A FREEDMAN REMEMBERS THE EARLY DAYS OF FREEDOM
Under slavery, African American families were not legally recognized. While many enslaved African Americans
lived in stable, long-term relationships, few were completely free from the possibility of disruption. Masters often
dictated the work of families, usurping the roles husbands were traditionally accorded. Freedom permitted African
Americans to organize themselves in legal families, thus reflecting the domestic values of the broader society.
Families were also the basic units of labor in the post-war South, with African-American husbands seeking to
control the labor of all their family members as masters had done in slavery. In freedom, white planters often
sought to continue to dictate the labor performed by freedwomen, while families of freedpeople sought to keep
women’s work a purely private affair. The following memoir of a freedman describes the tense negotiations that
could surround women’s work.
1.
We had some pretty hard times after we first married. I had to go about
mighty to provide for my children and my old lady. I moved on a farm
owned by old Robert Bishop and stayed on and sharecropped, giving him
one-third. One day he came by my little shack in his buggy and said,
"Charlie, I want your woman to come up to the big house and do some work
for my wife." I said, "What woman?" He said, "Sarah, your wife, of course."
I said, "I tell you, Bishop, when I married my wife I married her to wait on
me and she has got all she can do right here for me and my children." He got
awful mad and said, "Well, Charlie, I keep this house for people who can do
what I want done. It is the customfor whoever lives here to let his wife help
around the big house, and if you can't let your wife do it, I need my house."
He tried to make me move right away, but I went to court and they made
him let me stay on.
SOURCE: George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport, CT., 1972), v. 19,
135-36.
A FREEDWOMAN REMEMBERS THE EARLY DAYS OF FREEDOM
Emancipation was surely a great boon to anyone who had been enslaved. Yet because the enslaved were freed with
nothing, they faced great difficulty in establishing themselves as independent actors in a capitalist economy.
African-American women faced special trials after emancipation. The following memoir of a formerly enslaved
woman suggests the plight that many African-American women found themselves in. Operating under the double
burdens of racism and narrowly defined gender roles, black women had few resources to craft independent lives in
freedom. Circumstances forced some into relationships with men designed to achieve economic security rather than
express genuine affection.
1.
When freedomcame I asked my old owner to please let me stay on with
them; I didn't have nowhere to go nohow. He said, "Anne, you can stay here
if you want to, but I ain't going to give you nothing but your victuals and
clothes enough to cover your hide. Not a penny in money do no nigger get
from me." He cursed me to all the low names he could think of and drove
me out like a dog. I was barefooted, so I asked Moses Evans to please buy
me some shoes. My feet was so sore and I didn't have no money nor no
home neither. So he said for me to wait till Saturday night and he'd buy me
some shoes. Sure enough, when Saturday night come he buyed me some
shoes and handkerchiefs and a pretty string of beads and got an old man
neighbor named Rochel to let me stay at his house. Then in a few weeks me
and him got married, and I was mighty glad to marry him to get a place to
stay--yes, I was. Hard times as I was having, if I seed a man walking with
two sticks and he wanted me for a wife I'd marry him to get a place to stay.
SOURCE: Norman R. Yetman, ed., Voices from Slavery (New York, 1970), 109-10.
A SOUTHERN PLANTER COMPLAINS ABOUT FREEDWOMEN’S WORK, 1866
Deprived of their enslaved labor force, planters in the post-war South complained incessantly that the freedpeople
refused to work. In fact, what was happening was that the freedpeople, now freed from compulsion, flexed their
muscle as a labor force and refused to work under exploitative conditions. Planters saw, however, declared their
suspicions about “lazy” freedpeople confirmed. African-American women represented a particular instance of this
phenomenon. Under slavery, enslaved women had had no choice but to work. Now, under freedom, many chose to
work at home rather than in the fields. As this planter complained to the Freedmen’s Bureau in Georgia, their
departure from fields dealt a blow to planters’ efforts to continue to extract as much labor as possible from African
Americans.
1.
Most of the freedwomenwho have husbands are not at work, never having
made any contract at all. Their husbands are at work while they are as
nearly idle as it is possible for them to be, pretending to spin, knit, or
something that really amounts to nothing. Now these women have always
been used to working out and it would be far better for them to go to work
for reasonable wages and their rations. Their labor is a very important
percent of the entire labor of the South, and if not made available must
affect to some extent the present crop. I have several that are working well,
while other and generally younger ones who have husbands and children are
idle--indeed refuse to work and say their husbands must support them. I
beg you will not consider this matter lightly, for it is a very great evil, and
one that the Bureau ought to correct.
SOURCE: Ira Berlin, Steven F. Miller, and Leslie Rowland, eds., "Afro-American Families in the Transition from
Slavery to Freedom," Radical History Review 42 (1988), 112-13.
MEMOIR OF A FREEDMEN'SBUREAU OFFICER
John William DeForest was a Union Army officer during the Civil War. He served as a Freedmen’s Bureau officer
in South Carolina during the Reconstruction. DeForest’s statement is a telling reminder that many Bureau officers
saw their task as first and foremost to get the South working again. Even those who had held abolitionist sentiments
before the war sometimes changed their sentiments upon encountering the freedpeople. As did DeForest, many
Northerners expected the freedpeople to immediately respond to freedom by becoming prosperous farmers.
Reflecting views widespread throughout the nation at the time, DeForest seemed surprised when they did not
respond as predicted by northern free labor ideology.
1.
For nothing were the Negroes more eager than for transportation. They had
a passion, not so much for wandering as for getting together. Every mother's
son among them seemed to be in search of his mother; every mother in
search of her children. In their eyes the work of emancipation was
incomplete until the families which had been dispersed by slavery were
reunited. In short, transportation was a nuisance. I believed in it less than I
believed in the distribution of rations and in modes of charity generally. It
was necessary, I thought, to convince the Negroes of the fact that the object
of the government was not to do them favors, but justice; and of the still
greater fact that there is very little to get in this world without work.
SOURCE: John William DeForest, A Union Officer in the Reconstruction, James H. Croushore and David M. Potter,
eds. (New Haven, 1948), 36-38.
ALTERNATIVES TO WAGE-LABOR SYSTEM DEVELOPED DURING RECONSTRUCTION
Tenancy type
Description
Sharecropping Landowner lends use of land,
housing, tools, stock, and
provisions on credit. Promise
of future harvested crop is
used as collateral.
Typical payment History
to landlord
One-half of
cotton and grain
Share tenancy
Landowner supplies only land, One-fourth of
cotton; one-third
house, and (sometimes) fuel.
Share of future harvested crop of grain
is used in payment.
Share wages
Plantation workers advanced
all housing and living needs.
Paid at harvest with share of
crop rather than fixed money
wages.
Two-thirds to
three-fourths of
cotton and grain
Final settlement,
completed by 1868.
Develops from other
share arrangements
(such as giving 2/3 of
crop, etc.)
Available only to
freedpeople (and
white tenants) with
own farm tools
First alternative to
gang-wage system of
Civil War
This image, which appeared in Scribner’s Monthly in 1881, depicts the transformation of
a typical cotton plantation from the days of slavery to the days of sharecropping.
Source: David C. Barrow, Jr., “A Georgia Plantation,” Scribner’s Monthly 21:5 (March 1881), 832-33.
The white landowner (“GWE Row”) pledged to "furnish the land and team and also to
feed the same to Henry Slaughter, who on his part agrees to work as much land as he
can possibly do in corn and oats...He [Slaughter] to work himself, grown son and two
small boys...He Slaughter to do one half of the fence and GWE Row the other half..."
"GWE Row agrees to furnish to the said Chas. Gibson a house for his family and for his
personal services he the said Row agrees to pay him one hundred ($100.00) dollars in
current money for the year beginning Jan 1st 1868...And they also further agree and
covenant that for the services of Martha and Thomas children of the said Chas. Gibson.
That they will be fed and clothed by the said Geo. W.E. Row. And for Louisa Gordon he
(GWE Row) agrees to pay the sum of twenty [five] ($25.00) Dollars in current money. She
the said Louisa Gordon to cook, wash, milk etc. as she had done this year 1867..."
Sharecropping in the U.S.
The labor negotiation
•Freedpeople vs. planters
•Bureau of Freedmen,
Refugees, and Abandoned
Lands (“Freedmen’s
Bureau”)
•The result = sharecropping
Freedman’s Bureau officers, who were often taken from
the ranks of military officials, were charged with
reconstructing the plantation regime by negotiating
between planters and the freedpeople
Sharecropping
Planters
• Own the land
• Need labor but cash poor
• Receives as rent half of
profit from sale of crop
• Do not need cash
• Retain ultimate control
• Their workers are invested
in the outcome
Freedpeople
• Do not own land
• Need money but no capital
• Receives as wages half of
profit from sale of crop
• Get to live in families
• Get to control own time
• More/better work = more
profit
Percentage of farms sharecropped (by county), 1880
Sharecropping began as a compromise with the planters, in which freedpeople
gained a measure of independence and autonomy in exchange for laboring on the
lands of others. It soon descended into a cycle of debt peonage for many, as
planters exercised their control of credit and law to exploit the newly freed.
Agreement between Landlord and Sharecropper
This agreement, made and entered into this 18th day of January, 1879, between Solid
South, of the first part, and John Dawson, of the second part.
Witnesseth: that said party of the first part for and in consideration of eighty-eight
pounds of lint cotton to be paid to the said Solid South, as hereinafter expressed,
hereby leases to said Dawson, for the year A. D. 1879, a certain tract of land, the
boundaries of which are well understood by the parties hereto, and the area of which
the said parties hereby agree to be fifteen acres, being a portion of the Waterford
Plantation, in Madison Parish, Louisiana.
The said Dawson is to cultivate said land in a proper manner, under the general
superintendence of the said Solid South, or his agent or manager, and is to surrender to
said lessor peaceable possession of said leased premises at the expiration of this lease
without notice to quit. All ditches, turn-rows, bridges, fences, etc. on said land shall be
kept in proper condition by said Dawson, or at his expense. All cotton-seed raised on
said land shall be held for the exclusive use of said plantation, and no goods of any kind
shall be kept for sale on any said land unless by consent of said lessor.
Agreement between Landlord and Sharecropper (cont.)
If said Solid South shall furnish to said lessee money or necessary supplies, or stock, or
material, or either or all of them during this lease, to enable him to make a crop, the
amount of said advances, not to exceed $475 (of which $315 has been furnished in two
mules, plows, etc.), the said Dawson agrees to pay for the supplies and advances so
furnished, out of the first cotton picked and saved on said land from the crop of said
year, and to deliver said cotton of the first picking to the said Solid South, in the gin on
said plantation, to be by him bought or shipped at his option, the proceeds to be
applied to payment of said supply bill, which is to be fully paid on or before the 1st day
of January, 1880.
After payment of said supply bill, the said lessee is to pay to said lessor, in the gin of said
plantation, the rent cotton herein before stipulated, said rent to be fully paid on or
before the 1st day of January, 1880. All cotton raised on said land is to be ginned on the
gin of said lessor, on said plantation, and said lessee is to pay $4 per bale for ginning
same.
Agreement between Landlord and Sharecropper (cont.)
To secure payment of said rent and supply bill, the said Dawson grants unto said Solid
South a special privilege and right of pledge on all the products raised on said land, and
on all his stock, farming implements, and personal property, and hereby waives in favor
of said Solid South the benefit of any and all homestead laws and exemption laws now
in force, or which may be in force, in Louisiana, and agrees that all his property shall be
seized and sold to pay said rent and supply bill in default of payment thereof as herein
agreed. Any violation of this contract shall render the lease void.
An ideal sharecropping contract
Freedmen's Bureau officer Martin R. Delany drew up a model contract for a sharecropping
arrangement. His contract, which required payment of one-third of the crop to the laborer and
offered some protection from abuses by the planter, gives a sense of some of the injustices other
sharecropping arrangements imposed.
No labor is to be performed by hand that can better be done by animal labor or
machinery. All damage for injury or loss of property by carelessness is to be paid by fair
and legal assessments.
All Thanksgiving, Fast Days, "Holidays" and National Celebration Days are to be enjoyed
by contractors without being regarded as a neglect of duty or violation of contract.
Good conduct and good behavior of the Freedmen toward the proprietor; good
treatment of animals; and good care of tools, utensils, etc; and good and kind treatment
of the Proprietor to the Freedmen, will be strictly required by the Authorities.
No stores will be permitted on the place and nothing sold on account except the
necessaries of life such as good substantial food and working clothes. Spirituous liquors
will not be permitted.
An ideal sharecropping contract (cont.)
In all cases where an accusation is made against a person, the Proprietor or his Agent,
[and] one of the Freedmen selected by themselves, and a third person chosen by the
two shall be a council to investigate the accused. In all cases where a decision is to be
made to dismiss or forfeit a share of the crop, the officer of the Bureau or some other
Officer of the Government must preside in the trial and make the decision. When the
Proprietor is prejudiced against an accused person, he must name a person to take his
place in the Council.