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Vol. I, No. 2 January, 1916 
 
 Smith College Studies 
 in History 
 
 JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
 SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 
 
 Editors 
 
 THE OPERATION OF THE FREEDMEN'S 
 BUREAU IN SOUTH CAROLINA 
 
 By LAURA JOSEPHINE WEBSTER 
 
 i \ 
 
 NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 
 
 Published Quarterly by the 
 Department of History of Smith College 
 
93 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I— Preliminaries 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Steps leading up to governmental supervision of the 
 
 negroes in South Carolina 67 
 
 2. Supervision by the treasury department of plantation 
 
 work on the sea islands of South Carolina 69 
 
 3. Supervision by the war department of plantation work 
 
 on the sea islands 74 
 
 4. Negroes at the camps 75 
 
 5. Education of the negroes 80 
 
 6. Sherman and the negroes 82 
 
 7. Conclusion 83 
 
 CHAPTER II — Legislation and Organization 
 
 1. Terms of the first freedmen's bureau bill 85 
 
 2. General organization 85 
 
 3. Organization in South Carolina 86 
 
 4. Hindrances 87 
 
 5. Reorganization 89 
 
 6. Saxton replaced by Scott as assistant commissioner. ... 90 
 
 7. Act of July 16, 1866 91 
 
 8. Gradual abolition of the powers of the freedmen's bureau 92 
 
 CHAPTER III — Distribution and Restoration of Land 
 
 1 . Land held by the national government 93 
 
 2. Disposal of land by the freedmen's bureau 93 
 
 3. Negroes' belief in gifts of 40 acres and a mule 94 
 
 4. Disposal of the negroes at the coast 95 
 
 5. Restoration of lands 97 
 
 6. Records of restoration 102 
 
 7. Disadvantages of the government's actions 103 
 
 4 
 
IV 
 
 1. 
 
 2. 
 3. 
 
 4. 
 5. 
 
 Table of Contents 
 
 CHAPTER IV — Labor. Justice and Marriage Relations 
 
 Labor conditions in 1865 105 
 
 Administration of justice 109 
 
 Labor conditions in 1866 115 
 
 Labor conditions in 1867 116 
 
 Labor conditions in 1868 117 
 
 I To be continued in the next number of the Studies) 
 
South Carol i v a 
 
 Map of South Carolina, showing centres of the work 
 of the Freedmen's Bureau. 
 

The Operation of the Freedmen's Bureau 
 in South Carolina 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Preliminaries 
 
 November 7, 1861, Commodore Dupont stormed and cap- 
 tured Fort Walker at Hilton Head, South Carolina. United 
 States troops, under command of General W. T. Sherman, were 
 immediately landed and took possession of Hilton Head, and 
 soon afterward of Saint Helena and the entire island of Port 
 Royal. 1 To escape falling into the hands of the enemy, the slave 
 holders in the captured districts and adjacent islands fled to 
 Charleston and the interior. They took with them the more intelli- 
 gent of their slaves; the remainder, with the abandoned planta- 
 tions, were left to the enemy. The region occupied by the Union 
 forces consisted of some of the most valuable territory of the en- 
 tire South, for only along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia 
 and Texas can sea island cotton be produced. On these islands 
 slavery had existed in ks most absolute form, and the negroes 
 there were of the lowest order of intelligence. 2 
 
 Before leaving, the masters had warned the negroes to avoid 
 the "Yankees," saying that if the latter had the opportunity, 
 they would take them to Cuba to sell them again into slavery. 
 Nevertheless, at Hilton Head a large portion of the negroes 
 flocked to the piers to welcome the Union forces, who reported 
 that they came ready for their journey, wherever it might be, 
 each with his worldly possessions tied up in a little bundle. 3 Much 
 
 1 War of the Rebellion. Official Records, Series I., Vol. VI., pp. 186- 
 193. Schouler. History of the United States, VI., 139; Nicolay and Hay, 
 Abraham Lincoln, V., 14-20; Greeley, The American Conflict, I., 604-605. 
 
 2 Reid, After the War, 94-95; Pierce, The Freedmen at Port Royal, 
 Atlantic Monthly, XII., 301 (Sept., 1863). 
 
 'Greeley, Trie American Conflict, I., 605. Schouler, History of the 
 United States, VI., 139. 
 
68 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 to their surprise the soldiers remained, and the negro population, 
 gaining confidence as the days passed without evidence of co- 
 ercion, began to rejoice in the absence of compulsory labor. They 
 appropriated to their own use the potatoes and corn in the store- 
 houses of their former masters and settled down to the enjoy- 
 ment of their "year of Jubilee." It was in allusion to this period 
 that the following poem was written by John Greenleaf Whittier : 
 
 "( He Massa on he trabbels gone; 
 1 1c leaf de land behind : 
 De Lord's breff blow him furder on 
 Like corn-shuck in de wind. 
 We own de hoe, we own de plough, 
 We own de hands dat hold; 
 We sell de pig, we sell de cow. 
 But nebber chile be sold. 
 
 "De yam will grow, de cotton blow, 
 We'll liab de rice an' corn : 
 O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear 
 De driver blow his horn !'" 
 
 The abandoned homes of the planters and of their overseers 
 were soon filled with negro refugees who flocked to the Union 
 lines in great numbers."' It was reported on November 9 that 
 150 of them had come in two days. 6 To these childlike people, 
 freedom meant simply a perpetual cessation of labor, and General 
 Sherman could not induce them to exert themselves sufficiently to 
 carry on the work of the camp. He complained that the sudden 
 change from servitude to apparent freedom was more than their 
 intellects could stand. 7 Their daily increasing numbers and de- 
 creasing resources caused him, on February 6, 1862, to appeal to 
 "the benevolent and philanthropic of the land" to relieve the 
 immediate wants of "this unfortunate and . . . interesting 
 class of people." At that time he estimated that there were at 
 least 9000 negroes within his lines. s At the same time he applied 
 
 ' V. " v Port Royal." 
 
 'Pierce, rhe Freedmen at Fort Royal, Atl. Mon., XII., 302. (Sept.. 
 
 •Official Records, Series 1.. Vol. VI., pp. 1S6-187. 
 'Ibid., pp. 204-205. 
 
 nan had first suggested this plan in a letter written Jan. 
 15. 1862. Ibid., p. 218. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 69 
 
 to headquarters for authority to put into operation a plan for the 
 superintendence of agriculture and education within his depart- 
 ment. 9 
 
 Meanwhile Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the treasury, and a 
 leading anti-slavery spirit had determined upon a plan of action 
 similar to General Sherman's. Late in December, 1861, he sent 
 Edward L. Pierce to visit the captured sea islands and to report 
 to him upon the condition of the negroes there. 10 Pierce was a 
 young abolitionist of Boston, who had formerly studied in Chase's 
 law office and who had superintended the labor of the "contra- 
 bands" at Fortress Monroe the preceding summer. 11 
 
 Pierce set out for South Carolina January 13, 1862. He com- 
 pleted a detailed report of the result of his observation on Feb- 
 ruary 10, 12 and forwarded it to Secretary Chase. His con- 
 clusions, based upon a three weeks' examination of agricultural 
 conditions and of the life and disposition of the negroes, he him- 
 self acknowledged as necessarily uncertain. 13 However, his re- 
 port shows careful investigation and a desire to conserve all the 
 resources of the country in the interests of the national gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Contrary to expectations, he found many of the negroes on 
 the plantations indifferent to freedom and unwilling to fight for 
 it. Some of them, recalling the prophecies of their masters that 
 they would be taken to Cuba, had fled in alarm at the approach 
 of the army. Others were determined to remain on the planta- 
 tions and "take their chances" with the soldiers. 14 No system 
 of labor had as yet been established on the plantations. Agents, 
 sent by the treasury department to superintend the "gathering, 
 preparing and transporting to market of the cotton and other 
 property" found by the army, had got the negroes to assist them, 
 
 9 Hart, Salmon P. Chase, 258. 
 
 10 Pierce, AH. Mon., XII., 296 (Sept. 1863). 
 
 11 Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, III., 457. 
 
 12 The report was commenced on Feb. 3, 1862. Moore, The Rebellion 
 Record, Companion Volume, 302. 
 
 13 Ibid. 
 
 " Ibid., 308-309. 
 
70 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 but the service was performed in such a dilatory manner that 
 Pierce assumed the defensive in speaking of it. 15 
 
 At the military camps at Hilton Head and Beaufort, barracks 
 had been erected for the negroes, and a regular system of labor 
 had been devised. At Hilton Head, Barnard K. Lee, Jr., of 
 Boston, had been in charge of the laborers since November, 
 1861. Definite arrangements had been made with the negroes to 
 work for wages at rates regulated by General Sherman. Me- 
 chanics were to receive from eight to twelve dollars a month and 
 other laborers from four to eight dollars. In addition, each 
 laborer was given a ration of food for himself. Food and cloth- 
 ing for his family were furnished and the value was deducted 
 from his wages. At the time of Pierce's report, 472 laborers were 
 thus enrolled. Of these, 137 were on the pay roll, and the amount 
 of money due them for labor during the first three months 
 amounted to nearly $1000. The failure to pay the promised 
 wages, probably due to a lack of small currency, naturally tended 
 to increase the negroes' native aversion to work. 16 Although the 
 customary means of enforcing discipline upon the blacks was not 
 used by the superintendent of Hilton Head, Yankee ingenuity was 
 not slow in finding a substitute for the lash and the whipping post. 
 Pierce reports that "the delinquent, if a male, is sometimes made 
 to stand on a barrel, or, if a woman, is put in a dark room ;"' and 
 he added that such discipline proved successful. 17 
 
 At Beaufort, William Harding, a citizen of Daufuskie Island, 
 South Carolina, had recently been appointed superintendent, but 
 because of the delay in his appointment, little had as yet been ac- 
 complished. The Reverend Solomon Peck of Roxbury. Massa- 
 chusetts, had established a school there, January 8, 1862, and was 
 maintaining it largely at his own expense. The school then con- 
 tained 60 pupils. 18 
 
 As a result of his observations. Pierce recommended to Secre- 
 
 'II :. Docs.. 37 Cong., 3 Sess., Vol. VII.. No. 72, p. 1. Moore, 
 
 Companion Volume, 307. 
 
 "Moore, Companion Volume, 313. 
 
 "Ibid., 313. 
 
 "Ibid., 314. Ex. Docs., 41 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 6. No. 142. p. 11. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 71 
 
 tary Chase the following plan for the cultivation of the 195 planta- 
 tions then in control of the army in South Carolina. Superinten- 
 dents of plantations should be appointed and "given adequate 
 power to enforce a paternal discipline, to require a proper amount 
 of labor, cleanliness, sobriety and better habits of life, and general- 
 ly to promote the moral and intellectual culture of their wards." 19 
 For each large plantation there should^ be a superintendent, 
 while several small ones could be placed under the control 
 of one man. A director-general should inspect the work 
 of all the plantations, and a uniform system of wages was 
 to be determined. The government should provide teachers 
 for the elementary branches of education, and missionaries should 
 be encouraged. This plan, Pierce thought, would render the 
 negro self-supporting, and would train him for citizenship. He 
 pointed out to Secretary Chase that haste was necessary, as desti- 
 tution was imminent without the assistance of the government. 
 When he wrote, the time for planting had already arrived. 20 
 
 Upon the completion of his report, Pierce went to Washing- 
 ton. There he interviewed Secretary Chase, President Lincoln 
 and several congressmen in behalf of his plans for the negroes 
 on the sea islands. His report was approved by Secretary Chase, 
 but even his personal friends in congress refused to act in the 
 matter, and President Lincoln, then deeply concerned over the 
 condition of his son, seemed impatient at being troubled with 
 "such details." However, on February 19, 1862, Pierce was ap- 
 pointed by Secretary Chase as special agent of the treasury de- 
 partment to superintend "the culture of plantations and the em- 
 ployment of the laborers thereon." 21 Since an appropriation 
 could not be obtained from congress, a plan of cooperation was 
 arranged with the benevolent societies of the North, whereby 
 superintendents of plantations and teachers were to be paid by 
 
 " It is interesting to notice the similarity of this plan to the paternal 
 oversight previously exercised over the negroes by their masters. 
 
 ™ Moore, Companion Volume, 311, 312. 
 
 21 Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XII.. 296-297 (Sept., 1863); Hart, Salmon 
 P. Chase, 259; House Ex. Docs., 37 Cong., 3 Sess., Vol. VII., No. 72 p. 2. 
 
72 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 them, while subsistence, transportation and quarters would be 
 furnished by the government. -- 
 
 A word must be said about the philanthropic societies without 
 whose help the work inaugurated by Pierce would have been 
 impossible. While still at Port Royal, he had appealed for help 
 to friends in Boston, which resulted in the organization there, 
 on February 7, of The Educational Commission. The Freed- 
 men's Relief Association was organized in New York February 
 20, and Philadelphia followed, March 3, with The Port Royal 
 Relief Committee. Soon afterwards numerous similar societies 
 sprang up throughout the North and West, and even in Great 
 Britain. 23 These societies at first provided the funds for the 
 employment of both superintendents and teachers, but after 
 July 1, 1862, the government undertook the payment of super- 
 intendents from the sale of confiscated cotton. Besides con- 
 tributions of money, the societies furnished quantities of pro- 
 visions of all kinds.- 1 
 
 .March 3, 1862, Pierce embarked from New York with a com- 
 pany of 41 men and 12 women, among whom he said "were some 
 of the choicest young men of New England, fresh from Harvard, 
 Yale and Brown, and from the divinity schools of Andover and 
 Cambridge. . . There were some of whom the world was 
 
 lie worthy, and to whom ... I delight to pay the tribute 
 (if my respect and admiration." 25 John Murray Forbes, who 
 happened to be travelling on the same vessel, gives in a letter 
 written March 4. the following description of his fellow voy- 
 agers: "Our passengers consist chiefly of the 'villaintropic' 
 society . . . ; bearded and mustached and odd-looking men, 
 
 ' Moore, Companion Volume, 315. The government advances were 
 made by the war department. House Ex. Docs., 37 Cong., 3 Sess., Vol. 
 \ II.. X... 72. p. 2. Official Records, Ser. I., Vol. VI., p. 227. 
 
 e aggregate contribution from Great Britain amounted to $800.- 
 000. I Inward, Autobiography, II., 196; Wilson. Rise and Fall of the 
 Slave Power in America, 111.. 468. 
 
 "Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XII., 297 (Sept., 1863) ; Wilson, Slave 
 r, III., 464-471. 
 
 Ex. Docs., 41 Cong.. 2 Sess.. Vol. 6, No. 142. p. 4; Pierce, Atlantic 
 Monthly. XII.. 298, 299 (Sept., 1863). 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 73 
 
 with odder looking women." 2 " This company reached Beaufort 
 March 9, 1862, and the members were soon assigned by the special 
 agent to their different fields of labor as teachers, nurses and 
 superintendents. "During the first year they furnished 91,834 
 garments, 35,829 books and pamphlets, 5,895 yards of cloth, 
 $3,000 worth of farming implements and seeds, and had about 
 3,000 scholars under instruction." 27 The superintendent found 
 that the negroes remaining on the plantations had in most in- 
 stances planted patches of corn and potatoes. With difficulty 
 they were prevailed upon to resume the cultivation of cotton, 
 on the promise of payment for the care of this crop which hereto- 
 fore had caused them the hardest labor, and from which they had 
 received no benefit. 2S 
 
 Many difficulties impeded the work of the special agent. The 
 lateness of the season when the superintendents arrived, the 
 negroes' lack of confidence in the promise of wages, 29 and the 
 scarcity of agricultural equipment' 50 all seriously handicapped the 
 enterprise. But by far the greatest hindrance was the feeling of 
 opposition on the part of the government employees already in 
 the field. From November until March the soldiers and cotton 
 agents had enjoyed sole possession of the conquered territory. 
 When a company of missionaries appeared, authorized by the 
 government to claim all abandoned property, the newcomers were 
 regarded by many as interlopers, and received the derisive term 
 
 28 Hughes, Life and Recollections of Jno. Murray Forbes, I., 295, 296. 
 
 27 Ex. Docs., 41 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 6, No. 142, pp. 4, 5. 
 
 28 Moore, Companion Volume, 315-328. Upon the flight of the planters, 
 the slaves' hatred of the cotton industry showed itself in a savage de- 
 struction of cotton gins. Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XII., 308 (Sept., 1863). 
 
 29 This feeling was justifiable, since the cotton agents had not yet 
 kept their promise of paying the negroes for baling and transporting the 
 cotton. Moore, Companion Volume, 320. 
 
 30 Until after the middle of April, the plowing had been done largely 
 by hand, since the planters in their flight had taken with them nearly all 
 of the mules. The middle of April, ninety mules, sent from New York 
 by the government, reached Beaufort, and were distributed among the 
 plantations. Tools and farming implements were also sent from the 
 North. Moore, Companion Volume, 319. 
 
74 iTH College Studies in History 
 
 of "Gideonites." 31 This feeling is well expressed in a letter 
 written in April by John Murray Forbes to Charles Sumner, in 
 which he said : "The undercurrent against the commission here 
 is very strong, even among those who ought to know better. First 
 the cotton agents think their interests, and their personal use of 
 negroes, horses and houses hurt thereby ; then the settlers and 
 finally the military, are all prejudiced, especially the subordi- 
 nates ; the lower you go the worse the feeling, the generals and 
 those high up doing, I believe, all they can, and showing, so far 
 as I can judge, a good spirit." 32 
 
 This hostility manifested itself in petty annoyances, in per- 
 sonal violences, and in a general lack of harmony between the 
 departments. An example of the failure to cooperate with the 
 military authorities is worthy of notice. On May 12, 1862, the 
 superintendents, much against their will, aided in carrying out 
 an order of General Hunter's requiring that all able-bodied 
 negroes between the ages of eighteen and forty-five should be 
 sent to Hilton Head to be armed. 33 This was done amid the 
 protests of the conscripts and the loud lamentations of their 
 families, and to the detriment of crops then under cultivation. 
 These crops, deprived of 600 "full hands," were left dependent 
 upon the work of women, children and old men. 
 
 Since this lack of harmony existed it is probably well that on 
 June 28, 1862, the control of plantations was transferred from 
 the treasury to the war department. 34 Brigadier General Rufus 
 Saxton was assigned by the secretary of war to duty in the de- 
 partment of the south with directions to take possession of aband- 
 oned plantations and to make rules and regulations for the cul- 
 tivation of the land. 85 General Saxton was a native of Massa- 
 chusetts and represented the feeling of that state in regard to 
 
 1 Pierce claimed for the title Gideonites "just rank with the honored 
 titles of Puritan and Methodist." Atlantic Monthly. XII., 298 (Sept., 
 1863 
 
 'Hughes, Life and Recollections of Tohn Murray Forbes, I., pp. 300, 
 301. 
 
 ial Records, Ser. III.. Vol. II.. No, 123, pp. 52 <•/ scq. 
 ■ ml, Autobiography, II., 178. 
 
 ords, Ser. 111., Vol. II.. Serial 123. pp. 27. 152. 153. 
 
 3« 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 75 
 
 negro privileges. His appointment was made at the personal re- 
 quest of Secretary Chase. 30 
 
 Although the captured plantations were now under different 
 management, Pierce's plans were largely followed, with a few 
 changes as to general supervision. Port Royal and adjacent 
 islands were arranged in three divisions, and a general super- 
 intendent appointed over each, with subordinate local superin- 
 tendents in charge of the plantations. 37 A plan, begun by Pierce, 
 was carried out, whereby two acres of land were assigned to each 
 working hand, with five-sixteenths of an acre additional for each 
 child. On this the negroes were to raise corn and potatoes suffi- 
 cient for their own subsistence. In payment for the use of the 
 land and of the cattle necessary for its cultivation, they were to 
 work the government's cotton fields and to cultivate additional 
 food supplies for the plowmen, the superintendents and the dis- 
 abled ones of the plantations. In case any persons refused to 
 work in the cotton fields, they were charged rent at the rate of 
 two dollars a month for the houses and lands used. 38 Rations 
 were furnished where necessary, but Nordhoff asserts that none 
 were supplied to those who were destitute by their own fault. 39 
 
 The system of wages used on the plantations is not clear, but 
 it seems to have been as follows : At first Pierce assigned to each 
 laborer in the cotton fields one dollar an acre as an advance on 
 his wage account. 40 In March, 1863, Nordhoff wrote that twenty- 
 five cents was paid for each day's work in the cotton fields, the 
 nature and extent of the work being strictly defined. He re- 
 ported that the negroes were paid in addition two and a half 
 cents a pound for the cotton each raised and picked. 41 It will be 
 
 30 Hart. Salmon P. Chase, 259. 
 
 37 Official Records, Ser. III., Vol. IV., Serial 125, pp. 1023. 1024. 
 
 38 Nordhoff, The Freedmen of S. C, 13-15; Howard, Autobiography. II., 
 178; Pierce. Atlantic Monthly. XII.. 308 (Sept., 1863). 
 
 39 Nordhoff, The Freedmen of S. C, 14. 
 
 40 Moore, Companion Volume, 320. 
 
 "Nordhoff, The Freedmen of S. C, 14. Pierce. Atlantic Monthly, 
 XII., 308 (Sept., 1863). According to Pierce, a standard day's work 
 could, by beginning early, be performed by a healthy and active hand by 
 noon. 
 
76 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 remembered that work on the government's cotton fields was ac- 
 ted in payment of rent for the negroes' houses and patches on 
 which they raised their own food supply. Thus provision was 
 made, not only for the negroes to become independent of the gov- 
 ernment rations, but that they should have a certain amount of 
 spending money. Stores were established for the use of the 
 1 ilacks at various places on the islands, and one of the most 
 encouraging signs of negro advancement was their growing de- 
 mand for the accessories of civilization. 4 - 
 
 In August, 1862, an event occurred which caused great loss 
 to the work on the plantations. Ordering the cavalry from the 
 department of the south to aid McClellan necessitated the aband- 
 onment of James, Edisto and Daufuskie Islands, where were 
 2.000 acres of growing corn, potatoes and cotton. Fifteen hun- 
 dred people were removed from these islands to Saint Helena 
 I -land, where, according to Saxton's report, there were neither 
 proper accommodations nor adequate employment for them. To 
 add to his embarrassment, 600 people from Georgetown and 175 
 from Hutchison's Island were also sent to Saint Helena. 43 The 
 withdrawal of troops and consequent overcrowding of the ne- 
 groes resulted in the formation of the first colored regiment of 
 the United States Army." Feeling the need of protection. Sax- 
 ton applied to Secretary Stanton for permission to organize, from 
 the "contrabands" in his department, a force not exceeding 5.000 
 able-bodied men. His request was granted with the understand- 
 ing that the troops were to be used to guard the plantations and 
 make incursions into the hostile territory for the purpose of 
 bringing away negroes and thus diminishing the strength of the 
 enemy. 1 "' The regiment organized by General Saxtoii. known as 
 the Firsl Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, was mustered 
 
 '" Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XII., pp. 310-311 (Sept.. 1863); Xordhoff, 
 Th( [men of S. C„ 20. 
 
 I Records, Ser. 1.. Vol. XIV., p. 375. 
 'The colored troop-, conscripted by General Hunter. May, 1862, were 
 nd wire disbanded August 11. 1862. Pierce. Atlantic 
 II.. 312 (Sept., 1863); Official Records, Ser. 111.. Vol. II.. No. 
 123, p '.''5. 
 
 irds, Ser. I.. Vol. XIV.. pp. .v-4-378. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 77 
 
 into the service of the United States in October, 1862, and was 
 placed under the command of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Hig- 
 ginson." 1 
 
 Instead of the 5,000 volunteers for which Saxton had asked, 
 the new regiment numbered only about 860 men. 47 The unwil- 
 lingness of most of the negroes to serve in the army was noticed 
 by Pierce on his first visit to the islands in the winter of 1862. 
 He found this especially true of negroes on the plantations, where 
 initiative and self-reliance had been largely suppressed. "Black 
 men have been kept down so like dogs, that they would run be- 
 fore white men," the negroes told him. Nevertheless, he reported 
 a few cases of their brave resistance. 48 Throughout the war, 
 5,462 negro troops were furnished by South Carolina. Though 
 at first their enlistment was regarded by many as a worthless ex- 
 periment, on the whole they proved satisfactory soldiers. With 
 the abandonment of 2,000 acres of cultivated land and the with- 
 drawal of many of the best laborers to serve in the army, it is 
 not surprising that the agricultural output for the first year was 
 disappointing. The cotton crop amounted to 50,000 pounds of 
 ginned sea island cotton (about 500 bales), then worth in the 
 Market $50,000. Food had been raised for the negroes and a 
 supply of corn and fodder had been furnished the army. 49 
 
 General Saxton was very desirous that the freedmen 50 should 
 own land. Provision had been made by acts of Congress for sale, 
 to the highest bidder, of land forfeited to the United States for 
 non-payment of direct taxes. 51 This tax had been levied on all 
 the States, but the levy had been disregarded by those in the 
 Southern Confederacy. In consequence, when any of the terri- 
 
 "Ibid., Ser. III.. Vol. IV., Xo. 125, p. 1027. 
 
 41 Ibid., Ser. III., Vol. III., No. 124, p. 20. 
 
 4 " Moore, Companion Volume, 308; William, Geo. W., History of the 
 Negro Race in America, II., 300. 
 
 "Official Records, Ser. III., Vol. IV, No. 125, p. 1024; Xordhoff. The 
 Freedmen of S. C, 14; Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XIL, 299 (Sept., 1863). 
 
 50 All slaves of rebel masters on places occupied by the U. S. forces, 
 or escaping thereto, were declared free by act of congress, July 17, 1862. 
 Statutes at Large. XIL, 591. 
 
 "Statutes at Large, XIL, 422-426, 589-592, 640. 641 (Acts of June 7, 
 1862, July 17, 1862 and Feb. 6. 1863). 
 
78 itii College Studies in History 
 
 tory of the Southern States fell into the hands of the Union, all 
 proceed- from the sale of such land were kept as partial compen- 
 lebt of the entire state. In March, 1863, about 
 one- fourth of the abandoned plantations in South Carolina were 
 sold at auction. Of the 47 plantations sold, 6 were purchased by 
 neg the remainder by Northerners who cultivated them with 
 
 hired negro labor. 62 
 
 ptember, 1863, President Lincoln issued orders for the sale 
 to the highest bidder of all the unreserved lands. A small por- 
 tion was set apart to be offered to negro families at private sale 
 for $1.25 per acre. According to Saxton's report, this arrange- 
 ment could provide for less than one-half of the negroes, with 
 allotments of two acres each."' 1 A better provision was intended 
 in an order issued by the president to the direct tax commis- 
 
 ners, December 30, 1863, so worded as to give the negroes 
 preemption rights to "any lands in the district of South Carolina 
 owned by the United States." To one person was to be allowed 
 one, or at the option of the preemptor, two tracts of twenty acres 
 
 h, for which he should pay SI. 25 an acre. Two-fifths of the 
 price was to be paid on receipt of the certificate of preemption, 
 the remainder on receipt of the deed." 1 Saxton at once com- 
 municated these instructions to the negroes, who joyfully staked 
 out allotments for nearly all the land in the district and applied 
 to the commissioners for the certificates of preemption. Although 
 the negroes tendered the payment required by the president's 
 order, the majority of the tax commissioners declared the order 
 illegal, and refused to receive the money. The instructions were 
 soon afterward suspended by the secretary of the treasury, and 
 the lands sold to other purchasers. 55 Thus ended the first at- 
 tempt of the negroes to own the abandoned and confiscated land 
 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Although a large part of the land had been sold in March. 
 
 lopaedia, 1863, p. 430; Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XII., 
 ' I). 
 
 irds, Ser. 111.. Vol. IV.. No. 125. p. 1025. 
 "Ibid., p. 1 
 " Ibid., p. 1 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 79 
 
 1863, Saxton was able to report for that year that 470,000 pounds 
 of seed cotton had been raised on the plantations still retained by 
 the government. When ginned, this would leave about 150,000 
 pounds, three times the amount produced in 1862. Saxton 
 stated that the cotton crop of the year would considerably more 
 than meet all of his expenses. In addition, the negroes had raised 
 food enough for their own needs. Rations, however, had been 
 supplied to the destitute refugees who had come into the Union 
 lines since the planting season. 56 
 
 The following year, 1864, Saxton's powers were very much 
 limited. The land was sold, or else passed into the hands of the 
 direct tax commissioners, so that the supervision of plantations 
 ceased. He still maintained authority over "regulations for the 
 sanitary condition and police of the department, and for the 
 protection of the freedmen in their industry and its products. 
 To secure justice between the negroes and their employers, he 
 instituted a system of written contracts, obligatory upon all who 
 employed the freedmen in agriculture. These contracts were 
 signed by both parties, witnessed by his superintendents and sub- 
 ject to his approval. He also established for the freedmen, Au- 
 gust 27, 1864. the South Carolina Savings Bank at Beaufort, 
 where by the close of the year $65,000 had been deposited. By 
 refusing to allow the negroes to sell their cotton until they had 
 obtained a certificate from the superintendent, saying that the 
 sale had been fairly made, he protected them from unscrupulous 
 purchasers. He also ordered that no cotton should be shipped 
 from the department until he was satisfied that the negroes had 
 received their just share for labor expended thereon. 57 
 
 Except for Pierce's report of February 3, 1862, in regard to 
 the regulation of negro labor and education at Beaufort and 
 Hilton Head, 58 we have so far confined our discussion to the 
 condition of the negroes on the plantations. 5 ' J Pierce's authority 
 
 "Ibid., pp. 118, 119. 
 " Ibid., pp. 1022-1023. 
 58 See pages 4, 5 above. 
 
 9 The organization of negro troops was closely allied to the subject, 
 as it was to protect the plantations that they were enlisted. 
 
. v " Smith College Studies in History 
 
 was over the plantation negroes only, and until the transfer of 
 supervision to the war department, July 1, 1862, regulations 
 for the negroes at the army posts were made by the quar- 
 termaster's department. 60 After the transfer, the same depart- 
 ment seems to have continued its supervision over the negroes 
 at the army posts, with a general oversight exercised by Saxton. 61 
 Nordhoff wrote in 1863 that the negroes had done almost all the 
 work in the quartermaster's department 62 and in December. 1864, 
 
 .ton reported that numbers of the negroes were engaged as 
 "mechanics, employees in the quartermaster's department, house 
 and officers' servants, and in various handicrafts." 03 
 
 At Hilton Head an interesting experiment was tried by the 
 military authorities. Half an hour's ride from the camp, lands 
 were set aside for a negro village, known as Mitchelville in honor 
 of General ( >rmsby M. Mitchel. Its population was made up en- 
 tirely of negroes with a well organized town government in which 
 all the officers were negroes, and all. except the mayor and treas- 
 urer, were elected by them. It is interesting to note that the 
 common council of the village required all children between the 
 ages of six and fifteen to attend school regularly, "except in cases 
 where their services are absolutely necessary for the support of 
 their parents, of which the teacher is made the judge."''' 1 Thus, 
 in the negro village of Mitchelville, was established the first com- 
 pulsory education law in South Carolina. 
 
 During the three and a half years of military occupancy, 
 earnest efforts were being made to provide educational advan- 
 tages for all the negro children on the sea islands. It will be re- 
 membered that the philanthropic societies had undertaken to pro- 
 vide and support teachers, while transportation, quarters and 
 subsistence were to be furnished by the government. 66 Before 
 
 House Ex. Dues., 37 Cong., 3 Sess., Vol. VII., No. 72, p. 2; Moore, 
 ipanion Volume, 316. 
 
 < ords, Ser. III.. Vol. IV., No. 125, p. 1024. 
 . 3. 
 ifficia! Records, Ser. III.. Vol. IV.. No. 125, p. 1024. 
 r ' Reid, Whitelaw, Alter the War. 89-90; Fleming, Doc. Hist, of Recon- 
 stru tion, I.. 73-75. 
 
 e pp. 71-73 above. 
 
The Frkkomkn's Bureau in South Carolina 81 
 
 the arrival of Pierce's first delegation, March 9, 1862, schools had 
 been established at Beaufort and Hilton Head.' 1 " Most of the 
 women and a few of the men of this delegation were assigned as 
 teachers to various parts of the islands, but until the following 
 autumn not more than a dozen schools had been established. This 
 was due largely to the intense summer heat and to the scarcity of 
 teachers. Some teachers, who had come in the first delegation, 
 returned home during the summer, thus causing schools only just 
 established to be abandoned. ,1T The position of teacher in negro 
 schools was not desirable, except to one imbued with missionary 
 zeal. To small salaries and personal discomforts were added ab- 
 sence of all social enjoyments and the ill-concealed contempt of 
 the army. Some of the teachers who responded to the call of 
 the missionary societies represented the highest culture of the 
 North. 68 
 
 In the fall of 1862 educational plans on the islands were re- 
 vised, and about 3,000 scholars were reported under instruction 
 during that year. 69 In 1863 Pierce, who was on the islands from 
 March 25 to May 10, stated that there were more than 30 schools 
 in the territory, conducted by 40 or 45 teachers. He found the 
 more advanced pupils studying the second reader, elementary 
 arithmetic and geography. It is interesting to note that the germ 
 of the present industrial education of the negro existed in Beau- 
 fort, where a New York woman was teaching sewing to 113 
 colored girls. The negroes showed an earnest desire for educa- 
 tion and were often willing to make sacrifices for its acquisition. 
 Sometimes the older negroes came for instruction after school 
 hours and studied in the intervals of labor. 70 Negro soldiers had 
 their own schools, superintended by the officers, 71 and when 
 Northerners bought land, they often established schools on the 
 
 ' Ex. Docs.. 41 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 6, No. 142, p. 11. 
 
 "Pierce. Atlantic Monthly, XII.. 303 (Sept., 1863). 
 
 "'•Ibid., pp. 303-307; Official Records, Ser. III., Vol. IV, No. 125, 
 p. 1027. 
 
 ca Ex. Docs., 41 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 6, No. 142, p. 5. 
 
 "Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XII., pp. 303-308 (Sept.. 1863) ; The Nation, 
 Vol. I.. 746 (Dec. 14, 1865). 
 
 71 Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., pp. 249, 250. 
 
82 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 plantations at their own expense. Mr. C. F. P. Bancroft, pro- 
 prietor of 13 plantations, established five free schools, which were 
 attended by 300 pupils. 7 - During the latter part of the period 
 under consideration, the United States tax commissioners super- 
 vised several schools maintained by them from the proceeds of 
 rent obtained from forfeited lands. 73 
 
 The real work of these negro schools can not be estimated by 
 the proficiency in reading, writing and arithmetic attained by the 
 pupils. The lessons they learned in cleanliness, industry and 
 patriotism were of much greater value to this newly emanci- 
 pated race. The thought of negro children, eagerly grasping the 
 rudiments of knowledge, before withheld from them, appealed 
 strongly to the sentiment of the North and called forth from 
 Whittier the following song written for the schools of Saint 
 Helena Island : 
 
 "The very oaks are greener clad, 
 The waters brighter smile ; 
 Oh, never shone a day so glad 
 On sweet Saint Helen's Isle ! 
 
 "For none in all the world before 
 Were ever glad as we, — 
 We're free on Carolina's shore, 
 We're all at home and free!" 14 
 
 On General Sherman's famous march to the sea, thousands 
 of negroes followed his army. At Savannah he was confronted 
 with the problem of what to do with this host of illiterate people, 
 dependent upon him for support. He sent a thousand of them to 
 Saxton at I lean fort. 7 "' but disposing of them even in this whole- 
 sale manner far from settled the problem. 
 
 Finally, as a result of a conference with Secretary Stanton, he 
 issued, on January 16, 1865, his celebrated special field order 
 number 15. It reserved for the settlement of the negroes the 
 inlands from Charleston south and the abandoned rice fields for 
 
 J \imual Cyclopaedia, 1863, p. 430; Howard, Autobiography, II.. 192; 
 The Nation, I..' 747 (Dec. 14. 1865). 
 • Ibid., 227 t \m.. 24, 1865). 
 
 " Pierce, Atlantic Monthly, XII., 304 (Sept, 1863). 
 "Harper's Weekly, IX.. 50 (Jan. 28, 1865). 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 83 
 
 30 miles inland. At Beaufort and Hilton Head the blacks were 
 to be allowed to remain in their chosen or accustomed occupa- 
 tions, but on the islands no white person, except military officers 
 and soldiers detailed for duty, could reside. It provided for 
 allotments of not more than 40 acres of land to negro families, 
 in the possession of which they were to be protected by the mili- 
 tary authorities until such time as they could protect themselves, 
 or until Congress should "regulate their titles." Saxton was ap- 
 pointed inspector of settlements and plantations, with authority 
 to furnish to each head of a family a possessory title to his appor- 
 tionment of land. The order definitely stated that no change was 
 intended or desired in the settlement then on Beaufort Island, 
 and that rights to property before acquired should not be affect- 
 ed. 76 Acting under this order. Saxton settled not only the 
 negroes already in his district but hundreds who were lured 
 there by the fame of this freedmen's paradise. 
 
 At a time when many opposing theories were held in regard to 
 the rights of the negro and his possibilities of development, the 
 three years' experiment on the sea islands of South Carolina was 
 of great importance. The results did not reach the expectations 
 of the extreme champions of the negro. They had believed and 
 taught that all that was needed was to release him from servitude 
 and oppression and he would quickly prove himself the equal of 
 the white man. To such theorists, the reports from the sea is- 
 lands, though unduly exalting the negro, revealed the fact that 
 even in freedom and as the ward of the nation, the characteristics 
 of servility, indolence and improvidence persisted. For the 
 Southerners also, the experiment had its lesson. Many had be- 
 lieved the negro incapable of advancement and useless as a free 
 laborer. On the sea islands it had been proved that he would 
 work without compulsion. Many negroes had become entirely 
 self-supporting, and negro labor, for which reasonable wages 
 had been paid, had brought money into the United States treasury 
 and into the hands of individual planters. Moreover, some of 
 
 ,8 Official Records, Ser. I, Vol. 47, Part II., pp. 60, 61. In condensing 
 this order, omission has been made of any land outside of S. C. 
 
84 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 the race had shown their efficiency as soldiers. A real begin- 
 ning had been made in the education of the negro and it was 
 evident that he was eager to attend school and could learn the 
 elementary studies. 
 
 March 3, 1865, when the first freedmen's bureau bill became 
 a law. the experiment on the sea islands of South Carolina was 
 extended to all the "insurrectionary states." How the work 
 which we have reviewed was reorganized, enlarged, and made 
 operative in all the districts of South Carolina will be the subject 
 of the following chapters. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 Legislation and Organization 
 
 The bill for establishing in the war department a bureau of 
 refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands was signed by Presi- 
 dent Lincoln March 3, 1865. To this bureau was committed 
 "the supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and 
 the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen." 
 The president was authorized to appoint a commissioner to whom 
 should be given the general management of the bureau, and 
 also ten assistant commissioners for the states "declared to be 
 in insurrection." Annual salaries were to be paid to the 
 commissioner and his ten assistants, but any military officer 
 might be detailed and assigned to duty without increase of pay 
 or allowance. Provisions, clothing and fuel might be issued by 
 direction of the secretary of war "for the immediate and tempo- 
 rary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and 
 freedmen." The commissioner was authorized "to set apart, for 
 the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within 
 the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to 
 which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation, 
 or sale, or otherwise." Provision was made for the allotment of 
 this land in 40-acre tracts to the negroes. The bureau was to 
 continue "during the present war of rebellion, and for one year 
 thereafter." 1 
 -^ President Lincoln chose as commissioner of the freedmen's 
 bureau Major General Oliver Otis Howard, who had served with 
 distinction during the war, and was then in command of the army 
 of the Tennessee. Unwilling to withdraw General Howard from 
 the field where he was still needed, Lincoln delayed the appoint- 
 ment, which was finally made by President Johnson on May 12, 
 1865. 2 Howard at once entered upon the discharge of his duties 
 and made the following four divisions of bureau work : lands, 
 
 1 Statutes at Large, XIII., 507-509. 
 "Howard, Autobiography, II., 206-209. 
 
86 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 records (embracing labor, schools and quartermaster's and com- 
 missary supplies), finances, and medical aid. 3 
 
 June 13, Howard announced the appointment of Brevet Major 
 General Rufus Saxton as assistant commissioner for the states of 
 South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, with headquarters at Beau- 
 fort. To most of the assistant commissioners only one state was 
 assigned, but an extra share fell to Saxton because of "his long 
 experience with the freedmen." 4 Soon after his appointment, a 
 severe illness necessitated Saxton's absence for 30 days, thus 
 delaying the organization of the bureau in his districts. To 
 lighten his work, Howard appointed assistant commissioners over 
 Georgia and Florida, so that by the last of September Saxton's 
 direct supervision was over South Carolina alone. 5 His appoint- 
 ment enabled him to carry on the work in which he had been 
 engaged for the past three years, and gave continuity to the 
 direction of negro affairs in South Carolina. 
 
 By December, 1865, the state was divided into the following 
 districts: Anderson, Beaufort, Charleston, Columbia, George- 
 town, and Orangeburg. Over each was placed an officer known 
 as a sub-assistant commissioner.' 1 As far as possible, the dis- 
 tricts were divided into sub-districts, and the army officers de- 
 tailed from duty to serve in these divisions were known as acting 
 sub-assistant commissioners, which cumbersome title was usually 
 shortened to "A. S. A. Commissioners." All civilians in the 
 service of the bureau were known as agents. 7 A svstem was in- 
 augurated by which each official of the bureau reported to his 
 immediate superior. 8 Saxton was in the habit of making month- 
 
 Ex. Docs., 39 Con-.. 1 S< ss., No. 11. p. 2. 
 'Howard, Autobiography, II.. 215; Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11. 
 p. 47; Saxton assumed control and issued his first circular three days be- 
 fore Howard's formal announcement of his appointment. Report of Joint 
 Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 230. 
 
 . 39 Cong.. 1 Sess., No. 11, pp. 2. 3. 27. Howard, Autobio- 
 graphy. II.. 217. 
 
 Docs., 3') Cong., 1 Sess., No. 27, pp. 21-23; Ex. Docs., 39 
 , No. 11. p. 37. 
 \> . 39 Cong., 1 Sess., \*o. 70, p. 107; these terms were not 
 strictly . to, and were often interchanged. 
 
 ■Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6. p. 116. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 87 
 
 ly abstracts of outrages compiled from the reports sent him by 
 his sub-assistant commissioners, 9 and by the terms of the freed- 
 men's bureau bill he was required to report every three months 
 jto General Howard. 10 \ The extension of the bureau to the in- 
 terior was hindered in two ways. Hostility on the part of some 
 of the whites made it dangerous for officers to go to the remote 
 parts of the state, unless protected by military authority. Gen- 
 eral Ely, the sub-assistant commissioner for Columbia, in his fre- 
 quent trips to the various parts of his large district, was accom- 
 panied by an armed orderly. This method was very generally 
 used. 11 
 
 , The second serious hindrance to the extension of the work 
 was the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient number of bureau 
 officials. The omission of Congress to make an appropriation 
 for the bureau largely limited the choice of officials.^ A few 
 civilians were found who freely gave their services, but the 
 work was largely dependent upon army officers, who, by the 
 terms of the freedmen's bureau bill, could be detailed and as- 
 signed to duty without increase of salary. Because of the mus- 
 tering out of the volunteers, the bureau was unable to obtain 
 even from the army all the officers necessary. 12 Consequently 
 the district assigned to one man was too large to receive careful 
 attention to details. Of the six bureau districts, only Columbia 
 and Anderson were north of the central part of the state. This 
 left a larger area to be supervised by the two up-state sub-assist- 
 ant commissioners than was controlled by four officials in the 
 south where the country was more thoroughly guarded by the 
 army. A special correspondent of The Nation wrote from 
 South Carolina, November 27, 1865 : "Doubtless an officer of the 
 greatest ability and activity, with the best intentions, would find 
 
 9 
 10 
 
 Report of Joint Com. on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 218. 
 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11, p. 47. Statutes at Large, XIII. , 
 508. 
 
 11 The Nation, II., 46 (Jan. 11, 1866) ; Ex. Docs, 39 Cong, 1 Sess, No. 
 11, p. 3 ; Schurz, Report, 40. 
 
 "Ex. Docs, 39 Cong, 1 Sess, No. 11, p. 3. 
 
88 tii College Studies in History 
 
 it almost impossible, with the means now in his control, to pro- 
 tect all the negroes in one of these wide-extending districts." 1 ' 1 
 
 Another evil arose from the fact that officers for the bureau 
 were detailed to service by the military commander, usually with- 
 out consultation with the district commissioner. Under this sys- 
 tem, which took from the managers of the bureau the choice of 
 their assistants, it is not surprising that a large number of the 
 officials were unfit for their positions. 14 Matters were made 
 irse by the frequent shifting of the army, so that officials were 
 sometimes in control no more than a few days before a change 
 was made. Sidney Andrews wrote in September, 1865, in re- 
 gard to the bureau officials in South Carolina : "The probabil- 
 ities are that half the aggregate number on duty at any given 
 time are wholly unfit for the work intrusted to them. 15 Of the 
 official at Orangeburg, in whose office he had spent some time, he 
 wrote: "His position ... is a difficult one, and he brings 
 to it a head more or less muddled with liquor, a rough and coarse 
 manner, a dictatorial and impatient temper, a most remarkable 
 ability for cursing, and a hearty contempt for 'the whole d — n 
 pack o' niggers.'" 10 Sometimes army officers were required to 
 attend to the work of the bureau besides keeping up their mili- 
 tary duties. This increase of labor without added compensation 
 naturally tended to make them dislike the bureau. 17 
 
 During the first year of the bureau's existence, there were in 
 South Carolina four sources of authority : the customary United 
 States officials, the provisional state government under the 
 auspices of President Johnson, the United States military force-, 
 and the freedmen's bureau. Such a condition would naturally 
 lead to complications, even though the relations between the offi- 
 cers of the different departments were always harmonious. But 
 harmony did not exist in South Carolina. In Howard's first 
 
 " The Nation, I., 780 (Dec. 21, 1865). 
 
 "Andrews, The South Since the War. 23, -'4; Trowbridge, A Picture 
 of the D( solated States, 338; The Nation, I.. 779 (Dec. 21, 1865). 
 
 "Andrews, 1 I South Since the War, 24. 
 
 " , Ibid. 
 
 ''• Kx. I).-,. ■'' Co,,-. 1 Sess., No. 11. p. 3; The Nation, I., 779 (Dec. 
 21. 1865). 
 
The Fkkkdmkn's Bureau in South Carolina 89 
 
 annual report, December 15, 1865, he wrote: "The department 
 commander had his headquarters at Hilton Head ; General Sax- 
 ton his at Beaufort, and finally at Charleston, and the provisional 
 governor was in the northern part of the state. Hence there has 
 been much separate and some conflicting action on the part of 
 these officers, and many misunderstandings. I believe, now that 
 the department commander and assistant commissioner are both 
 at Charleston, and co-operating, more complete order and con- 
 fidence will be the result." 18 
 
 Through Howard's recommendation a change was effected 
 whereby the assistant commissioner of South Carolina assumed 
 command of the military forces of the state in June, 1866. The 
 bureau districts were also made to correspond more nearly to the 
 military divisions. 10 This arrangement, though an improvement 
 on the former system, did not obviate all friction, but trans- 
 ferred it to a different quarter. In November, 1866, the as- 
 sistant commissioner for South Carolina complained that his com- 
 mand of the military was only nominal, and that General 
 Sickles, the department commander for both North and South 
 Carolina, had reserved most of the rights to himself. 20 An order 
 of General Sickles that district commanders must report to him 
 en matters concerning freedmen, as well as on military affairs, 
 was appealed to General Grant, who overruled it. 21 
 
 This example of friction between the civil, military, and bu- 
 reau departments is described in The Nation of July 19, 1866: 
 "General Scott, assistant commissioner for South Carolina, re- 
 cently prepared careful estimates of the rations needed to sustain 
 the destitute of that state, and forwarded them to the proper 
 authorities. General Sickles, however, his military superior, dis- 
 approved of them on the ground that Governor Orr discredited 
 the reports on which they were based, and the rations were ac- 
 cordingly withheld. A correspondence upon the subject between 
 
 18 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11. p. 26. 
 
 "Howard, Autobiography, II., 284; Sen. Docs.. 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, 
 No. 6, p. 116; Charleston Daily Courier, May 25, 1866. 
 M Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6, p. 116. 
 n The Nation, III., 43 (July 19, 1866). 
 
90 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 General Howard and Governor Orr revealed a misapprehension 
 on the part of General Sickles, the governor being solicitous that 
 the rations should be furnished as proposed. "--' 
 
 The trouble between those high in command simply reflected 
 the feeling of their subordinates. The assistant commissioner re- 
 ported : "•.Many of the officers in command of troops manifest an 
 aversion to the bureau and do not seem disposed to carry out its 
 provisions, and I regret to say that the freed people in many lo- 
 calities fear the troops as much as they do their former master." 
 Complaints of difficulties with post commanders over judicial 
 affairs were sent to the assistant commissioner from all over the 
 state. 23 
 
 January 15, 1866, Saxton was succeeded as assistant com- 
 missioner of South Carolina by General Robert K. Scott of 
 Ohio. The reasons for the change are nowhere openly avowed. 
 Saxton testified that he thought his removal due to "misrepre- 
 sentation of such men as ex-Governor Aiken and William 
 W'haley," to whom he had refused to surrender the land formerly 
 owned by them. 24 Light is thrown on the subject by Howard in 
 his "Autobiography," in which he complains that President John- 
 son was "very .anxious to be rid of every prominent officer who 
 was reported to have been the freedmen's friend." and that in the 
 president's eyes Saxton was too much the advocate of his 
 wards.-"' Generals Steedman and Fullerton, who were sent by 
 President Johnson in the spring of 1866 to investigate the opera- 
 tion of the freedmen's bureau, condemned the results of Sax- 
 ton's administration. They reported that a too liberal issue of 
 supplies on his part had fostered idleness and improvidence 
 among the negroes, and they criticised in particular his policy on 
 the sea islands. Too much weight, however, should not be given 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
 "Sen. Docs.. 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6, pp. 116, 119. 
 14 Report of Join! Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 216; Re- 
 port of the Sec. of War. 39 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 736. 
 ' Howard, Autobiography, II., 283-284. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 91 
 
 this report, which is evidently biased in favor of Scott as opposed 
 to Saxton. 26 
 
 That Saxton was beloved by his charges and that he had their 
 interests at heart can not be doubted. 27 But in the turbulent 
 period of reconstruction, something more was needed in the official 
 who served as chief arbiter between the whites and blacks in 
 South Carolina. Whitelaw Reid described him in 1865 as "nar- 
 row, but intense, not very profound in seeing the right, but ener- 
 getic in doing it when seen ; given to practice rather than theory ; 
 and withal, good and true." 28 Such a man might unwittingly 
 hinder rather than help the cause he advocated. Scott, who suc- 
 ceeded Saxton, was by no means his equal in culture or character, 
 but in many particulars he made a more efficient assistant com- 
 missioner. He was more conciliatory toward the white people 
 of the state and less ardent in his advocacy of negro rights. 29 
 
 July 16, 1866, the powers of the freedmen's bureau were 
 enlarged by the passage, over President Johnson's veto, of the 
 third freedmen's bureau bill. 30 Provision was made for the fol- 
 lowing changes. The bureau was to continue in existence for 
 two years after the passage of the act. The commissioner was 
 authorized to appoint such agents, clerks and assistants as wer.e 
 necessary, detailed from the army without increase of pay, or 
 chosen from the ranks of civilians. In the latter case they should 
 receive an annual salary of from $500 to $1,200. The bureau 
 
 "Charleston Daily Courier, June 16, 1866. 
 "The Nation, II, 754 (June 15, 1866). 
 
 I am endebted to Dr. Samuel A. Green for the information that 
 General Saxton's name was softened by the negroes to Saxaby. White- 
 law Reid preserves the following spirituel, in which the negroes showed 
 their esteem of General Saxton by associating him with their idea of 
 heaven. •«Q en _ e _ u i Sa— a— axby a sittin' on de tree ob life, 
 Roll, Jordan, roll, 
 
 Gen— e— ul Sa— a— axby a sittin' on the tree ob life, 
 Ro — o — oil, Jordan, roll, 
 Ro — o — oil, Jordan, roll, 
 Ro — o — oil, Jordan, ro — o — oil !" 
 „ „ . , nn —Reid, After the War, 105. 
 
 ■* Ibid., 80. 
 
 251 For an example of Saxton's extreme ideas see Chapter III, p. 95. 
 30 The second freedmen's bureau bill had failed to pass over the presi- 
 dent's veto, Feb. 19, 1866. 
 
92 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 was given military jurisdiction and protection over the civil rights 
 of the citizens until the ordinary judicial proceedings and rela- 
 tions to the government should he restored. Special provision 
 was made for the disposal of land in South Carolina, which will 
 be discussed in chapter three. 31 This law increased the power 
 of the bureau, and enabled it to extend its sway to the remote 
 parts of the state. In November, 1866. it was reported that the 
 bureau was in communication with any who might require the 
 assistance of its officers. :; - 
 
 July 6, 1868, congress passed a bill authorizing the continu- 
 ance of the bureau for another year, except in states fully restored 
 to their relations with the national government. Even in such 
 states the educational department of the bureau should be con- 
 tinued until suitable state provision should be made for the edu- 
 cation of the freedmen. :::; In the same month, representatives 
 and senators from South Carolina were admitted to congress, and 
 Scott resigned his position as assistant commissioner to become 
 governor of the state. 34 His successor, Colonel J. R. Edie, was 
 assigned to duty by the war department July 31, 1868. 35 Although 
 by the act of July 6, 1868, the bureau should have been with- 
 drawn from South Carolina after the admission of its representa- 
 tives to congress, another act. passed July 25. provided for its 
 discontinuance in the several states after January 1. 1869, except 
 for the educational department and the collection and payment 
 of bounty. 36 Acccordingly, Edie and his subordinates continued 
 to serve until December 31, 1868, when only comparatively few 
 officers and agents were retained/ 17 In 1870, the bureau gave 
 up its educational work for lack of funds, 38 and by act of con- 
 gress, June 10, 1S72. provision was made for its entire abolition 
 after June 30 of the same year. 39 
 
 "Statutes at Urge, XIV.. 174-177. 
 - Report of the Sec. of War. 39 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 736. 
 
 Statutes at Large, XV.. 82-83. 
 'Reynolds, Reconstruction in South Carolina. 97. 
 1 Howard, Report, Oct. 14. lNoS. ,». 26. 
 
 Statutes at Large, XV., 193-194. 
 ' Howard, Report, Oct. 20, 1869, p. 3. 
 
 Howard, Report, Oct. 20. 1870, p. 7. 
 
 Statutes at Large, XVII., 366. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 Distribution and Restoration of Land 
 
 It will be remembered that in the first year of the war the 
 owners of plantations on and near the sea islands of South Caro- 
 lina fled at the approach of the Union Army. 1 The land thus 
 abandoned was appropriated by the national government by acts 
 of congress authorizing, first, the seizure and sale of lands on 
 which the direct tax had not been paid ; 2 second, the seizure of 
 property of all persons engaged in aiding "the rebellion," 3 and 
 finally the collection and sale by the treasury agents of abandoned 
 property in the insurrectionary districts. 4 Property was to be 
 regarded as abandoned when the lawful owners should be "vol- 
 untarily absent therefrom, and engaged, either in arms or other- 
 wise, in aiding or encouraging the rebellion." 5 
 
 By March 3, 1865, when the first freedmen's bureau bill 
 went into effect, the land seized by the government was disposed 
 of as follows: first, land sold or leased to Northerners and ne- 
 groes by the United States tax commissioners ; second, land held 
 by the negroes in forty-acre tracts for which they had possessory 
 titles granted in accordance with Sherman's special field order ; 
 third, land occupied without authority by the negroes; fourth, 
 land set aside by the tax commissioners as "school farms," and 
 fifth, unoccupied land. 
 
 The first freedmen's bureau bill provided for the assignment 
 to freedmen and refugees of 40-acre tracts of abandoned and 
 confiscated land, with provision for the payment by them of an 
 annual rent of six per cent of its value. The privilege of pur- 
 chase was extended, with the promise that the government would 
 provide "such title as the United States can convey." 6 President 
 Johnson ordered the federal officers to turn over to the freed- 
 
 1 See p. 1 above. 
 
 'Statutes at Large, XII, pp. 292-313; 422-426; 640-641. 
 
 3 Ibid., XII., pp. 589-592. 
 
 *Ibid., XII., pp. 820-821 ; XIII., pp. 375-578. 
 
 'Ibid., XIII., 376. 
 
 'Ibid., XIII., 508. 
 
94 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 men's bureau all abandoned lands and property. 7 For South 
 Carolina and Georgia, Saxton received 435,000 acres of land 
 (more than half the entire amount of land held by the bureau 
 in the sixteen states in which it operated), and 782 pieces of 
 town property. s 
 
 The system of leases made by the treasury department was 
 maintained. At first $6,000 a month was received by the bureau 
 for rent, much of which was for town property in the city of 
 Charleston. Because of restoration to former owners, the revenue 
 so derived was reduced by November 1, 1866, to $50 a month." 
 Much of the land in the hands of the bureau was allotted to the 
 freedmen, but from the beginning Howard publicly recognized 
 that the bureau could not "convey a full and perfect title in fee 
 simple." 10 
 
 Early in 1865 the rumor spread from plantation to plantation 
 throughout the state that the government was giving to every 
 negro "40 acres and a mule." 11 The origin of the belief in gifts 
 of 40 acres can readily be traced to Sherman's special field order 
 and the terms of the first freedmen's bureau bill, but the added 
 generosity of the government in the bestowal of mules can not 
 so easily be accounted for. Possibly it was due to the negroes' 
 belief that 40 acres without his favorite and much abused beast 
 of burden would be worthless. Although the more conservative 
 of the race determined to remain at home, reflecting that in the 
 division, the "home-house" might fall to them, 1 - the report that 
 land was already being given away on the coast caused a constant 
 stream of migration in that direction. Sidney Andrews, in a 
 night journey from Orangeburg to Columbia in September, 
 1865, "met scores of them trudging along with their whole earth- 
 ly possessions in a bundle on the head." To quote from him: 
 "Walking in the bright moonlight, seventy or eighty rods ahead 
 
 : Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11, p. 41. 
 
 s Ibid., p. 6. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 4; Son. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1. No. 6. p. 112. 
 
 .. Docs.. 39 Cong., 1 Sess.. No. 11. p. 4. 
 "Schurz, Report, 31. Andrews. The South Since the War, 97, 98; 
 The Nation, [., 651 (Nov, 23, 1865). 
 
 '-' Vndrews, The South Since the War. 97, 98. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 95 
 
 of the hack, I spoke with many. They had but few words ; 'Go- 
 ing to Char'ston,' was often their only reply. Whether talkative 
 or taciturn, there was a firm foot and unruffled voice for the 
 coast." 13 
 
 The freedmen's desire for land became in some instances 
 an insistent demand. "What's the use to give us our freedom 
 if we can't stay where we were raised, and own our houses where 
 we were born, and our little pieces of ground?" was asked. 14 The 
 South Carolina Leader for March 31, 1866, prints over the name 
 of a negro soldier the following: "They [the planters] have 
 no reason to say that we will not work, for we raised them, and 
 sent them to school, and bought their land, and now it is as little 
 as they can do to give us some of their land — be it little or 
 much." 15 Such expressions, thought doubtless rare, 10 served to 
 infuriate the southern whites. 
 
 The freedmen's bureau was accused by many, among whom 
 was General Grant, of originating and spreading the idea that the 
 land was to be divided among the freedmen. 17 In 1864 Saxton 
 had expressed the opinion that "it seems to be the dictate of 
 simple justice that they [the negroes] have the highest right to 
 a soil they have cultivated so long by the crudest compulsion." 18 
 Doubtless this feeling was shared by some of his subordinates 
 and communicated itself in some measure to the negroes. How- 
 ever, in the fall of 1865, seeing the disastrous effects upon labor 
 caused by the expectation that land would be given away at New 
 Year's, Saxton issued a circular charging his officers and agents 
 to do all in their power to convince the negroes that their belief 
 was groundless. 19 One of the early problems of the bureau in 
 South Carolina was to provide for the swarms of blacks then in- 
 vading the coast region. Some were sent back to the interior at the 
 
 13 Ibid., 98. 
 
 M The Nation, I.. 393 (Sept. 28, 1865). 
 
 15 South Carolina Leader, March 31, 1866. 
 
 "Schurz, Report, 30. 
 
 " Ibid., 107. 
 
 ,s Official Records, Ser. III., Vol. IV., Serial 125, p. 1025. 
 
 19 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 70, p. 95. 
 

 96 !Tii College Studies in History 
 
 government's expense, while others were settled upon lands by 
 General Saxton. He estimated that 40.000 negroes had been 
 provided with homes according to the provisions of Sherman's 
 special field order.-" In addition, over 600 certificates of title to 
 real estate were given to negroes by the tax commissioners of 
 South Carolina.- 1 Xegro land-holders frequently hired less for- 
 tunate members of their race as laborers, 22 and the Charleston 
 Daily Courier reports that they were exacting task masters. 23 
 
 In Sherman's special field order it was stipulated that no white 
 man, except military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, should 
 be allowed on the lands set apart for the negro. Saxton's circular 
 number 4, issued April 22, 1865, named the penalities for viola- 
 tion of this provision. 24 Edisto, Wardmelaw, James, and John's 
 Islands were completely given over to the negroes, 25 and the 
 planters, returning from the war, found it necessary to obtain 
 permission and even protection to visit their old homes. Those 
 who went, reported that "most of the elegant mansions . . . were 
 cut and hacked by hatchets and axes, the doors and windows 
 broken out, the fruit trees cut down, and everything wearing the 
 most desolating aspect.'*-'' In one instance the family tomb had 
 been used as a dog kennel. 27 As late as January, 1866, four 
 men, who had come from Philadelphia with a view of purchasing 
 land in the south, considered themselves fortunate to escape 
 with their lives from a visit to John's Island. They were sur- 
 rounded by a constantly increasing crowd of angry negroes, the 
 men carrying firearms, the women brandishing hoes, pitchforks 
 and clubs, and made to march 12 miles across the island to the 
 quarters of the commissary department where they were rescued. 
 
 20 Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 221. 
 Jl Ibid., p. 259. 
 id. 
 iliarleston Dailx Courier, June 6, 1866. 
 "Tremain, Two Days of War. etc., pp. 255. 256; Charleston Daily 
 Courier, Oct. 10, 1865. 
 
 *The Nation, I., 172 (Aug. 10, 1865). Charleston Daily Courier, Feb. 
 15, 1866. 
 
 Ibid., Feb. 6, 1866. 
 " From private letter in possession of the writer. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 97 
 
 The Philadelphia gentlemen returned as soon as possible to the 
 City of Brotherly Love. 28 
 
 May 29, 1865, President Johnson issued a proclamation of 
 amnesty and pardon, with restoration of rights of property, to 
 all persons who should take an oath to support the Union and 
 abide by its laws. Exceptions were made including the Southern 
 leaders and persons worth over $20,000. I Two kinds of property 
 were withheld from restoration, vis., slaves and property for 
 which legal proceedings had been instituted in view of confisca- 
 tion by the United States government. Provision was made for 
 private pardon, in which case clemency was promised. 29 
 
 A difference of opinion early arose between Howard and the 
 president. The former ordered his assistant commissioners to 
 restore property only to those who could show constant loyalty, 
 and provided for the protection of refugees and freedmen then 
 occupying land set apart for them. 30 This displeased the presi- 
 dent, who had circular number 15 prepared under his own direc- 
 tion and ordered Howard to issue it. The circular provided for 
 the restoration of abandoned lands to all who could furnish proof 
 of title 31 and pardon and provide full and just compensation to 
 the freedmen for their labor and expenditures. 32 The order was 
 supplemented November 30 by circular number 20, stipulating 
 that no lands should be restored until complete and careful pro- 
 vision should be made for the resident refugees and freedmen. 33 
 This left the negro secure only in the possession of confiscated 
 land, which was defined as land which had "been condemned and 
 
 -"Charleston Daily Courier, Feb. 1, 11, and March 12, 1866. 
 
 " Official Records, Ser. II., Vol. 8, Serial 121, pp. 578-580. 
 
 30 Howard, Autobiography II., 234, 235; Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., 
 
 No. 11, p. 5. 
 
 1 Where the records and deeds had been destroyed, Howard accepted 
 as proof of ownership the affidavits of two or three citizens. Charleston 
 Daily Courier, Nov. 22, 1865. 
 
 32 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11, p. 56. 
 
 33 Report of the Sec. of War. 39 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 754. The use of the 
 word "refugee" in this case seems to be a mere formality, for although 
 the records show that a large amount of provisions was given to refugees 
 (meaning white people), no indication can be found that land was allotted 
 to them. 
 
98 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 sold by decree of the United States court for the district in which 
 the property may be found, and the title thereto vested in the 
 United States." 34 In case the former owner had not been par- 
 doned, it put upon the bureau the burden of proving that the land 
 had been abandoned. 35 
 
 Delay in the restoration of lands finally caused the former 
 owners to appeal to President Johnson, promising at the same 
 time that they would "absorb the labor and care for the freed- 
 men." This resulted in general order number 145 from the 
 president, ordering Howard to South Carolina, Georgia, and 
 Florida. He was "to effect an arrangement mutually satisfactory 
 to the freedmen and the land-owners," and was empowered to 
 issue orders necessary to execute such a plan. 36 Although How- 
 ard felt that any dispossession of the negroes was a betrayal of 
 faith on the part of the government, he restrained an impulse to 
 resign his position, and obeyed the president's command, hoping 
 thereby to be able to befriend the freed people. 37 He reached 
 Charleston October 17, 1865. Soon afterwards, accompanied by 
 William YYhaley, the legal representative of the planters, he held 
 a conference with over 2,000 negroes in a church on Edisto 
 Island. Rumor having reached the negroes that land was to 
 be taken from them, they were filled with sorrow and excitement. 
 "In the noise and confusion no progress was to be had," says 
 Howard, in his Autobiography, "till a sweet-voiced negro wo- 
 man began the hymn, 'Nobody knows the trouble I feel — Nobody 
 knows but Jesus,' which, joined in by all. had a quieting effect 
 upon the audience." Howard then explained to them the wishes 
 of the president, and urged them to make the best terms they 
 could with the planters. 
 
 A committee of three was appointed from among the negroes 
 which heard from Howard the offers of the planters. They ab- 
 solutely refused to work under overseers, and asked that land 
 
 ' Ex. Decs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11. p. 56. 
 ' Howard, Autobiography, II.. 235, 236. 
 Ex. Docs., 39 Con.';.. 1 Sess., No. 11, pp. 6. 7. Tremain, Two Days 
 of War, etc., 248, 257, 258. 
 
 ■ Howard, Autobiography, II.. 237-238. 
 
The; Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 99 
 
 might be rented or sold to them. Finally, by unanimous consent, 
 the assembly voted to leave the whole matter with Howard, in 
 whom they had implicit confidence. 38 On October 19, Howard 
 issued from Charleston special field order number 1, authorizing 
 the agent of the bureau on Edisto Island to form a board of 
 supervisors to aid in making contracts. This board was to con- 
 sist of the agent "and two other citizens," one to be selected by 
 the land owners, the other by the freedmen. An obligation which 
 was to be signed by the planters before the land should be re- 
 stored, bound them to secure to the freedmen the crops of the 
 present year and to "take proper steps to enter into contracts" 
 with them. In case the freedmen refused to contract within two 
 months, they thereby surrendered the right to remain on the 
 estates. -Captain Alexander P. Ketchum was appointed to take 
 charge of the restoration and to extend Howard's special field 
 order number 1 to other estates affected by Sherman's famous 
 order. 31 ' 
 
 No sooner had Howard left before difficulties arose. The 
 negroes appointed as their representative on the board a mem- 
 ber of their own race. The planters objected on the ground that 
 Howard's order specified that the representatives were to be 
 "citizens." The privilege of citizenship had not yet been con- 
 ferred upon the negro, and the planters gained their point, ob- 
 taining from Howard a statement that only whites were intended 
 by him to constitute the board. 40 
 
 A more serious difficulty occurred because the negroes flatly 
 refused to contract upon any terms, and asked to have the lands 
 leased or sold to them. The idea that they were to be land 
 owners had by this time became a passion with them. Some 
 expressed their willingness to contract if the owners would sell 
 them even one acre. Others affirmed that they would be satisfied 
 with nothing short of the entire possession of Edisto Island. 
 
 38 Ibid., 238-240; Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11. p. 7; Andrews, 
 The South Since the War, 212, 213. 
 
 29 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11, pp. 7. 8. 
 
 40 Tremain, Two Days of War, etc., 249-250; Daily South Carolinian. 
 Jan. 17, 1866. 
 
100 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 The planters at first refused to consider any proposition for 
 lease or sale, and the officers of the freedmen's bureau would 
 not restore the lands until "satisfactory arrangements" had been 
 made with the freedmen. Thus by refusing to contract, the 
 negroes were succeeding in retaining their land." 
 
 The planters did not ask for a restoration of property which 
 had been confiscated by court proceedings, but for the land of 
 which they had been deprived without due process of law. The 
 following is quoted from the Charleston Daily Courier, October 
 10, 1865 : "Upon the theory that the state was never out of the 
 Union, after the cessation of hostilities the citizen can only be 
 deprived of his estate or life by proceedings for the condemnation 
 of the one, or by conviction before a jury as to the other. There 
 must be judicial proceedings, and one must be presumed to be 
 innocent till his guilt be made to appear by proof. To maintain 
 possession of the land seems to be anticipating trial, conviction 
 and sentence." 
 
 The deadlock between the planters and the freedmen resulted 
 not only in an increasing ill-feeling between the two classes, but 
 also in an economic loss to the country. When the planting sea- 
 son of 1866 arrived, the whites were unable to regain their lands 
 and the negroes, who were in possession, hesitated to cultivate 
 land which they feared to lose at any moment. 42 The question 
 was now considered a subject for national legislation. January 5, 
 1866, a freedmen's bureau bill was introduced into the senate 
 which would make valid the possessory titles granted in pursu- 
 ance of Sherman's special field order. 43 Although the bill failed 
 to pass over the president'.- veto, it stimulated the hope that 
 definite legislative action would soon settle the difficulty. 
 
 As a temporary expedient, Howard wrote a letter to the as- 
 
 tant commissioner for South Carolina, March 8, 1866, order- 
 ing him to restore estates which had not been regularly allotted 
 to the negroes. 41 This dispossessed many negroes of land on 
 
 41 Tremain, Two Days of War, etc., 245-277. 
 
 "Report of Join: Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 237. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., Pari I. p. 129. 
 
 ** Report of the Sec of War, 39 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 736. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 101 
 
 which they had made unauthorized settlements. An investiga- 
 tion showed that only a few who had received possessory titles 
 had occupied the land assigned to them. With the irresponsibil- 
 ity and ignorance of children, they had settled wherever they 
 chose, sometimes on a different island from the one for a portion 
 of which they held a possessory title. 45 In executing Howard's 
 order, Assistant Commissioner Scott provided that the negroes 
 who had occupied their claims should in certain cases be trans- 
 ferred, so that the land in their possession should be contiguous. 
 The remaining land was to be restored, with the provision that the 
 negroes not holding grants could remain where they had been 
 located until the planters had offered them opportunities of labor 
 upon terms satisfactory to the freedmen's bureau. 40 
 
 At this point the military authorities of the department of 
 South Carolina interfered and ordered all freedmen who refused 
 to contract to remove from the plantations within ten days after 
 such refusal. Army officers were declared judges of the fair- 
 ness of the contracts, and detachments of troops enforced the 
 order. Scott, in reporting the incident, affirmed that "the officers 
 of these detachments in many instances took from the freedmen 
 their certificates, declared them worthless, and destroyed them 
 in their presence. Upon refusing to accept the contracts offered, 
 the people in several instances were thrust out into the highways, 
 where, being without shelter, many perished from small-pox." 
 The freedmen's bureau, feeling that its power had been usurped 
 by the army, remonstrated. After considerable trouble, an un- 
 derstanding was reached between the two authorities whereby 
 the bureau's rights were recognized. 47 Regardless of the trouble 
 between the military authority and the freedmen's bureau, much 
 good was accomplished by Scott's order. In June, 1866, it was 
 reported by one of the planters that the number of negroes hold- 
 ing possessory titles was few in comparison with those working 
 under contract. 48 
 
 45 Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess.. Vol. 1. No. 6, p. 114. 
 
 48 General Orders No. 9. Charleston Daily Courier, March 10, 1866. 
 
 "Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1. No. 6, pp. 114. 115. 
 
 48 Charleston Daily Courier, June 6, 1866. 
 
102 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 July 16, 1866, congress enacted over the president's veto the 
 following provisions in regard to the land held by the freedmen's 
 bureau in South Carolina. The two years granted by congress 
 for redemption of lands forfeited for non-payment of direct 
 taxes having passed, the sales made by the tax commissioners to 
 heads of families of the African race were "confirmed and estab- 
 lished." School farms and certain city lots were to be sold and 
 the proceeds applied to the support of education. To each per- 
 son holding a valid possessory title, granted in accordance with 
 Sherman's special field order, was to be given a six years' lease 
 of twenty acres. These allotments should be made by the tax 
 commissioners from the land held by them in the parishes of 
 Saint Luke and Saint Helena. The land so leased could be 
 purchased by the holders at the end of six years for SI. 50 
 an acre. Thus the freedmen were to surrender the plantations 
 for which the owners were clamoring, and receive in exchange a 
 lease for half the number of acres. Restoration of land was to 
 be made after the season's crops had been gathered and the 
 negroes compensated by the planters for any improvements 
 made on the property. 49 
 
 In November, 1866, Assistant Commissioner Scott reported 
 that the lands to which the negroes were to be transferred were 
 being surveyed by the tax commissioner, preparatory to a restora- 
 tion about the first of January, 1867."'" The accompanying table 
 gives the official record of property in possession of the bureau 
 and restored by it. A study of the table will show that the figures 
 do not balance, neither do they correspond to the report of Scott, 
 dated November 1, 1866, in which he stated that 748 houses and 
 kits and 312.888 acres in South Carolina were in possession of 
 the bureau on January 20. 1866. r>1 Because of this discrepancy 
 it is impossible to make an accurate estimate of the amount of 
 property restored, or of the time when the restoration took place. 
 It will be noticed that by ( )ctober, 1869, it had been ordered that 
 
 4B Statute at Large, XI V.. 173-177. 
 ' S< n. I »ocs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1. No. 6. p. 125. 
 
 ■'Ibid., p. 11-'. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 
 
 103 
 
 all abandoned lands should be restored or dropped from the re- 
 turns. 
 
 Date of Report 
 
 Amount of Property 
 in Possession 
 
 Amt. of Property Returned 
 
 (In each case since the preceding report) 
 
 
 Acres of 
 Land 
 
 Pieces of 
 
 Town 
 Property 
 
 Acres of Land 
 
 Pieces of 
 
 Town 
 Property 
 
 Dec, 1865* 
 
 Nov. 1, 1866 
 
 Nov. 1, 1867 
 Oct. 24, 1868t 
 
 435,000 
 96,693 
 
 85,694 
 74,669 
 
 398 
 
 20 
 
 17 
 15 
 
 15278, plus certain 
 tracts, the acreage 
 whereof was not 
 reported. 
 
 13,351 
 
 11,025 
 
 384 
 626 
 
 10 
 2 
 
 * The report for 1865 was for both Georgia and South Carolina, but 
 other reports show that the bureau held nearly three times as much land 
 in South Carolina as in Georgia. 
 
 t The Report of Oct., 1869, stated that it was ordered during the pre- 
 ceding year that all abandoned lands should be restored or dropped from 
 the returns. 
 
 This chapter well illustrates how easily errors can be made 
 in a time of strain and excitement which can as easily be criti- 
 cised in the light of another generation. The story of the govern- 
 ment's mismanagement of the problem of the abandoned lands in 
 South Carolina is a sad one, both from the standpoint of the 
 freedmen (whom the government was vainly trying to help), 
 and of the real owners of the property. Three times were the 
 negroes promised land, only to have it taken from them when 
 they felt most secure in its possession. The inevitable result 
 upon the negro was a restlessness and distrust of all white men 
 which redoubled the already heavy burdens of the bureau. 
 
 From the standpoint of the dispossessed planters, the attitude 
 of the national government was most inconsistent. They were 
 perforce citizens of the United States, yet they were denied the 
 rights of property guaranteed by the constitution to citizens. 
 Their plantations, houses, even their family tombs, were turned 
 over to the pillage and desecration of an inferior race. Mean- 
 while, discouraged and penniless, they returned from the war 
 
104 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 and were forbidden to resume the cultivation of their plantations 
 by which they could have gained a livelihood. Aside from the 
 injustice done the negroes and the planters, the economic waste 
 was a loss to the whole country. Fertile plantations lay idle or 
 were poorly cultivated, 52 and ill feeling was engendered which 
 retarded agricultural operations in the state, and left a permanent 
 mark on southern life. 
 
 Charleston Z?«i7v Courier, Feb. 6, 1866. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 Labor, Justice and Marriage Relations 
 
 The summer of 1865 was a time of uncertainty and confusion 
 for both races. The negroes were awaking to the fact that free- 
 dom brought with it responsibilities and deprivations they were 
 ill-fitted to meet. Heretofore shelter, food, clothing and medical 
 care had been provided for them. Now they were freed, not only 
 from slavery, but also from the protection and care of their 
 masters. With nothing to call their own but the clothes they 
 wore and a few trinkets collected in slavery, they were in reality 
 as dependent upon the whites as before the war. 
 
 The condition of the planters was no less trying. Defeated 
 and impoverished, they returned from the war to devise some 
 means of providing for themselves and their families. In many 
 instances their homes had been demolished and their former 
 slaves had followed in the wake of Sherman's army. In the 
 coast regions their land had been seized by the government. In 
 the interior, the fields were still theirs, but useless unless by some 
 means planters and laborers could adapt themselves to a new 
 and to them an untried system of labor. 
 
 Hindrances to an easy readjustment of laboring conditions 
 were numerous. In the first place, a majority of the planters 
 were thoroughly convinced that negroes would not work without 
 compulsion, 1 and that in consequence free labor in the South was 
 doomed to failure. But even though the negroes would work, the 
 South Carolinians had no money with which to pay them, and the 
 freedmen would not trust to promises of a fair division of the 
 harvest. They showed a great aversion to signing any kind of 
 written contract drawn up by the planters, fearing that by so 
 doing they might sign away their freedom.- In the up-country, 
 where farms were smaller and there had been more of a personal 
 touch between master and slaves, the negroes were more in- 
 
 "Schurz, Report, 16. Andrews. The South Since the War, 25. 97. 101. 
 2 Schurz, Report, 30. 
 
106 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 clined to remain in their old homes and "work along" until some 
 definite arrangement might be made. Those from the large 
 plantations were restless and eager to try their freedom by idle- 
 ness and vagrancy. 3 In some instances the negroes were unin- 
 formed of their emancipation, and kept in apparent slavery. 4 
 
 The situation between employer and employee was one which 
 could be met only by the intervention of a third party. Early in 
 1865 the Union army in South Carolina undertook to act as medi- 
 ator. Its officers were empowered to make written contracts for 
 the contending parties and to collect a fee of 50 cents for each 
 signer. 5 It was found that the negroes' aversion to signing pa- 
 pers disappeared when they felt that their rights would be pro- 
 tected by the army. Unfortunately, this confidence was in many 
 instances betrayed, and contracts were approved by officers of the 
 army which were most unjust to the freedmen. It was evident 
 that the officers' interest was largely centered in the number of 
 fees which they could procure. 6 In some of the contracts, clauses 
 were inserted which bound the freedmen to work off any in- 
 debtedness which they might thereafter incur. General Hatch, 
 commanding at Charleston, noted this tendency toward peonage 
 and forbade any such arrangements. 7 The ignorance of the freed- 
 men was sometimes taken advantage of by purposely obscuring 
 the meaning of the contract. An instance is recorded where the 
 laborers were promised "one-third of seven-twelfths" of the 
 crop. 8 As a rule, a share of the crops, rather than wages, was 
 promised. The share varied from one-tenth to one-half, from 
 which was to be deducted the expenses of the freedmen while the 
 crop was being made. In some districts one-half of the crop was 
 the universal rate. 
 
 "Ibid., 29; The Nation. I., 107 (July 27, 1865). 
 
 * Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 222; 
 Schurz, Report, 18. 
 
 'Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11, p. 26; Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 
 . Vol. 1. No. 6. p. 113. 
 
 'Ibid; Schurz. Report, 30. 
 
 'Reid, Vfter the War. S4 ; Schurz, Report, 22. 
 
 ■ Reporl of fainl Committee on Reconstruction, Fart 11.. p. 259. 
 
 'Ibid; The Nation, [., 238 (Aug. 24, 1865) ; Andrews, The South Since 
 the War, 99. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 107 
 
 When the freedmen's bureau became organized in South 
 Carolina, the supervision of negro labor naturally fell upon its 
 officers. In Saxton's first circular to the freed people he urged 
 them to prove their right to freedom by showing a will to work. 
 "Freedmen, let not a day pass ere you find some work for your 
 hands to do, and do it with all your might. Plough and plant, 
 dig and hoe, cut and gather in the harvest. Let it be seen that 
 where in slavery there was raised a blade of corn or a pound of 
 cotton, in freedom there will be two." 1 " 
 
 To facilitate the making of contracts, Saxton established in 
 each district a board consisting of the sub-assistant commissioner 
 and two residents of the district, one chosen by each contracting 
 party. 11 Where no agent was within reach, the nearest post- 
 master was authorized to forward the duplicates of contracts to 
 the assistant commissioner. 12 Saxton sent to his agents a form 
 of contract to be used, which bound the planter to provide quar- 
 ters, fuel, substantial and healthy rations, and all necessary 
 medical attendance and supplies in case of sickness. The rate 
 of wages or share in the harvest was left in each case to be de- 
 termined by the agent. Contracts were to be made in duplicate, 
 a copy given to each party, and a record of the transaction kept 
 in the books of the bureau. 1 " Agents were forbidden to collect 
 fees for witnessing contracts. 14 Bureau officials were also in- 
 trusted with the guardianship of freed orphans, and were au- 
 thorized to apprentice them in conformity with the state law 
 regulating the apprenticeship of free white children. 15 
 
 In the fall of 1865 many complaints were made to the bureau 
 that contracts had been broken. The negroes reported cases of 
 cruelty on the part of the whites, many of which on examination 
 proved to be groundless. But it is undoubtedly true that much 
 
 1,1 Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, II., 230. 
 " Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., Vol. 8, No. 70, p. 95. 
 
 12 Ibid.. 105. 
 
 13 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., Vol. 8, No. 70, pp. 89, 90. 
 
 "Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6, p. 113; This was done 
 after Scott had assumed control of bureau affairs in S. C. Sen. Docs., 
 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6, p. 113. 
 
 13 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., Vol. 8, No. 70, p. 94. 
 
108 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 oppression and violence existed, especially in the interior portions 
 of the state, which were unguarded by the army. Saxton found 
 it necessary to threaten the confiscation of lands of those who 
 failed to inform the negroes of their freedom. 10 Sidney Andrews 
 wrote in October, 1865, that he had heard two of the native 
 South Carolinians admit that "many negroes had been beaten to 
 death during the summer" in Edgefield district. 17 Officers of the 
 bureau sent to Saxton numerous instances of cruelty. The fol- 
 lowing are typical examples of such reports : 
 
 "One man in Anderson district was shot and killed in presence of his 
 wife, who begged for his life. Two other men were tied up. cruelly 
 flogged, then shot, (and it is believed killed, as the men have disappeared,) 
 while the wife of one of the men received 50 lashes. On one plantation 
 in Barnwell district three colored women were severely whipped, and on 
 another a woman was unmercifully flogged because she refused to leave 
 the place. Four white citizens, with a white soldier, broke into the house 
 of a freedman, who was sick, tied his hands behind him, and swung him 
 up to a post for an hour or more, then chained him and left him so for 
 more than two days. On some of the plantations the freedmen do not 
 get a share of all of the produce, the planters withholding the cotton crop 
 on some plea best known to themselves. This latter practice is almost 
 universal throughout the state."" 
 
 In many instances negroes in the fall were sent to the coast, 
 sometimes on the promise that their employers would meet them 
 there and pay them for their year's labor. The failure of the 
 planters to appear left the deluded negroes to gain their living 
 in a strange place as best they might, which was usually either 
 by stealing or by becoming dependent upon the supplies of the 
 freedmen's bureau. 19 These statements were probably largely 
 based on the negroes themselves. 
 
 Carl Schurz, after an investigation of southern conditions in 
 the summer of 1865, reported that contracts were more frequent- 
 ly broken by the blacks than by the whites, and that "very many 
 plantations under extensive cultivation were entirely abandoned" 
 
 "Schurz, Report, 18; Reynolds. Reconstruction in S. C, 4. 
 
 17 Andrews, The South Since the War, 220. 
 
 u Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Part II.. pp. 222, 229; 
 The Nation, 1., 780 (Dec. 21, 1865). 
 
 " Ibid; Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., pp. 224, 
 226; Andrews. The South Since the War, 207. 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau i\ South Carolina 
 
 by the laborers. Disastrous as this was to the planters, it is 
 natural that the negroes were not seriously impressed with the 
 obligation of the written word. The freedmen's bureau returned 
 many such negroes to the plantations. 20 
 
 The question naturally arises as to the power which could 
 enforce contracts drawn up by bureau officials. At first Saxton 
 instructed his officers to allow the civil magistrates to administer 
 justice, provided they acted as agents of the bureau, received 
 negro testimony and applied to cases involving negroes the state 
 laws intended for the whites. In the event of a refusal on the 
 part of the magistrates to comply with these terms, the officers of 
 the freedmen's bureau were to become the sole arbiters in all 
 cases in which a negro was a party.- 1 In June, 1865, provost 
 courts, consisting of an officer of the army and two citizens, were 
 established by an order from the commander of the department 
 of the South. These courts were to adjudicate all cases in which 
 a freedman was either plaintiff or defendant. Sentences admin- 
 istered by them were not to exceed $100 and imprisonment for 
 two months. 22 Thus it will be seen that there were three con- 
 flicting tribunals in South Carolina; civil, bureau, and provost 
 
 courts. 
 
 An understanding between the provisional governor and the 
 army was reached whereby the civil authorities surrendered all 
 cases involving freedmen to the provost courts. 2:! When the 
 offices of assistant commissioner and state commander \\ 
 merged in June, 1866, Assistant Commissioner Scott gained con- 
 trol of provost courts and was enabled to supervise jurisdiction 
 over the negro. 24 Bureau officers adjudicated and enforced judg- 
 ments in trivial cases, and referred more seriou> matters to the 
 nearest provost courts.'-" Howard limited the sentences 
 nounced by his officials to a fine of $100 and imprisonment 
 
 20 Schurz, Report, 30, 49. 
 
 21 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 70, p. 90. 
 
 22 Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 6, p. 117. 
 
 23 Annual Cyclopaedia, 1865. p. 7-S: Ex. Docs., 39 ". 
 p. 23. 
 
 24 Sen. Docs.. 39 Cong.. 2 Sc>s.. Vol. 1. No. 6. p. 116. 
 "Report of the Sec. of War. -to Conj - ;>• 1040. 
 
110 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 days. 21 ' It was reported from South Carolina that the freedmen 
 preferred the bureau courts to those of the army ; and that they 
 sometimes came on foot from 100 to 150 miles to obtain justice 
 from the bureau, rather than intrust their cases to the military 
 officers stationed near them. 27 
 
 To the leaders of congress the continued military supervision 
 of the southern states seemed necessary. Reports reached them 
 that the negroes were being cruelly oppressed by the native whites 
 and that some of the latter had openly avowed that "the un- 
 constitutional emancipation proclamation" would be set aside as 
 soon as southern representatives were readmitted to congress. 28 
 The North felt that its worst fears were justified when in Decem- 
 ber, 1865, the South Carolina legislature enacted a code of laws 
 for the government of the negro. These laws, known as the 
 black code, although giving to negroes the right to acquire, own 
 and dispose of property, undertook to prescribe most minutely 
 the relations between master and servants. Negroes were not 
 to be absent from the premises nor to receive visitors without the 
 master's consent. On the farms, they were to "rise at the dawn 
 in the morning, feed, water and care for the animals on the farm, 
 do the usual and needful work about the premises, prepare their 
 meals for the day, if required by the master, and begin the farm 
 or other work by sunrise." 29 The black code was interpreted by 
 the North as an attempt to re-enslave the negro, and was prompt- 
 ly nullified by order of General Sickles. 80 Congress was now 
 thoroughly convinced that military protection of the negro must 
 be maintained. The system of military courts' 11 wrought great in- 
 justice both to whites and blacks. On the one hand reports were 
 made that they were partial to the whites, and that they could be 
 
 "Report of the Sec. of War, 39 Cong., 2 Sess.. p. 719; Ex. Docs., 39 
 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11, pp. 22, 23. 
 
 " Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6, p. 116. 
 
 " Schurz, Report, 17, 18. 
 
 '"" McPherson, Political Manual, 1866, pp. 34-36. Reynolds, Reconstruc- 
 tion in S. C, 27-31. 
 
 80 McPherson, Political Manual, 1866, pp. 36-38. Cox. Three Decades, 
 416. 
 
 01 By military courts is meant hoth the army and bureau courts. 
 
The Frkkdmkx's Bureau in South Carolina 111 
 
 bribed to do whatever the planters wished. 82 Southern testimony 
 presents a picture of unprecedented disregard of the Anglo-Sax- 
 on's claim to a fair trial. Numerous instances air given of the 
 arrest and imprisonment of worthy citizens upon the single state- 
 ment of a negro. The following are a few examples of eviden 
 against the bureau given by Southerners: Colonel Brooks of 
 Columbia, tells that his father, who in 1866 was living in Ivlge- 
 field County, was arrested and, without being given time to put 
 on his shoes, was made to walk barefoot half a mile. He asked 
 why he was arrested, and the only answer given was that he had 
 just entertained at dinner a young man who the day before "had 
 a fuss" with a negro woman. When the crops were under cul- 
 tivation the negroes frequently struck for higher wages, and 
 nothing but the intervention of the freedmen's bureau could in- 
 duce them to return. "That inducement could only be effected 
 by the planter or farmer paying to the agent from ten to twenty 
 dollars per head. This sum was simply a perquisite of the 
 agent, and when paid, the negro always returned to his labors, 
 though not receiving a cent of additional compensation. It was 
 frequently the case that the same planter or farmer would have 
 to compensate the bureau agent two or three times during one 
 year, or else lose his crops." A negro lodged complaint against 
 his employer. The officer received a gallon of whiskey from the 
 defendant and called the matter settled. It is charged that the 
 bureau agents fined the planters in accordance with what they 
 thought they could get from them, and that they would even 
 whip the negroes if paid to do so by the planters. 83 
 
 In contrast to the preceding is the report from the acting 
 sistant commissioner for the bureau district of Charleston: 
 judicious has been the administration of justice by the officers on 
 duty in this district that applications are frequently made by 
 whites that their differences may he heard and adjudicated by the 
 
 :,s Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Part II.. p. 225. An- 
 drews, The South Since the War, 203. 
 
 \ffairs in the Late Insurrection.^, 
 of the Committee, pp. 441. 44_> ; The Witi-mal Republi I in 
 
 Charleston Daily Courier, July 9, 1866; Private letters ii of the 
 
 writer. 
 
112 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 sub-assistant commissioners, they having more confidence in the 
 military civic courts than in their own local magistrates." 34 The 
 truth is that everything depended upon the character of the in- 
 dividual agents and officers. Were they wise and just, their de- 
 cisions received the respect of both contending parties; but if 
 they themselves were unscrupulous, the frauds committed by 
 them brought odium and disgrace upon the whole system. 
 
 In October, 1866, civil law was restored in South Carolina, 
 except on the sea islands and the military reservation at Hilton 
 Head. 35 This resulted in many complaints of injustice toward 
 the negro, especially in cases where the whites had broken their 
 contracts. The freedmen were prevented from taking their cases 
 to the state courts, for the law required every plaintiff to give 
 bond for twice the amount for which he sued. It was reported 
 that no magistrate "would bind over a white man for trial for 
 the perpetration of any outrage, however villainous, unless the 
 freedman complaining against him would give security to the 
 amount of $200 or $300. 3,! Usually the negroes were unable to 
 meet these conditions. Officers advised the re-establishment of 
 military and bureau courts, and in some instances this was done. 37 
 After the passage of the civil rights bill, April 9, 1866, freedmen 
 were privileged to sue in United States Courts in all cases where 
 there was discrimination because of race, color, or previous con- 
 dition of servitude. 38 
 
 1 laving seen how cases between whites and blacks were ad- 
 judicated, let us return to the subject of contracts. Although 
 those formed for the year 1865 did not on the whole prove suc- 
 cessful, the freedmen's bureau and most of the planters were 
 anxious for the negroes to contract for the following year. But 
 the freedmen, almost with one accord, refused to bind themselves 
 to the planters. Doubtless this attitude was largely due to their 
 
 34 Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1. No. 6. p. 118; Schurz. Report. 48. 
 ■ Report of the Sec of War. 39 Con-.. _' Sess., p. 738; Sen. Docs., 39 
 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6, p. 117. 
 
 "Ibid., 123; Report of tin- Sec. of War.. 40 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 669. 670. 
 • Ibid., 670-(.7_\ 
 M Statutes at Large, XIV., 27-29. 
 
Tiik Frkkdmkx's IU-rkal- in South Caroui 113 
 
 expectation that land would be given them at Christmas or New 
 Year's. 39 Saxton, in a general circular, tried t" corred the im- 
 pression, and called upon the freedmen to enter into contracts 
 at once."' 
 
 Three kinds of contracts were adopted in South Carolina: 
 agreements that the negroes should work for regular wagi 
 agreements that they should work for the planters for a share of 
 the crop, and agreements in which the planter furnished the land 
 and equipment, the renter paving a portion of the crop. The 
 first system was used by most of the Northern immigrants and 
 by a few Southerners with ready money at command. 11 It 
 proved the most satisfactory to both parties. The last mentioned 
 plan was largely confined to the sea islands, and was reported as 
 not successful. 42 The Darlington planters met in December and 
 adopted a form of contract which received the approval both of 
 Saxton and of the Sumter, Kershaw and Clarendon planters. 
 This provided that the freedmen should receive one-third of the 
 crop, and contained many of the regulations for the government 
 of the negro found in the black code. 43 This contract was not 
 accepted readily by the freedmen, with the result that the New 
 Year opened with hut few agreements as- to labor. 
 
 Much confusion followed. Some negroes, who refused to 
 work for the terms offered, remained on the plantations and v. 
 a constant drain upon the planters' supplies. I Ithers, ejected 
 from their former homes, became vagrants or beneficiaries of the 
 bureau's bounty. There was great need of a controlling influ- 
 ence. January 8, 1866, Saxton issued an order forbidding plan- 
 
 3a Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11. p. 26; Vndr •■ -. I" South 
 Since the War, 221, 222; Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruct! 
 Part II., p. 229. 
 
 40 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 70, p. 95. 
 
 "The rate of wages varied greatly, ranging from $20 a year with no 
 rations to $180 with rations. See foot notes below. 
 
 "The Nation, I.. 393 (Sept. 28, 1865) ; Sen. Docs.. 39 Coi 
 Vol. 1. No. 6, p. 123; Charleston £>rti'/.v Courier, Jan. 5, 1866; Report of 
 Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Part II.. p. 234. 
 
 "See Appendix A following for a copy of the contract. The I 
 ton form of contract was later repudiate. 1 by Saxton. B -i Joint 
 
 Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 240. 
 
114 Smith CoixEge Studies in History 
 
 ters to remove freedmen from their plantations unless the latter 
 had refused to enter into "fair and reasonable contracts." Xo 
 freedman could be removed without the consent of an agent of 
 the bureau. 44 Saxton's order was supplemented by one from 
 General Sickles, dated January 23. This forbade a freedman to 
 remain on a plantation if he had refused to work there "after 
 having been offered employment by the owner or lessee on fair 
 terms, approved by the agent of the freedmen's bureau." It also 
 provided that vagrants should be put to work on public roads and 
 fortifications, or be hired out to labor for a period of one year. 45 
 This order was commended by the Charleston Daily News, which 
 reported on January 25 that the negroes in the upper districts had 
 generally gone to work, and that on the seaboard they showed 
 more readiness to enter into contracts. 
 
 When Scott became assistant commissioner for South Caro- 
 lina, he repudiated the Darlington contract and recommended one 
 which differed from it in the following respects: Freedmen 
 were not to invite visitors upon the premises, nor to absent them- 
 selves from the same during working hours, without consent. 
 Freedmen were to perform reasonable daily tasks ten hours a 
 day, unless the weather was such as actually to forbid labor, or 
 they were excused by the employer. In such cases there 
 were to be no deductions. If absent more than three days with- 
 out leave, unless on account of sickness or other unavoidable 
 cause, a freedman should be subject to dismissal from the planta- 
 tion, and forfeiture of his or her share of the crop. The em- 
 ployer, however, should pay the party dismissed $5.00 a month 
 for full hands, deducting advances. Neither party should sell or 
 use any portion of the crop until alter division of the same, with- 
 out the consent of the other parly, and each employee should be 
 provided with a pass book in which entries of advances, ab- 
 sences, etc., should be kept. Each head of a family should be 
 allowed one-half acre of land for his own use; quarter-acre tracts 
 being alloted to all others. Employees should not be compelled 
 
 ** Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Part II., p. 229. 
 48 Charleston Daily Courier, January 24, 1866. 
 
Tiik Frkkdmhx's Bureau in South Carolina US 
 
 to work upon the Fourth of July, Christmas, New Year's, nation- 
 al and state Thanksgiving and fast days, unless the work to be 
 done was a work of necessity or mercy. No deduction should he 
 made for not working on these days. Female employees who 
 were heads of families were required to work only one-half day 
 on Saturdays. 40 A comparison of these terms with those of the 
 Darlington contract, found in Appendix A, will show that Scott 
 annulled the most objectionable provisions of that document. 
 
 By May, 1866, the assistant commissioner reported that the 
 negroes "had entered into contracts with a willingness and unan- 
 imity beyond the expectation of the most sanguine persons in the 
 State. . . Planters asserted that in most cases they were 'doing 
 more work than wa§ ever done under the old system of forced 
 labor.' " 47 However, reports of outrages were numerous, espec- 
 ially from Barnwell, Edgefield, Newberry, Laurens and Chester 
 districts. There, mounted bands of "regulators" rode about the 
 country terrifying the negroes, and committing many acts of 
 cruelty and depredation toward freedmen and northern win 
 It was reported that they had made an offer to the planters that 
 upon the payment of a fixed sum per head they would kill any 
 freedmen who would not contract. 48 The condition was so bad 
 that for a time General Sickles contemplated the removal to 
 Columbia of the entire negro population from Edgefield, New- 
 berry and Laurens. The citizens of that section of the state 
 affirmed that the regulators were men from Kentucky. Tennessee 
 and Texas who had been in the southern army, and who were 
 prevented by their crimes from returning home. 1 '' 
 
 The results in 1866 were not satisfactory. Severe drought 
 had greatly damaged the crops. The corn crop upon which the 
 people largely depended for food was reported as an titter fail- 
 
 48 Weekly Record, February 10, 1866. 
 
 47 Report of the Sec. of War, 39 Cong., 2 Sgps., p. 737. 
 
 48 Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1, No. 6. prr. 112, 113. 
 
 49 Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Part II.. p. 234 ; Char- 
 leston Daily Courier, March 21, 1866; Philadelphia Enquirer. March 16, 
 1866; New York Times, June 13, 1866; The Steedman-b'ulUrton Report; 
 Newberry Herald, March 14, 1866, as quoted in Charleston Daily Courier. 
 March 24, 1866. 
 
116 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 lire/"' The acting assistant commissioner for Sumter, Darling- 
 ton, Chesterfield, Marlborough and Marion reported that in his 
 district contracts had generally been regarded by both parties. 51 
 On James Island it was estimated that the freedmen would realize 
 about $300 each for the year's work."' 2 With the exceptions 
 given above, the outlook at the close of the year was discourag- 
 ing. Contracts had been broken, many of both races were actual- 
 ly destitute, violence and outrages against the negroes were of 
 common occurrence, and there was much ill-feeling on all sides. 
 This condition of affairs was largely attributed by officers of the 
 bureau to the restoration of civil law. 53 
 
 Before the contracts for 1866 had expired, the freedmen of 
 South Carolina became possessed of the desire to emigrate. June 
 21, President Johnson had signed an act by which public land was 
 opened to settlement. 54 The Nation reports that thousands of 
 negroes, especially from the interior and northern districts of 
 North Carolina, emigrated to Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and 
 Liberia, and that many of them had abandoned plantations which 
 they had bound themselves by contracts to cultivate. Those 
 who settled on the public lands were promised six months' ra- 
 tions after their arrival. Others went on contracts which secured 
 to them from six to twelve dollars a month."' 5 
 
 The decreasing supply of labor resulted in the spring of 1867 
 in more liberal contracts. Greater kindness 56 and consideration 
 on the part of the planters were reported. The crops for the 
 year were greatly damaged by wet weather and the caterpillar, 
 so that the returns were most inadequate. "The offices of agents 
 were thronged with planters and freedmen calling upon them to 
 settle differences and divide crops," ami in many instances the 
 
 50 Sen. Docs., 39 Cong., 2 Sess.. Vol. 1. No. 6. pp. 113, 114. US; Report 
 of the Six-, of War, 39 Cong., - Sess., p. 737. 
 
 Sen. Docs.. 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1. Xo. 6. pp. 11". 120. 
 Sen. Does.. 39 Cong., 2 Sess., Vol. 1. Xo. 6. p. IIS. 
 : ' Report of the Sec. of War, 40 Cong.. 2 Sess.. pp. 669-07J. 
 •"' Statutes at Large, XIV.. 66, 67. 
 
 "Sen. Docs., 39 Cong.. 2 Sess., Vol. 1. Xo. 6. p. 123; The Nation, 
 Vol. III. 203. 2<>.l. 311; Ibid., IV., 43. 143. 227. 
 
 ■'"■ Report of the Sec. of War, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 670. 
 
 
The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina 117 
 
 books of the planters showed that the negroes had spent their 
 wages in advance. The price of cotton was so low that the 
 planters were in debt as a result of the year's work. In the fol- 
 lowing winter there was much suffering and special agents were 
 sent out by the bureau to distribute supplies to the needy of 
 both races. 57 
 
 The report for 1868 shows improvement both in the terms of 
 the contracts and in the manner in which they were kept. Poli- 
 tics had begun to influence the relation between planters and 
 laborers, and in some districts the land-owners formed clubs in 
 which they agreed to hire no laborers whose vote they could not 
 control. Nevertheless there were fewer cases of outrage than 
 in the preceding year, and it was conceded that the freedmen 
 were "doing better labor and with less trouble than at any prev- 
 ious time since the emancipation." 58 After 1868, the bureau's 
 supervision of labor ceased. 
 
 The freedmen's bureau assumed control of another form of 
 contract, marriages among the negroes. Before the war, the 
 system of slavery had tended to promote great laxness in marital 
 relations. Favorite slaves as a special favor were accorded a 
 marriage ceremony, but in most cases an agreement between the 
 contracting parties, sanctioned by the master, was deemed suffi- 
 cient. The relationship so easily assumed, was as easily broken, 
 and but little idea of the sacredness of the marriage bond was 
 known to the negroes. 59 The coming of freedom had tended to 
 complicate an already disordered condition. Negroes found 
 themselves free to renew former marriages which had been term- 
 inated by the sale of one of the contracting parties. In many in- 
 stances one man had two or more living wives, each of whom in 
 turn had more than one husband. This was the problem which 
 confronted the freedmen's bureau, and which it endeavored to 
 
 solve. 
 
 Saxton was deeply impressed with the importance of promot- 
 
 57 Howard, Report, Oct. 24. 1868, pp. 27, 28. 
 
 58 Ibid., 27. 
 
 68 Report of the Sec. of War, 40 Cong., 3 Sess., Vol. 1. p. 1041. 
 
118 Smith College Studies in History 
 
 ing proper domestic relationships among the negroes. In his first 
 circular to the freedmen he called upon them to lead virtuous 
 lives and to "stud} - , in church and out of it, the rules of the mar- 
 riage relation issued from these headquarters." 00 The following 
 are some of the rules to which he referred: Parties living to- 
 gether as husband and wife at the time of emancipation were 
 acknowledged as legally married, but they were required to have 
 their marriage confirmed by a minister (if it had not already 
 been done) and to obtain from him a certificate. Ministers were 
 authorized to charge one dollar each for these certificates. When 
 a negro, living alone at the time of emancipation, had a former 
 wife restored to him by freedom, he was charged to receive her 
 as his lawful wife. In case there were two or more such wiveSj 
 only one of whom had borne him children, the mother of his 
 children should be received by him.' ;1 Where the claims of 
 different wives were equal, the presumption is that he could 
 choose between them. Chaplain J. H. Fowler was appointed by 
 Saxton to carry out the foregoing order in South Carolina and 
 Georgia. 02 Later on, the work in South Carolina was intrusted 
 to the Reverend Mansfield French. 63 Clergymen were instructed 
 to make a return to the bureau of all marriages solemnized by 
 them, and a careful registration was kept/' 
 
 At first there was some confusion and excitement among the 
 negroes, especially in cases where a man had to choose between 
 two or more wives. The requirement of a money payment for 
 certificates which they were forced to obtain caused considerable 
 inconvenience to the negroes, and criticism from the southern 
 whites. 66 But on the whole this department of the bureau's 
 work was beneficial, bringing order out of the chaos of confused 
 domestic relationships, and stimulating the freedmen to purer 
 habits of life. 
 
 [to bk continued in number hi] 
 
 ■"Report of Joinl Committee on Reconstruction. Tart II., p. 231. 
 " Kx. Docs..>< Con-.. 1 Sess., No. 70, it. 108-111. 
 Ibid., p. 117. 
 
 Sen. I) M s., 39 Cong., J S< ss., Vol. 1. No. 6, pp. 124, 125. 
 Ex. Docs., 39 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 11. pp. 23, 45. 
 Affairs in the Late insurrectional - ) Stairs. 42 Con-.. 2 Sess.; Report 
 of the Committee, p. 442. 
 
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