus set their enemies to keep guard over them.

Both Governor Wells and General Sherman had received piles of letters from “prominent parties” expressing fears of negro insurrections. The most serious indications of bloody retribution preparing for the white race had been reported in the Teche country, where regiments of black cavalry were said to be organized and drilled. The General, on visiting the spot, and investigating the truth of the story, learned that it had its foundation in the fact that some negro boys had been playing soldier with wooden swords. No wonder the Rebel militia was thought necessary!

From General Baird, Assistant-Commissioner, and General Gregg, Inspecting-Agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, I obtained official information regarding the condition of free labor in Louisiana. A detailed account of it would be but a recapitulation, with slight variations, of what I have said of free labor in other States. The whites were as ignorant of the true nature of the system as the blacks. Capitalists did not understand how they could secure labor without owning it, or how men could be induced to work without the whip. It was thought necessary to make a serf of him who was no longer a slave. To this end the Legislature had passed a code of black laws even more objectionable than that enacted by the Legislature of Mississippi. By its provisions freedmen were to be arrested as vagrants who had not, on the 10th of January, 1866, entered into contracts for the year. They were thus left little choice as to employers, and none as to terms. They were also subjected to a harsh system of fines and punishments for loss of time and the infraction of contracts; and made responsible for all losses of stock on the plantation, until they should be able to prove that they had not killed it. Although these laws had not been approved by the Governor, there was no doubt but they would be approved and enforced as soon as the national troops were removed.

A majority of the Southern planters clamored for the withdrawal of the troops and the Freedmen’s Bureau. But Northern planters settled in the State as earnestly opposed the measure. “If the government’s protection goes, we must go too. It would be impossible for us to live here without it. Planters would come to us and say, ‘Here, you’ve got a nigger that belongs to us;’ they would claim him, under the State laws, and compel him to go and work for them. Not a first-class laborer could we be sure of.”

Here, as elsewhere, the fact that the freedmen had no independent homes, but lived in negro-quarters at the will of the owner, placed him under great disadvantages, which the presence of the Bureau was necessary to counteract. The planters desired nothing so much as to be left to manage the negroes with or without the help of State laws. “With that privilege,” they said, “we can make more out of them than ever. The government must take care of the old and worthless niggers it has set free, and we will put through the able-bodied ones.” The disposition to keep the freedmen in debt by furnishing their supplies at dishonest prices, and to impose upon their helplessness and ignorance in various other ways, was very general.

Fortunately there was a great demand for labor, and the freedmen, with the aid of the Bureau, were making favorable contracts with their employers. When encouraged by just treatment and fair wages, they were working well. But they were observed to be always happier, thriftier, and more comfortable, living in little homes of their own and working land on their own account, than in any other condition. “I believe,” said General Gregg, “the best thing philanthropic Northern capitalists can do both for the freedmen and for themselves, is to buy up tracts of land, which can be had in some of the most fertile sections of Louisiana at two, three, and five dollars an acre, to be leased to the freedmen.”

The more enlightened planters were in favor of educating the blacks. But the majority were opposed to it; so that in many parishes it was impossible to establish schools, while in others it had been very difficult. In January last there were 278 teachers in the State, instructing 19,000 pupils in 143 schools. The expenses, $20,000 a month, were defrayed by the Bureau from the proceeds of rents of abandoned and confiscated estates. But this source of revenue had nearly failed, in consequence of the indiscriminate pardoning of Rebel owners and the restoration of their property. In New Orleans, for example, the rents of Rebel estates had dwindled, in October, 1865, to $8,000; in December, to $1,500; and they were still rapidly diminishing. The result was, it had been necessary to order the discontinuance of all the schools in the State at the end of January, the funds in the treasury of the Bureau being barely sufficient to hold out until that time. It was hoped, however, that they would soon be reëstablished on a permanent basis, by a tax upon the freedmen themselves. For this purpose, the Assistant Commissioner had ordered that five per cent. of their wages should be paid by their employers to the agents of the Bureau. The freedmen’s schools in New Orleans were not in session at the time I was there; but I heard them highly praised by those who had visited them. Here is Mr. Superintendent Warren’s account of them:—

“From the infant which must learn to count its fingers, to the scholar who can read and understand blank-verse, we have grades and departments adapted and free to all. Examinations, promotions, and gradations are had at stated seasons. The city is divided into districts; each district has its school, and each school the several departments of primary, intermediate, and grammar. A principal is appointed to each school, with the requisite number of assistants. Our teachers are mostly from the North, with a few Southerners, who have heroically dared the storm of prejudice to do good and right. The normal method of teaching is adopted, and object teaching is a specialty.

“There are eight schools in the city, with from two to eight hundred pupils each, which, with those in the suburbs, amount to sixteen schools with nearly six thousand pupils and one hundred teachers.”

It was estimated that there were at least fifty thousand Northern men in Louisiana. Some were in the lumber business, which had been stimulated to great activity throughout the South. Many were working cotton plantations with every prospect of success; a few had purchased, others were paying a fixed rent, while some were furnishing capital to be refunded by the crop, of which they were to have a third or a half.

Occasionally I heard of one who had taken a sugar plantation. Mr. ——, a merchant of New York, told me he had for two years been working the Buena Vista plantation, in St. James Parish. He employed an agent, and visited the place himself once a year. There were twelve hundred acres under cultivation, for which he paid an annual rent of sixteen thousand dollars. There was one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of machinery on the plantation. He employed sixty freedmen. They worked faithfully and well, but needed careful management. During the past year but one had deserted, while two had been discharged. They received one third of their wages monthly, and the remainder at the end of the year. “If they were paid in full as fast as their work was done, when sugar-making season comes they would be apt to quit, the labor is so hard,—though we pay them then fifty cents a night extra.”

I inquired concerning profits. “The first year we lost money. This year we have made it up, and more. Next year we shall be in full blast.”

It takes three years from the start to get a sugar plantation going; and in two years, if neglected, the cane will run out. This is the case in Louisiana,—although I was told that in the West Indies some kinds of cane would yield twenty or thirty successive crops, without replanting. In some parts of the State, where the soil is too dry, or the climate too cold for the most profitable cultivation, it requires replanting every year for the subsequent year’s crop.

The majority of the plantations in Lower Louisiana, said to be good for little else but sugar and sweet potatoes, were waste and unavailable. St. Mary’s Parish had been almost entirely abandoned. The cane had run out; seed-cane was not to be had; and to recommence the culture an outlay of capital was necessary, from which no such immediate, bountiful returns could be anticipated as from the culture of cotton.

The sugar region and the cotton belt overlap each other. Cane may be cultivated to some extent as far north as 34°, while cotton ranges as far south as 30°, although it can scarcely be considered a safe or profitable crop much below 31°. In 1850 there were in Louisiana 4205 cotton and 1558 sugar plantations. This year cotton is not only king, but a usurper, holding with uncertain tenure much of the special province of sugar.

Good cotton plantations in Louisiana yield a bale (of five hundred pounds) to the acre. The sugar crop varies from five hundred to thirty-five hundred pounds, according to the fitness of the soil, the length of the season, and the mode of culture. A hogshead of eleven hundred and fifty pounds to the acre, is about an average crop.

Five different varieties of cane are used by the planters of Louisiana. The cuttings from which it is propagated are called “seed-cane.” They are cut in September, and laid in “mats,”—a sort of stack adapted to protect them from frost. Cane is usually planted between the months of October and March. Two or three stalks are laid together in prepared rows seven feet apart, and covered by five or six inches of soil. This is called the “mother-cane.” In cold soil it rots, and is eaten by vermin. The first year’s growth is called “plant-cane,” and is ploughed and hoed like corn. On being cut, new stalks spring up from the roots. These subsequent year’s stalks are called rattoons,—a West Indian word, derived from the Spanish _retonó_, (_retoñar_, to sprout again,) which was probably imported into Louisiana, together with the Creole cane, by the refugees from St. Domingo, in 1794.

“There’s nothing handsomer,” said my friend Dick P——, the overseer, “than a field of cane on the first of June, high as your head, all green, a thousand acres, waving and shining in the wind.” It is a lively scene when a gang of fifty or sixty negroes, armed with knives, enter such a field in the fall, and the cutting begins.

I was desirous of seeing a sugar-mill in operation, but could hear of none within convenient visiting distance. The scene is thus described in a letter written by a Northern lady whose husband was last year working a Louisiana plantation:—

“I am sitting in the gallery of a building two hundred and fifty feet long. This gallery was made expressly for the white overseer, and overlooks all that is going on in the main building. There is a sleeping-room in each end of it, and a large open space in the middle which serves as a dining-room; here I am writing. In the opposite end of the building I can see the engine which carries all the machinery; just this side of it are the great rollers that crush the cane, and the apron, or feed-carrier, that carries the cane from the shed outside up to the crushers.

“Just this side of the crushers are four large vats that receive the juice. From these it is carried into two large kettles, where the lime is put in, and the juice is raised to the boiling-point, and then skimmed. From these kettles the juice is transferred by means of a bucket attached to a long pole, to the next kettle, where it is worked to the right consistency for clarifying.

“This done, it is conveyed, by means of a steam-pump, to the filtering room, where it is passed into large vats filled with burnt bones, called bone black, through which it is filtered, and thus freed from all impurities. From these filters it is run off into a large cistern, and pumped up by the same steam-pump into tanks, where, by means of faucets, it is drawn into the sugaring-off pan. In this pan it is heated by means of a coil of pipe that winds round and round till it fills the bottom of the pans and carries the steam which, in from fifteen to twenty minutes, finishes the boiling process. From this pan it is let off into a box car, set on a railroad track which runs up and down between the coolers, which are ranged along each side of this end of the building, like pews in a church.

“The Creoles along the coast have looked with amazement all summer upon our success with free black laborers, and have been obliged to acknowledge that they never saw a more cheerful, industrious set of laborers in all their experience. ‘But wait till sugar-making comes,’ they have said, ‘and then see if you can get off your crop without the old system of compulsion. Your niggers will flare up when you get off your ten-hour system. They are not going to work night and day, and you cannot get off the crop unless they do.’

“White sugar-makers presented themselves, telling us, in all sobriety, ‘Niggers cannot be trusted to make sugar,’ and offering, with great magnanimity, to oversee the matter for five hundred dollars. J—— declined all such friendly offers, and last Monday morning commenced grinding cane. The colored men and women went to work with a will,—no shirking or flinching. The cutters pushed the handlers, the handlers pushed the haulers, and so on, night and day, each gang taking their respective watches, and all moving on with the regularity of clock-work.

“And so the business went on with black engineers, black crushers, black filterers, black sugar-makers,—all black throughout,—but the sugar came out splendid in quantity and quality. Sixty hogsheads of sugar, finished by Saturday night, and things in readiness for the Sabbath’s rest, is acknowledged by old planters to be the largest run ever made in this sugar-house for the first week of the sugar season. So they gape and stare, and wonder that humanity and justice can bring forth more profitable results than the driver’s whip.”

Louisiana has been the great sugar-growing State of the Union. For several years before the war, the annual crop varied from 100,000 to 450,000 hogsheads. In 1864 less than nine thousand hogsheads were produced. In 1865 the crop amounted to between sixteen and seventeen thousand hogsheads, less than was raised in 1860 on four plantations!

Attempts were being made to introduce white laborers into Louisiana. While I was there, one hundred Germans, who had been hired in New York for a sugar plantation, were landed in New Orleans. Within twenty-four hours thirty of them deserted for higher wages; by which trifling circumstance planters, who had hoped to exchange black for white labor, were very much disgusted.