THE MASTERSHIP AND ITS FRUITS:
THIE
EMANCIPATED
FACE TO FACE
OLD MASTER.
A SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT TO
HoN. EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of Wrar,
BY JAME S MWcKAYE,
Special Conmmisstoner.
NEW YORK:
WM. C. BRYANT & CO., PRINTERS, 41 NASSAU STREET, CORNER OF LIBERTY}
1864.
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SLA_VE
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TIHE EMANCIlPATED SILAVE,
FACE TO FACE
WITH HIS OLD MASTEP.
(Valley of the Lower  3Iississippi.)
To the Hon. EDWIN M'. STANTON,
Secretary of War:
Of all portions of the slave region to wlhicli the Commission
have had access, the valley of the lower Mississippi affords the
most interesting field for the observation and study of the slave
system, as well as of the great changes which, at the present
moment, slave society is everywhere undergoing.  Unlike most
o  other sections visited by the Coammission, here are found all the
elements of that society still in existence; but in a state of revo   Iution and transformation.  Here, facing the broad river on
either side, still stands the great white mansion of the planter;
by its side, just without its shadow, the long rows of cal)ins
called the negro quarters, and, a little in the rear, the great
quadrangular structure, usually of brick, known as the sugar   house.  In many instances the old master still occupies the luan   sion, and the negroes their old quarters; but under circumstances
and in relations quite newv, strange, and full of anxiety to b)oth.
During a recent visit to the neighborhood of these mansions
and negro quarters, many important facts camne to lighlt, and
many important suggestions occurred, not elsewhere presented.
In most other sections visited by the Commission, slave
society had been observed in a state of total disruption. Either
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4
the master or the slave, or both, had become fugitives. In South
Carolina, the masters had absconded, leaving their habitations
and their slaves. In Virginia and North Carolina, as well as in
many localities in the southwest held by our armies, the emancipated could only be seen as fugitives, and the old masters not
at all. On the contrary in such portions of the valley of the
Lower Mississippi as are within our military lines, and especially
in the river region of Louisiana, many of them still stand face
to face in the presence of the great revolution, and of the trials
to which it summonos both.
Before entering further into the considerations especially suggested by the state of things here presented, it is important to
advert to some of the peculiar features of the slave system, as it
existed in this part of the country.
In the first place, the origin and character of the first settlers
of Louisiana and the Lower Mississippi had an important bear ing in modifying many of its features.  These settlers were for
the most part, of French, Spanishl, and Portuguese origin, or of
what has been called the Latin Race, and it is said that the
people of this race do by no means entertain the same rooted
antipathlies, and low consideration of the black race, as are generally ascribed to the races with a shade whiter skin.
However this may be, it is undoubtedly true that there is
found here a much more general admixture of the black and
white races than prevails elsewhere, even in the slavebreeding
States. And all the evidence goes to show that there existed in
this region, especially in the earlier days of its settlement, a
much greater social equality between the two races.  No such
utter repudiation of the manhood of the negro race, existed here
as constituted the basis of the slave system in the islands and
coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. Hience, although the
amount of labor imposed upon the slave was often greater, and
the system of punishments as cruel, yet their ordinary  and
habitual condition was better, and their daily life on a higher
scale. They were not so rigorously forbidden the use of a family
name. Their habitations were much more like those of other
human beings. Usually their cabins contained not less than 
5
two rooms, and often four. They were furnished with some sort
of beds and bedding, and in their lodging those who considered
themselves man and wife were separated from the single; the
young, also, of different sexes slept in separate apartments; they
did not usually eat at a family table, but they had dealt out to
them, generally sufficiently cooked rations, which they might
eat as they chose-the cooking being done for the whole force
by regular details.  On the other hand, "the hours of labor on
the sugar plantations were from fifteen to eighteen per day, and
at certain seasons of the year a greater part of the night was
also occupied with labor.  The hour of beginning work in the
morning was from 3 to 4 o'clock. The overseer was expected
to produce a certain crop with a given number of hands, and all
were obliged to obey him in preference to the master. He was
generally much more  cruel than the master.  Kind-hearted
masters sometimes select cruel overseers."
I quote above from the testimony of Mr. J. B. Roudanez, a
free mulatto creole of New Orleans, a man of great intelligence
and probity, who had been employed as an engineer and mechanic upon many of the sugar plantations in the region of
country under consideration.  No man could have had a more
thorough acquaintance with plantation life than he, and no
man in the city of his residence bears a higher reputation for
truth and sobriety.
I-e says, further, " that upon some plantations the women
were worked as hard as the men, and in some instances were
kept at labor in every stage of pregnancy, even up to the moment of delivery.  Sometimes they were sent into the field one
week after confinement; but ordinarily they were given one
month in which to recover.  Mothers were usually permitted to
nurse their children for a half hour three times a day for the
space of three months."
Another witness Dr. E. C. Il{yde, an old physician who had
lived and practiced more than thirty years among the planters
of North and South Carolina and in the Valley of the Mississippi, upon his examination declared, "that the slave women
were forced to labor from pregnancy to maternity. I have
known of births between the cotton rows; they were compelled
to hoe out their row, and then given an hour to recover.' 
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", Many planters on the Mississippi do not wish to raise negro
children; they would rather they would die than live-they do
not think it profitable."
"As to chastity," says Mr. Roudanilez, " no such thing was
known on the plantations. In the first place, the overseers had
the run of all the field women, and if one of them refused, an
occasion was very soon found for subjecting her to a severe pun  ishment."' "I have known," says another reliable witness,
"women to be severely whipped for not coming to the quarters
of the overseer or master for the purposes of prostitution, when
ordered so to do."  "The old masters usually made their selec tions from the house servants and the young masters generally
preferred for their concubines their half sisters.  It was the coin mon custom. They were usually taken at the age of thirteen or
fourteen.  I have known girls to be mothers at that age.  This
was especially true of French creoles."  "Their own offspring,"
says Dr. Hiyde, " were treated as slaves; they were frequently
subjected to ferocious treatment, and sold, to put them out of
their sighlt."   " The practice of indiscriminate sexual inter course," continues Mr. Roudanez' " w"as so universal that a chlaste
colored girl at the age of seventeen was almost unknown.'
" The planters' habit of cohabitation with their slave women was
a source of great suffering to these women. Frequently the
jealous wife would procure them to be whipped or otherwise
punished upon false charges, and often when  their husbands
were absent had them  punished in their own presence."  The
tortures sometimes inflicted upon these helpless favorites of the
husband by the infuriated wife, in order to render them less attractive to the husband, are not to be described.  " The fact of
the promiscuous cohabitation was well known to both parents
and children."
Nor were the puishments less severe here than in other portions of the slave region.  WhIipping with the paddle, scourging
with the whip of twisted bull's hide or knotted cords: torturing
with the heavy iron-horned collar and with heavy iron rings with
chain attached, worn upon the ankle for months; confinement
in the stocks in the dark cells of the plantation prisons, often
without food, and hunting with blood-hounds, were all practiced
here as well as elsewhere.  "Some whites," says Mr. Roudanez, 
'7
made hunting slaves with blood-hounds a regular profession."
And yet, notwithstanding all this, there did exist among
these people a kind of human life, full, it is true, of the most
unheard-of toil, and of the most dreadful suffering, and yet, in
degradation, it did not approach by many degrees, the slave
life upon the shores of South Carolina.
Besides the circumstances already referred to, there were
others peculiar to this section of country, which had their influence upon the working of the slave-systemn, as well as on the
character of the slave population.  The sugar culture, which, as
we have seen, at certain seasons of the year, exacted the most
formidable labors, required also, for its successful prosecution, a
certain degree of judgment and skill in those employed in it.
A portion of the people on every sugar plantation had to be
mechanics and artizans.  This had its effect in the development
of a higher general intelligence upon these plantations.  "Generally," says Mr. Roudanez, " upon every plantation there was
at least one man who had somehow learned to read a little, and
in secret used to read to the others, notwithstanding the severe
punishment always inflicted, upon the detection of such offences."
" On the day following that on which the news of the execution
of John Brown reached New Orleans, I started for a plantation
seventy-five miles up the river.  Soon after my arrival there, a
slave gave me a detailed account of the execution. That morning a slave in the sLgar-houLse had asked of his master a piece of
paper to wipe some portion of the machinery.   ie handed him
a newspaper, the greater part of which he retained, and afterwards secretly read it to the whole force. It contained an
account of John Brown's execution."
Another  fact  had  its effect.   The sugar plantations  of
the Valley of the Mississippi for the most part front upon
the river, or upon some bayou, navigable at least for flatboats, and in the rear abut upon interminable cypress swamps.
These swamps became places of refuge for the slave pushed
to the last extremity, very difficult of  access even  to the
master of the blood-hounds. Many instances are known of
slaves having lived for years in the recesses of these swamps,
thickly wooded as they are with great cypress and cottonwood trees, from whose branches hang suspended the long 
8
gray moss, covering them as with  a veil.  These, thickly
interspersed with an undergrowth of brambles, constitute an
almost impenetrable  jungle.   Sometimes they  lived alone,
and sometimes in bands of a greater or less number, often
amounting to thirty, or even fifty persons, building for them selves, upon some little island of firmer ground, a lodging-place,
and communicating in the night, by secret paths, with their
fellows on the plantations. They subsisted by carrying off
the pigs, turkeys, and chickens, and sometimes they "roped"
into their hiding-places the sheep, or other cattle of the masters, butchered them, and exchanged portions of the meat with
their friends on the plantation for corn-meal.  Their great
enemies in these swamps were the mosquitoes.  In the night no
living creature can stand their bite. Cattle left exposed are
often killed by them. Every night they were obliged to keep
up a smouldering fire of cypress branches, the smoke of which
was their only defence against these hateful insects.
Many marvellous incidents and instances of heroismin are related of these Mississippi Maroons   Mr. Alfred Jervis, of New
Orleans, one of the Executive Committee of the " Free State
Association,"' knew a man who had lived for three years in the
top of a large cypress tree, although often hunted  by  the
hounds. Mr. Jervis also related an instance of a less successful
refugee, who, for an attempt to escape, had his back flayed by
the blows of the twisted whip of dried bull's hide, and was then
tied with his face to a tree, and left all night to be devoured
by the mosquitoes. In the morning some of his fellow-slaves
found him, covered with the gorged insects, quite dead.
Octave Johnson, now a corporal in Company C, 15th Regiment of the Corfps d'Afrique, as related by himself to a member
of the Commission, had lived with his band of thirty, (ten
women and twenty men), eighteen months in the swamps of St.
James' Parish.  His master, S. Coutrell, at present himself a
refugee in the quagmires of secession, had purchased him  at a
great price, and had taken him to his plantation to make sugar
hogsheads; for Octave was a cooper. At the early dawn one
morning, Octave was found asleep at his bench. His allotted
task required him to be early at work. Hie had risen in the
first hours of the morning, and, repairing to his place of toil, 
9
seated himself lpon his bench to wait for sufficient light to
begin his labor.  " I suppose," said hle, " that I must have fallen
asleep; for thle first I knewv I fobund myself lying on the ground,
sort of stiunned, AIassa standing over me with a big stick in his
hand."  Two  stout slaves were ordered to take Octave to the
whipping place, and give Thirn fifty lashes.
It should b, understood that whipping, thlrongliout all the slave
region, ~'as by no means vlwhat is known by that lname elsewhlere-not at all the same thing as that sometimies applied at
the Nlorth to refractory schlool-lboys. In these slave commuLnities
it had been reduced to a species of recognized art.  Its imlplements were among the most prominent signs of slave civilization, as Carlisle says the gallows was, formerly, in England.  In
the first place, the whvlips were of various kinds, according to the
exact effect intended to be producneed.   There was the -whip of
knotted hempen cords; thle whlip with the twisted lash of dried
bull's hide; the coachl-trace vwhip, and the paddle.  "Sometimes," says Dr. Hyde,  " flat handsaws were  used as whlips."
Theni there were various exposures and postures. Sometimes the
victim, stripped stark naked from the armpits to the heels, was
laid, face downwards,  over  a stout  beam, supported  lpon
posts at thle proper elevation, withl the feet and hands fastened
with] strong ropes to stakes driven firmly into the ground on
either side.  In  that posture one or thle otlher of the above
mentioned instruments was applied, according to the ultimate
intention of the miaster.  If lie contemplated a fuiture sale of the
slave, the paddle was generally used.  This consisted of a broad
piece of heavy sole-leatlher, some fourteen or sixteen inches in
lengtlh, nailed to a convenient  wooden  handle.  This only
bruised tl-he fleshl, withlout breaking the slkin, and after some
weeks or moniths all signs of its use disappeared, and no suspicion was aroused in any fiture purchaser, of the indocility of
the chattel.  On the other hand, the use of all the other inlstruments lacerated thle flesh to a considerable depth, and left forever after enormous ridges or welts.  Often two were employed
to do the prescribed work, the first becoming too ni-Luech fatigued
to make his blows heavy enotugh to satisfy thle critical eye of the
on-looking master or overseer, wvas relieved by  a fresh hand,
until thle required number of blows had been all told; and then,
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thle arms being loosed, a pail of old beef or pork brine was
dashled upon tlhe ba(ck.  If thle victim had fainted, this usually
roused him, and stauneilhed thle flowving blood.  I-le was thlen set
at liberty, and allowed to begin his daily task in thle canie or
cotton-field.
Thle operation was frequently varied by a  lchange of posture.
Sometimes thie victims were stripped as before mentioned and
bound to a tree or post.  Sometimes, especially women in the
last stages of child bearing, were laid nakled upon tlhe ground,
face down ward, with thleir arms and legs stretched out and firmly
bound to stakes, " a lhole," says tlhe witness, " being dug underneathl large enough to admit thle pregnant belly," and thenl thle
knotted or the twisted scourge, thle coach trace or the paddle, was
applied  as before mentioned.   " In some parishes," says Mr.
Jervis, " they lhave hired whippers."
Of this nature were the incentives to life-long lhuman toil, furnishled by a system that Bislhop lopkins and Prof. S. F. B.
Mlorse declare to be of Divine ordination.  TWe read w-itli especial wondver ill the ancient Scriptu,res of a tribe of nmen who believed in thle divinity of tlhe god MLoloeli.  WTe shudder at the
ordeal to vwhicih his worship subjected ils votaries.  That wor
ship was doubtless the creation of a depraved and perverted
hulnana intellect.  Ujpon that primal age, lhowever, thie Sun of
Pigihteousness had not yet arisen.  But tils is thle middle of thle
nineteenth Christian century.  What is to be said of the devotees of a divinity still more  monstrous and cruLel tlhan tlhe
ancient god of tlhe Ammo nites?
LIet it be borne in mind that lwhat I have here been describing
was the ordinary mode of punislhment, o;i7 y't4)p;i}?y, and by
no means aniythling  unusual or extraordinarv.  INor was tlhe
spectacle witnessed alone by tlhe old master and is overseer, but
fiequently by the youn1g masters and mistresses also, as in the
case of the South Carolina planter, referred to in thle main report
of thle Commission.
But, to return to Octave.   lie said:;' I had never been whlipped, but I had heard the blows and thle groans of thle othlers, and
I made uip my mind quickly to run for the swamp whlichi lay a
umile or so in thie rear of the sugar hlouse."  Being a fleet runner,
Octave  outstripped  his  pursuers, realched the  swamp, and
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11
plunged into its jungles. After some days hlie found the band of'
refugees with whom hlie afterwards lived.  Of course his miaster
did not mean to lose so valuable a chattel.  Accordingly hlie sent
for a famous professional slave-hunter, EuLgbne Jardeau by name,
and hired him with his paclk of twenlty hounds to recover the
fugitive, dead or alive.
His friends on the plantation having given him and his companionls timely notice, the band iimmediately set about preparing for the struggle.  Two or three of them took the women, and
by making a long " detour" secreted them iii a place of safety,
returning upon their own  tracks to the pathl that led to their
former hidilg place, having (carefully rubbed thle soles of their
feet with the feet of rabbits, with which thley had previously supplied themselves for this purpose, and dragging these after them
to deceive the scent of the hounds,) with clubs in their hands
they waited at the point of junction for the attack.  All day
they stood together and foighlt the hounds, slowly retreating
farthler and farthler into the swaimp.  They succeeded in killing
eighlt of thlem.  TowAards sun-down, becoming thlorouhlily exhausted, withl their arms and legs torn by the ftings of the dogs,
and having lost muchl blood, the word was given to scatter and run.
" (c6Yve gz,bt; pt."  Octave and four or five of his companions
made for a bayou in the Year.  IJuder the hleadway  of men
fleeing for life, they reached the bank to discov-er that its sliallow
waters, obstructed by great roots and fallen trees, were full of
alligators.  They could inot stop if they would -tley made the
leap and scrambled through.  The hounds followned, and the alligators, not touchling thle negroes, attacked the dlogs with great
fuiry, killing six of them.
Mr. Jardeau  coming  up, and  seeing ]lowv matters  stood,
hastilv recalled what was left of his pack.  Octave and his companions escaped.  Not one wvas killed or taken.  I-e was asked
how  lie explained the fact that the alligators dlid not eOenl
attempt to attack him and his companions, but fell upon tlhe
houn-ds with such voracity.  -He answered:  D'ull  no, Aiassa.
Some ob'eln said dey tought t'was God; but, f-r mv part, I tifll
de alligators loved dog's flesh better'n 2pe)'so)agjesh."
Somie few months after this battle withl the blood-hounds in 
the swamps of St. James' Parish, another battle occurred, which
resulted in Gen. Butler's tsking possession of New Orleans, and
it became Mr. Coutrell's turn to flee.  Octave and his companions, beiing duly advised by their friends, left the swamp,
made thleir way to Camp  Parapet, then in command of Gen.
Phelps, and gave thlemselves up.  Mlost of the men enlisted in
the army.
Incidents of the kind above mentioned were not infrequent.
The swamps were never free of negroes. They constituted a
species of asylum, and that fact had its effect upon the character
of the negro, and upon the working of the system.  As a geleral thing, the nlegro became more self-reliant, and the master
more wary, often adopting very inhuman measures of precaution, such as branding with a hot iron, splitting or cropping thle
ears, and compelling the suspected to wear the heavy iron collar
with hlorns, called'" a clioker."'
Anothler fact that had an important influence upon the systein in the region under consideration, as well as on the lcharacter of the slave, remains to be mentioned.   Thle valley of the
Lower Mlississippi, firom an early period of its settlement, contained a proportionately large firee colored population.  In 1 803,
whlen the territory of which thle State of Louisiana forms a part
was ceded by the Frencl-h Republic to the United States, these
free colored men were already quite numierous, and manly of
thlem were possessed of considerable property.  They were not
only as free as any other portion of the population, but in general as well educated and intelligent.  Aany of them were the
children of thle early whlite settlers, and had always enjoyed a
certain social as well as civil equality.  As to the enljoymenlt of
political rights, under the old Spanish and French regimes,
neither white or black settlers ever had Lmuchl experience; consequently, there had never arisen amonlg tlhem mluch question of
thlese righlts, or as to whomli they belonged.  The French PRepulblic, founded upon'" Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," had not yet
quite forgotten the iYmport of these words, anld lhence caused to
to be inserted in the treaty of cession a solemin stipulation, in
the words following, to wit:
12 
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ART. 3d. "The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated into the union of the United States, and admitted
as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal
Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the righlts, advantages, and
immunities of citizens of the TUnited States; and intlthe mean
time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they
profess."
Under this article of the treaty of 1803, the free colored people of Louisiana have always held, and do now claim, that the
government of the United States was solemnly bound to secure
to them " all the rights, advantages, and immunities" that were
justly due to any other free inhabitants of the ceded territory,
whatever might be the political forms which it was subsequently
permitted to assume; and that, therefore, in authlorizing the
white inhabitants of the territory to organize it into slave States
under such constitutions and laws as excluded them from all
political and manyv civil rights and immunities, the government
of the United  States permitted the perpetration of a great
wNrong, not only against them, but against the good faith and
the honor of the whole people of the United States.
It is difficult to see how the case they present, even upon the
letter of the treaty, can be successfully traversed.  And it is
still more difficult to understand how the fact of their having
lain under a great wvrong for sixty years can now be set up as a
reason for refusing to rectify it.  Besides, to-day it cannot be
denied that the free colored people of Louisiana are, as a body,
as well educated, as intelligent, as orderly, and as industrious as
any other equal portion of the common population of the State;
on an average, as rich as the mass of the people of the Free
States,-' and certainly far more loyal than their white fellow-citi
* There is some difficulty in getting at the exact number of the free colored
population of Louisiana, or at the exact assessed value of the property on
which they paid taxes in any given year. According to the United States
census of 1860, the free colored population of the State was at that period
18,647, and, from the best information I could obtain at New Orleans, the as 
14
zens, as was proved in the summer of last year, whlen Governor
Slhepley nmade a call for volunteers to defend the city of New
Orleans against a threatened attack of the rebel army under
3fagruder; while the white inhabitants, even many of those that
had been in the employ of the Government, held bacl and refused to be enrolled, in forty-eighlt hours after the call addressed
to the free colored people was issued, more than one hundred of
their shops and places of business were closed and a full regimenlt was organized and ready for the field, and within seventytwo hours a second.  Are not these people, then, as fit in all respects to enjoy and exercise the rights civil and political of citizenship, as they vwhose only qualification is a shade whiter skin,
and a reluctant swearing to an oath of allegiance under protest,
or with mental reservation?
The truth is that the case of these old freemen of Louisiana is
"s8u generis," and does by no means involve the question connected with the justice or expediency of granting political rights
to the recently emancipated colored people.  Their claim to
sessed value of the propertv on whichl they paid taxes for that year was about
$13,000,000. This gives an average of about $700 for each person.
But the population, as given in the census for 1860, is believed to be considerably below the true estimate.  The best informed persons, old residents
of New Orleans, and familiar with the subject, putting it at not.less than
25,000 at the present time. If we assume the assessed value of their property
to be now what it was in 1860, it makes an average for each person of $520.
It is true that, according to the State census of 1853, as stated in the Louisiana State Register, the free colored population in that year was 28,820. But
this is believed not to be accurate, inasmuch as, according to the same State
Register; the population for the year 1850 was but 17,462.
These discrepancies arise in a great measure, undoubtedly, firom the difficulty of distinguishing between the lightest shade of the colored population
and the darkest shade of the white, and the consequent latitude of classification, according to the caprice of the persons making the census. It is believed,
however, that the estimate of from 23,000 to 25,000 for the population, and
from 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 as the assessed value of the property  upon
which they have paid taxes, approximates the truth
In the loyal free States, according to the United States census for 1860, the
estimate is as follows, viz:
Population, 19,239,851; valuation of real and personal property, $9,325,945,381; giving $484 to each person.-See Nat. Almanac, pp. 147 and 309. 
15
the enjoyment of these rights rests upon entirely distinct and
very different grounds.   Besides, the Government needs the
suffrages of these people in defence of the Constitution and the
iUnion at this very hour, almost as indispensably as it needed
their arms at the period above referred to.
But, hlowever this may be, it is not difficult to understand how
so numerous and intelligent a body of people, living and thriving in the midst of slavery in spite of all obstructions, of the
same race as the enslaved, should have had an important infiun
ence as well lupon the master as upon the slave, inducing the
latter to greater and greater longing for liberty, and for the
opportunity to live and labor, free from the scourge of the driver's
whip; and the former to more and more wariness and severity
of repression.
There were other peculiar circumstances connected withl the
working of the slave system in the Valley of the Lower Mlississippi, to whichie I need not nowv refer.  The facts here mentionled
are sufficient to show that, in its main features, slavery was
here of the same general nature as elsewhere.  Its results and
human products, are what we have principally to deal with, and
these also are everywhere nearly identical.  Thoroughly to (omprelhend these, and to know how to dispose of them, is the great
necessity that presses upon our statesmen and rulers in the
present hour.
As I have before said, here, upon the banks of the great
river, these results and products are still to be seen, side by
side, the colored man, as slavery has left him, and the Mvlite
man, as slavery has made him.
Allow me briefly to present them, not in the light o0 Mny own
personal observation alone, but rather in that of the experielnce
of those whose duty it has been to mingle withl them, and to
deal practically with many of the troublesome and disturbing
questions arising out of the great transformation going on in
their midst.
And, first, as to the colored man.  Gen. Banks, in command
of the Department of the Gulf, whose experience and earnest
study of the subject matter under consideration, gives weight to
his testimony, declared to nme that he had learned far more of
the colored men than of the white; that they understood much 
better the requirements of their own peculiar position in the
present exigency than the white men did of theirs, and accepted
them much more readily and wisely; and that, in his judgment,
" whoever else might fail in the great revolution, it would not
be the black man."
And, ill a letter from Alexandria, Louisiana, in answer to
certain inquiries addressed to him, previous to my departure
from New Orleans, under date of March 28th, 1864, Gen. Banks
writes
"I entertain no doubt whlatever of the capabilities of the
emancipated colored people to meet and discharge the duties
incident to the great change in their condition.  I have seen
themy in all situations, within the last year and a half, and
it is with muchl pleasure I say, as I stated to yon in person,
that they seem to me to have a clearer comprehension of their po sition, and the duties whichli rest upon them, than any other class
of our people, accepting, the necessity of labor which rests upon
them as upon others.  The conditions they uniformly impose
show the good sense with wlhichl they approach the change in
their condition.
' They delnand, in the first instance, that to whatever punish ment they may be subjected, they shall not be flogged.
"2d. That they shall labor only when they are well treated.
" 3d. That families should not be separated.
" 4thi. That their children shall be educated.
"With these stipulations I have never found any person of that
race who did not readily accept thie necessity of continuous and
faithful labor at just rates of compensation, which they seem
willing to leave to the Government. As far as the experiment
goes in this department, they have justified in the fullest degree
this conclusion, and, subject to the conditions which they impose, they are willing to and have rendered faithful labor.
"There were in this department, when I assumed command,
many thousands of colored persons  without  employment or
home, who were decimated by disease and death of the most
frightful character. To these, natives of the plantations in the
department, have been added many thousand fugitives from the
surrounding States, of every age and condition.  There are not,
I
16 
17
at this time, 500 persons that are not self-supporting, and there
has not been in the last year, any day when we would not have
gladly accepted ten or twenty thousand, irrespective of their
condition, in addition to those we have of our own. Except that
the negro understood the necessities of his position, and was
able, in the language of your letter, "to meet and discharge the
duties incident to the great change in his condition," this result
would have been physically impossible.
"Wherever, in the department, they have been well treated,
and reasonably compensated, they have invariably rendered
faithful service to their employers.
"From many persons who manage plantations, I have received
the information that there is no difficulty whatever in keeping
them at work, if the conditions to which I have above referred
are complied with."
And George IH. Hianks, Colonel of the 15th Regiment, Corps
d'Afrique, member of the Board of Enrollment, and Superintendent of negro labor in the Department of the Gulf, under
date of February Cth, 1864, deposes:" that he went to Louisiana as a Lieutenant in the 12th Connecticut Regiment, under
Gen. Butler; that hlie was appointed superintendent of contrabands under Brig. Gen. T. W. Sherman.  The negroes, hle says,
came in scarred, wounded, and some with iron collars round
their necks.  I set thlem at work on abandoned plantations, and
on the fortifications.  At one time we had 6,500 of them; there
was not the slightest difficulty with them.  They are more willing to work, and more patient than any set of human beings I
ever saw.  It is true there is a general dislike to return to their
old masters; and those who have remained at home are suspicious of foul play, and feel it to be necessary to run away to test
their freedom.  This year the dislike has very much lessened;
they begin to feel themselves more secure, and do not hesitate
to return for wages.  The negroes williyqly c1cept th-e co)ndition
of la5o)0 for thebir own    iew e, andl thIe 9zusket for their
freedorl.  I knew a family of five, who were freed by the voluntary enlistment of one of the boys.  He entered the ranks for
the avowed purpose of freeing his family. His name was
Moore; he was owned by the Messrs. Leeds, iron-founders; they
3 
is
resided withini one of the Parishles excepted in thle Proclamation
of Emiancipation.  Ie was thlle first iman to fall at Pase,agoula.
Upon starting,, lie said to his family: " I  ulowv I shall fall, bLut
yol wAill be free."
"A  negro soldier demanded his lchildren at my lhalds.   I
wanted to test his afiection.  I said:' they had a good lolrne.'
He said:'LieLt., I want to send my cllilddren to school; my
wife is not allowed to see thlemi  I aimi in your service; I wear
military clothes; I hlave been in three battles; I was in the
assault at Port IIudson; I want nmy chilcldren; they are my flesh
anid blood."'
Col. IIanks, whose true-hearted and faithifil service to the
colored people in thle D)epartment of the Gulf, cannot be too
highly appreciated, d(lid not, of course, undertake to withstand
that appeal.   The children were delivered to the father.
Next to the right to work for his own maintenance and that
of his flmily, the colored man here, as elsewliere, asls for tllhe
privilege of seildin llis children to school.
"The colored people," stys Col. I-aliks, " manifest the greatest anxiety to educate their children, anld they thoroughly appreciate the benefits of education.  I have known a family to go
with two meals a day, in order to save fifty cents a w-eel to pay
ai indifferent teacher for their children."
The universal and urgent desire of the eolored people fori elducation was most strihingly illustirated by a fiect that canme to my
klnowledge during a recent -isit to Po:rt Hudson.   In each of
tlle camps of the colored regiii ents the best built cabin was a
school-house.   Thlese  regimeniits had obtained   thl-e autliorlization
of Gen. Andrews for the establilshment of regimental schools.
They proceeded withl their own hands to erect school-house., anid,
at their own cost, to procure teachers (in soime of tlhe regiinents
tlhe chaplains undertook tlhat du-ty); and, accorcding, to tlie testimony of tlieir otliceis, all their leisure time was most assiduously
and perseveringly devoted to their studies.  O)l,lit not the Governiment to encourage this most praisewortl,y desire of the colored
regimients, by providing for each, at least one permanent teacher 
A dis;[bled veteran vwhite soldier, milght be thus emp?loyed.
A desire for education, a love of k)owledg,e in airy community 
19
or people Ihave been always considered the surest proofs of their
intrinsic wvortl, tlhe most hopeful signs  of their capacity for
civilizatLion and future advancemeniet.   Thle extraordinary lnaniifestation of this love and desire amongc thle emancipated coleredl
people, v lien taiken in connection wNithl their p)revious conldition
of degrad,lation, is one of tile most almazilin, facts with respect to
them.  Ai-d vwhen conitlalsted with the alnimost nniviersal indifferenec, even  Contempt, witll wAllich  thle poor Soiuthern lwhites rcgard that matter, is well calculated to stagger thle whllite manl's
boast of the great superiority of his race.   The colored man
caine out of Aftieca withlout a single  element of civiiizzaion.
Not even a tradition of ainy trace of edneation belongs to his ancest,ry.  Or' thl  other han, what  are called " ftef)oor.w/%ite
t.3sf " of thli Slave Stctce, are for the rnot part, the deseundallts
of tlle same race as tlieC mie,n wilo llave carried our civilization
fion thle lills of Nc;v En.Aal1d throglg      the great wil erness, to
the shores of tlhe Pacific ()ecan.  They set cuat upon t;cir career
witlh many adv-antages of climate andl soil, and withl eqnal opportunities for edac,ation and enlighltenment.  Eut  thlere stood
in tiheir wav thle formidabl-)e barriers of the f'c(ste8e)Ii).  Its all
devouriniu  darliness sw alloved tliheml up, and to-dayi it can only
be said ot' them, that no more ignorant, demoralized, and pit'iabl-e
co!nin in ty of huIman bain s ever livedl in anv civilized country,
in ainy a^e.
It imay therefore b  qiuestioned, iwh,ethler after all, the most
perniciouls and fatal workl of the tmasters has not been wrouihlt
against their owni race, even leaving outt of the account their
present attempt to overthrow the grandest resilts of its historythe nationality, civilization, and free institutions of the People
of the Unrited States.
"Besides their hearty appreciation of education, the colored
people," says Col. Ilanks,'" are very religious and  devotional,
and throLughl this channel are  easily controlled and taug]lt.  I
have lhad fiequente  exhibitions of thLeir tiust in GoD relative to
their fireedom.  I have known tlhem to pray to GoD to bless the
dd  ranlkees."
"The negroes," savs 31r. Potndanez,' are much more virtuous
since the P'roclamation of Freedom.   The  men respect them selves lmuch more, and the -women are mnuch more chaste, because 
20
an honest livelihood is open to them.  Cohlabitation was often
prompted by their wants, such as clothing and other necessaries."
It is hardly necessary for me to speak of the character of
the colored man as a soldier, as presented here in the Valley ot
the Mississippi.  The universal official attestation to his soldierly
bearing and true valor under the severest trials, has put that
beyond question. Nor are his sobriety, orderlinecss, and willing
submission to discipline, less conspicuous. Gen. Andrews, in
command at Port Iuldson, recently assured me that his colored
troops were his best troops, that they performed all their duties,
and especially fatigue duties, with greater cheerfulness and more
faithfully than the white regiments; and that, with competent
officers, he believed no troops would be more reliable.
Even the single instance of apparent insubordination which
occurred recently at Fort Jackson, was provoked by such unheard-of outrages on the part of the Lieut.-Col., and the other
white officers inmplicated, that Gen. Dwight, Mwo   was sent there
by General Banks to investigate the matter, personally declared
to me, that the colored soldiers were blameless.  The officers
were dismissed from the service-a very light punishmnent, considering, the enormity of their offences.
This affair was published in many public journals in the
United States and abroad as a case of mutiny. It had really
nothing of the animntUs of a mutiny.  What the men proposed to
do was to take with them their shameless and guilty officers,
marlch to New Orleans and deliver themselves up to Gen. Banks
as the Commander-in-Chlief.
We need not then despair of the emancipated negro.  Notwithstanding the degradation imposed upon him by the slave
system, there is much left in him to build upon. ite is at least
ready and willing to undertake the performance of his humble
and toilsome part in the new order of things. Indeed, if one
may take as a proof, the results of the lifb-struggle and history
of the old free colored people of Louisiana, before referred to, the
conclusion is unavoidable, that the black man is not only capable
of self-guidance and self-maintenance, but, that under the influence of higher and nobler human motives and incentives, his
progress in the arts and attainments of civilized life, is subject
only to the same laws that control that of other races of men.
I 
21
On the other hand, what is to be said of the white man, his
old master, and of his cap)acity, disposition, and attitude relative
to the part which hle is called upon to perforin in the new industrial and social system?
Col. Ilanks, a large portion of whose daily life, for two years
past,'las been spent in daily intercourse with the I)planters in the
Department of the Gulf, declares that " although they begin to
see that Slavery is dead, yet the spirit of Slavery still lives
amnong them.  Many of them arc even more rampant to enslave
the negro than ever before. They make great endeavors to reco-.er what they call their own negroes.  One planter offered me
$5,000 to return his negroes. They have even hired men to steal
them from my own camp.  (The old spirit still prompting to the
old crime, which, long, ago, was declared felony by the law of
nations if perpetrated in Africa.)"  " They yield," he continues,
to the idea of freedom only under compulsion.  They submit
to the terms dictated by the Government, because obliged so to
do. Mr. A-. B. Marmnillon, one of the rilchest and most extensive sugar planters in the whole valley of the Mississippi, took
the oath of allegiance, but refused to work his plantation unless
he could have h,is own neyroes returned to him.  He had 1,450
acres of cane under cultivation; his whole family of plantation
hands left him and came to New Orleans, reporting themselves
to nme.  Among them could be found every species of mechlanic
and artisan. I called them up and informed them that the Government had taken possession of old master's crop, and that they
were needed to take it off, and would be paid for their labor.
All consented to return; but next morning when the time came
for their departure, not one would go.  One of them said: "I
will go anywhere else to work, but you may shoot me before I
will return to the old plantation."  I afterwards ascertained that
Marmillon, whom they called' Old Cotton Beard,' had boasted
in the presence of two colored girls, house servants, how he
would serve them when he once more had them in his power.
These girls had walked mnore than thirty miles in the night to
bring the information to their firiends." These people were set to
work elsewhere.
"It is undoubtedly true," says Col. Ilanks, "that this year a
change for the better seems to be taking place.  In some parishes 
22
the letting of plantations to Northlern men has a powerfill effect.
Thle disposition of the planters, however, towards  their old
slaves, wheni they consent to hire tlhemy, is by no means fiiendly.
I told a planter recently, that it was the express order of Gen.
Banks that the negroes should be educated.  Ie replied that,
'no one should teach /Iis  ey,roes8.'
Col. Ilanks further declares it as his deliberate jtudgment that
" if civil government  be established  here, and military rule
withdra\vn, tiere is the greatest danger that the negro would
become slubject to some iform of seri'dom."'
-Iis testimony on this point is referred to elsewhere.
The statement of Col. Itlanks, and the general correctness of
lhis views, were concurred in by many otlier intelligent periso,s
faniliar withl the siIbject, and mny ovwn personal observation fiully
confirins tlheml.  In a stretlch of three lhundred miles  up  and
down the iississippi, but one creole planter was found (there
may, of course, have been others with lwhom I did not come in
contact,) wlio lieartily and unreservedly adopted the idea of fee
labor, and honestly carried it out upon his plantation.  And
althouhl lie declared that, iri itself it was successfal much beyond
his expectation, " yet," lie said, "my life and that of my family
are rendered very tunhappy by the opposition and contumnely of
my neighbo)rs."
The simiple truth is, tllat the virus of slavery, the lust of ownerslhip, in the hlearts of these old masters, is as virulent and
active to-day as it ever was.  3/[any of them  admit thlat tlhe old
form  of slavery is for the present, brolken up.  They do not
hesitate even to express the opinioni that the experiment of secession is a failure; but they scoff at the idea of fireedom for the
negro, and repeat the old argument of his incapacity to take
care of'himself, or to entertain any higher motive for exertion
than that of the whip.  They await with iinpatienct  the withdrawal of the military authorities, and the re-establishlment of
tlhe civil power of the State to be controlled and used as hitherto
for the maintenance of what, to them doubtless, appears the
paramounit object of all civil authority, of thle State itself, some
form of the slave system.
WNith slight modifications, the language recently used  by
Judge Humplhrey in a speech delivered at a Union meeting at 
23
HIuntsville, Alabama, seems most aptly to express the hopes and
purposes of a large proportion of the old masters in the Valley
of the -iississippi, vwho have consented to qualify their loyalty
to the iUnion by taking the oath prescribed by the Presidenlt's
Proclamation of Amnesty.  After advising that Alabamia shotld
at once           te er,  t o  be ioz y sirn)7y resciizdgi)  the ordinance
of seess88ion, and after expressing, the opinion that the old ill stitutionl of slavery was  gone, Judge  IIlnmpJirey says: "I
believe, in case of a return to the  TlUnion, we  vwould receive
Ipo7iticcag co-o1)e)ation, so as to secure the management of that
labor by those who were slaves.  T/ere is )rea7i!  io cli;erence,
in? Oy 2)inion), v:het/er;-  e hold  thefl  c(8 c(tbsoltute 8laves, or
o7t(in tkeir labor by s8oone othei,2((etlod..  Of course we prefer
the old method.   But that questioln is not now betfore us."
It is true  that Gen.  Banhks  entertains  sliglhtly different
views of the disposition and purposes of the planters, predi cated, hlowever, on the belief that the Government will adopt
some system of " sufficient  supervision  to compel the negro
to labor," althoughl, as we have seen lie elsewhere declares that
good treatment and fair wages have in all cases  been found
compulsion  enough.  What  the old  masters understand by
"a supervision to co)flel the nlegroes to labor," is not difficult
to itmagine; certainly it is not good treatment and fair wages.
In the letter before referred to, Gen. Banks says: "I  have
no doubt that many of the planters withini our linles, who are
protected by the Government in the enjoyment of their property, lhonestly  accept the new  situation, and enter into the
idea of firee labor with sincerity; but it is coupled with an incredtlity as to the success of the experiment, natural to tlheir situation, and to the ideas in which they hlave bleen educated.  This
is lostered more by the intractability and brutality of the oversees thle middle class betweei the laborer and tUe employerthan it is by any innate disposition of the planter lhimiself; and
d;8br (7A'lie/f of (,,)n,y                      S'zft/eiet gov(e'fl??(?(T c- s{(rv:isi?c, to ccg,t})el the negro to ltebor, to which they tlhink lie is disinclined.  If
such governmental supervision fail in this regard, the experiment
itself  will fail."
For a more full expression of the opinions of Gen. Banlks on 
this subject, reference may be had to a copy of his letter herewith submitted.
The opinions hereinbefore expressed as to the spirit and disposition of the old masters, is fully and explicitly sustained by
the testimony of Brig.-Gen. James S. Wadsworth, than whom no
man has had better opportunities for an intelligent judgment.
In his examination before the Commission, soon after his return from an official tour through the Valley of the lississippi,
in the early part of the past winter, in speaking of the state of
things in Louisiana, Gen. Wadsworth said:
" There is one thing that must be taken into account, and that
is, that there will exist a very strong disposition among the masters to control these people, and keep tlhem as a subordinate and
subjected class.  Undoubtedly they intend to do that.  I think
the tendency to establish a system of serfdom is the great danger
to be guarded against. I talked with a planter in the La
Fourche district near Tibadouville; he said he was not in favor
of secession; he avowed his hope and expectation that slavery
would be restored there in some form. I said:'If we went
away and left these people now, do you suppose you could reduce them again to slavery?'  lie laghled to scorn the idea that
they could not.' What,' said I,'these men, who have had arms
in their hands?''Yes,' he said,'we should take the arms away
from them, of course."''
iulch other testimony of like import might be adduced, but
it is believed not necessary to a clear understanding of the present attitude and position of the two principal constituent elements of the disrupted slave society, in the region under consideration.
For the sake of greater perspicuity, I have hitherto refrained
from any reference to the treatment and actual condition of the
emancipated population, or to the labor system recently introduced in the Department of the Gulf.  In what I deem it my
duty to say of the former, I refer for the most part to a period
antecedent to the date of the proclamation of Gen. Banks prescribing the latter; that proclamation having been issued but a
few days previous to my arrival at New Orleans.
Col. Hanks speaks of the patience of these peoples  Certainly,
their uncomplaining endurance under the severest privation and
21 
25
suffering, is one of the most remarkable characteristics of their
race everywhere. Their previous life of slavery inured them to
daily, habitual suffering, and up to this hour, their initiation
into Freedom has been attended with little else than danger, ill
usage, deprivation, sickness, and bereavement. The mortality
among them in the Valley of the Mississippi has been frightful.
The most competent judges compute it at not less than 25 per
cent. in the last two years. With few exceptions, they have
everywhere come under the control of incompetent and otherwise unfit officials.  Often here, as elsewhere, they have fallen
a prey to the avaricious and unscrupulous. In many instances,
clothed in rags, without wholesome or sufficient food, lodged at
night without beds or bedding, they have toiled for mnonths, and
in the end have been turned off with little or no compensation.
The great exposures to which they have been subjected, gave
rise to severe and fatal diseases amongst them, in which they
were left, in many cases, without proper care or medical attendance. Great mortality was a natural consequence. Much deprivation and suffering were, under the most favorable circumstances, inevitable to the exigencies in which they were placed
by the war.  But I should fail in my duty if I neglected to declare, that in my judgment, many of the injuries of which they
have been the victims, and a great deal of their suffering, have
resulted from the failure of the national authorities to provide a
proper and uniform system for their care and protection.
In departments where, as here in the Department of the Gulf,
there is good reason$ to believe that the chief military authorities
have had at heart their best interests, occupied as they have been
with the movements of great armies and by the absorbing cares
of the military government devolved upon them, it was inevitable that they should often fall into the hands of incompetent
and unfaithful subalterns; even iunder the system recently put
into operation here, and which in many respects is certainly
better than the lack of system previously existing, they come directly under the control and government of the assistant provost
marshals,* to each of whom is assigned a certain district of the
* "All questions," says the order of Gen. Banks, "between the employer and the
employed, until other tribunals are established, will be decided by the provost
marshals of the parishes."
4 
planting region.  These assistant provost marshals are usually
young stubalterns, army officers, captains or lieutenants. They
are received into the houses of the planters and treated with a
certain consideration. It is hardly to be expected that they
should resist the influences that are brought to bear upon them,
or that often, without being fully conscious of it, they should
not become the employer's instrument of great injustice and ill
treatment towards his colored laborers.
An upright and competent witiiess whose testimony is herewith submitted, says: " I am free to declare that the provost
marshals have not done justice to the laborers on the plantations.
They do not see that Gen. Banks' orders are carried out. On
many plantations whipping is still permitted."  More than one
instance of great neglect, injustice and abuse have come to the
knowledge of the Commission.
The plan of Gen. Banks has been in operation too short a
time to judge fully of its merits. But, as I have just said, it is
believed on the whole and as a teg2p-oracry arrangement, superior
to any hitherto adopted in that department.  As a permanent
system it contains great defects.  In the first place it leaves the
classification of the laborers to be determined between the employers and the assistant provost marshals, which is practically leaving it to the employers themselves.  Then, secondly, without
reference to the capacities or wishies of the employed, or to the
competition of the labor miarket, it determines beforehand the
wages of their labor.
In the third place, it implies that the clothing and subsistence
of the laborer and his family, should be left to the employers'
sense of what is needful for them, with liberty to be sure, for
the employed to commute for clothing at the rate of three dollars a month for first class hands, and in similar proportion for
other classes.
If the only object to be accomnplished was simply "to compel
the negro to labor" in a condition of perpetual subordination
and subjection, this arrangement would be appropriate enough.
But if the object be to make the colored man a self-supporting
and self-defending member of the community, then he must be
placed in a position where he can determine the value of his
26 
27
own labor, and be left to take the responsibilities of his own existence and well being, as well as that of his family.
As a general proposition this is too plain, and in itself too
cogent to require argument. In the actual condition of things
in the Department of the Gulf, it might not be convenient or
even possible to give it full effect at the present moment; but
the temporary adoption of an opposite principle, should not be
allowed to become the basis of a permanent system, which would
differ very little in its practical working from that of slavery
itself.
In regard to classification, clothing, and the rate of wages, the
plan of Mr. Win. P. Alellen, Agent of the Treasury Department
at Natchez, appears to me  a much nearer approach to right
principles and justice, as between employer and employed. In
this plan the classification  is determined beforehand, and the
employed are allowed to clothe themselves.  The rate of wages
is here also fixed by authority, which, as before suggested, is
only to be justified by the necessity of protecting the laborer
under the peculiar circumstances in whilch he is placed by the
war; but here the rate is mnuch nearer to the standard of the
public market.
According to Mr. Mlellen's plan, all sound persons between
the ages of 20 and 40 are No. 1 hands.  Between 15 and 19 and
between 40 and 50 years, No. 2 hands.  Between 12 and 14 and
over 50, No. 3 hands.
The wages for males, No. 1 hands, are $25 per month; No. 2,
$20, and No. 3, $15.  For females the wages are for the several
grades respectively, $18, $14, and $10.
Persons suffering from any physical defect or infirmity constitute a fourth class, and are paid accordingly.  In Mlr. Alellen's
system the employers are obliged to keep on hand a sufficient
supply of proper clothing, and to sell the same to the employed
at wholesale cost price and ten per cent. advance.
The rate of wages of the several grades of laborers, as fixed in
the Department of the Gulf, is eight, six, five, and( three dollars
a month, with clothing, or three dollars per month commutation
for clothing. In this Department also, the laborer having once
selected his employer is compelled to remain with him for a year.
While under any system that may be adopted it is doubtless 
28
of the greatest importance that the colored laborer should be
made to understand the nature and obligations of a contract, and
should be held to the just fiulfillment of such as he may voliun  tarily enter into, this form of enforcing the obligation is
deemed wrong in principle and liable to serious abuses, and
only to be tolerated as a temporary necessity.
Tihe system of Gen. Banks provides also for the education of
the colored children on the plantations, and for the establish ment of free labor savings institutions, both of which meet the
entire approval of the Commission.
I do not deem it necessary here to enter further into the de tails of these several systems. The proclamation and the orders
under which they are established, are undoubtedly of record in
the War and Treasury departments. Nor do I desire to criticise
too closely plans adopted, doubtless with the best intentions, to
meet the urgent necessities which presented themselves in the
confusion and chaos consequent upon the breaking up of the old
systems, in the midst of a great war.  Neither, however, seems
to me sufficiently to recognize the freedmnan's right to intervene
in his own affairs, or to contemplate sufficiently the great end
of educating him to self control, self reliance, and to the exercise
of the rights and duties of civilized life.
This must, of course, be a work of time. But unless a system
be speedily adopted which shall embrace these as its fundamental and primary objects, the practical freedom and future wellbeing of the emancipated population, no less than the great in
dustrial interests dependent upon their voluntary, enlightened,
and justly compensated labor, will be seriously, if not fatally
jeopardied.
But, in the judgment of the Commission, the most serious
error in connection with the present arrangements for the care
and protection of these people arises out of the assignment to a
different agency of the care and disposal of the abandoned
plantations. To enter into the detail of all the evils and abuses
that have arisen out of this error, and which are unavoidable, so
long, as it continues to exist, would occupy too great a space in
this report.  Suffice it to say that it is the source of the greatest
confusion and a perpetual collision between thle different local
authorities, in which not only the emancipated population but 
29
the Government itself, suffers the most serious injuries and
losses.
Gen. Banks, in the letter hereinbefore so often quoted, says:
" The assignment of the abandoned or forfeited plantations to
one department of the Government, and the protection and support of the emancipated people to another, is a fundamental
error productive of incalculable evils, and cannot be too soon or
too thoroughly corrected."
And this is the purport of all the testimony which the Commission has been able to obtain, not in the Department of the
Gulf only, but everywhere, in relation to this matter.
The unhesitating judgment of every person, official or other,
not interested in the opportunities it affords for peculation,
with whom we have consulted, coincides with that of Gen.
Banks. All, without exception, declare that no system can
avail to effect the great objects contemplated, that does not assign to one and the same authority, the care and disposal of the
abandoned plantations, and the care and protection of the einancipated laborers who are to cultivate them.
And, after the most thorough investigations, I am authorized
in saying that this is the deliberate judgment of the Conimis
sion.
If, in the preceding cursory survey of the present state of
things in the valley of the MIississippi, I have succeeded in presenting the two constituent elements of the old slave society in
their true light, it cannot fail to suggest the intrinsic nature of
the antagonisms that stand in the way of the successful inltroduction of the free labor system there, and of the political reconstruction based upon it. Fvery analysis of slave society everywhere brings us to a like conclusion.  The difficulty is not with
the emancipated slave; but with the old master, still enthralled
by his old infatuation.
I am aware that this master class has been hitherto generally
represented as a body of men remarkable for their proficiency in
statesmanship, politics, and deportment. It is hardly necessary
now to controvert this view of them, any further than to say,
that there is another quite as intrinsic and much more imrnportant to be well understood.
Aunt Phillis, the old slave cook of the highly respectable and 
30
thrifty St. Helena cotton planter, Mr. John Pope, in the midst
of tha story of her long experience of the cruelties and sufferings
of plantation life, upon the very ground where she then stood
free at last, stopped, as if some new light had burst upon her
weary and bewildered soul, and looking up said: "Trute is,
Massa, Massa Pope touight God was dead."  That was her account of them, her explanation of the phenomena she had been
witness to in the secret recesses of thlat social order of which they
were the founders and chiefs. And by no means a very irrational one, for certainly, to men who had come to ignore so
utterly, the existence of God's image under the black skin, so
often lacerated by the blows of their many thonged whip of
dried bull's hide, such a thought was not at all unlikely.
However this may be, what is certain is that these masters,
isolating themselves, in their fierce pride, from the great movements of the free, democratic society and civilization of their
country and age, had come to entertain some very strange and
erroneous beliefs, as well with regard to themselves as with regard to the world around them. With their hearts filled with
the indisputable ownership of broad domains and toiling slaves,
is it strange that the fumes of unrestrained and illicit power and
dominion, should have mounted into their heads and perverted,
not their own selfconsciousness only, but their whole sense of
truth and of the quality of actions and of things, even to the extent of believing their monstrous system of organized barbarism,
the supremest and most excellent product of the ages, and its
maintenance t]ie one paramount concern of the world? What
to them was the value of constitution, government, or country,
compared with the interests of their God-ordained slave commonwealth and mastership?
Seldom has the ethieal providence of the world had to deal
with so profound a blindness and degeneration. It is only to be
paralleled by that of an order of men whose regime was extinguished in its own blood at the end of the last century in France.
Apparently that ancient "noblesse" was as besotted with pride
and disdain as even this new order of the slave-whip. They
seem to have entertained as supreme a contempt for the poor,
white-skinned drudges, upon whose spoilated labor they had
lived and prospered and revelled for a thousand years as any 
31
master for his black-skinned chattels.  It is related that one of
them, a certain Count de Charolais, whom Dulaure calls the
finest specimen of a feudal lord of his time, used sometimes to
amuse his leisure by shooting at the tilers on the roofs of the
neighboring houses;  and when one of them  rolled down,
wounded or dead, it was ar occasion (of great merriment to him
and his companions.  Doubtless, that to him was as enjoyable a
feat, as the blows of the coach-trace whip upon the bare back of
a prostrate, pregnant woman to that South Carolina master,
Fararby, whose exploit is mentioned in the main Report of the
Commission.
And yet it would seem that even these people had not got to
quite the depth of Aunt Phillis's master. They did not "believe
that God was dead."  The faith they had come to entertain and
profess was only that, so confidently announced by a lady of the
Court of Louis 15th. Speaking of some de Charolais who had
just been called to his final account, she said, "Depend upon it,
sir, God will think twice before damning a man of that quality."
It took the Reign of Terror and the Guillotine to cure that
ancient noblesse of their delusions.
The culmination of the masters' infatuation in their present
atrocious war would seem to indicate a somewhat similar kind
of Providential surgery, to have been necessary for them.
HIowever this may be, had not their infatuation and blindness
infected and demoralized the mind and heart of the whole people
of the United States and of their public servants, the intrinsic
nature of their mastership, and the utter incompatibility of its
existence, with that of our flee democratic institutions and
civilization, would long ago have been recognized and acted
upon frankly, and without equivocations or reservations.
Every diagnosis of the malady under which the body politic
is writhing and staggering in the p)resent hour, discloses its
nucleus in the old mastership. That in this mastership is the
seat of the disease, containing the pestiferous virus by which the
whole nation has been infected. That this seed of national dishlonor, dissolution, and death, was  brought from Africa, and
landed upon the banks of the James River, Yirginia, in the
autumn of that same year (1620) in which the Pilgrims, with
the germs of our national life civilization, and glory, landed 
32
upon Plymouth Rock. That this fatal virus has spread and increased in virulence for more than two hundred years, until the
glow of the fever had come to be mistaken for the bloom of
health; until the summits of the mountainous social carbuncle
generated by it, had come to be regarded as the heights of
national culture, wealth, and glory. Let us thank God that it
has burst at last, and opened up to the eyes of all men its
loathsome depths, so that the merest tyro in the science of
social and political health and statesmanship, need no longer be
mistaken as to its nature, or as to the treatment proper for its
cure.
Let us indeed thank God, that under the operation of his own
infinitely just and inexorable laws, the white mnan's great enterprise of nearly four hundred years' duration, to rob the negro
race of its labor and enrich himself with it, approaches its final
termination.
A more stupendous scheme of human selfishness and wrong
was never projected or prosecuted on earth. Taking it from its
beginnings, in the slave-hunts in Africa, in which it is said two
human beings, on an average, were destroyed for every one
taken- through the nameless atrocities of the middle passage, in
the course of which it is estimated that more than two millions
of human bodies, dead and alive, were cast into the sea, to its
final consummation on this continent, in a gigantic system of
organized inhumanity and barbarism, it involved the commission
of every crime known to civilized nations
It could not be otherwise; the very nature of the enterprise
made the commission of all crimes a necessary incident, to its
successful prosecution. Viewed then, simply, in the light of its
own legitimate operations, the slave system may well be defined
"the sum of all villainies." Viewed in the light of its own essential idea, of its own intrinsic nature, it involves a still profounder
guilt; for it not only contemplated the overthrow in morals and
legislation, of the distinction fundamental to all human civilization, between person and property, but the extinction in a whole
race of men, of that divine spark which constitutes the manhood,
and gives to that distinction its validity. Thus, in import and
intention it outreached all secular crime, to sap the innermost
foundations of the immortal life. 
33
Only in the terrible glare east upon it by the present war did
the true nature of the mastership, and the order of slavery found ed upon it, begin to reveal itself to the popular understanding.
We may well believe that when the great revolution now transpiring shall have swept out of existence all its interests and pas sions, all the blindness and infatuation engendered by it, it will
be difficult for the future historian to realize or recall that state
of the public conscience in which its enormities were not only
deemed innocent, but here in the United States, were accepted
as an essential, component part of a great System of Democratic
Liberty and Christian civilization.
We still stand in the midst of that revolution. Its great work,
the regeneration of the reason and conscience of the nation
and of its public servants, has yet by no means been fully
acaomplished.  By a great law of the ethical Providence, the
struggle must continue until both are cleansed of the moral and
political pollutions and lies, that slavery has engendered there,
and the people and theirrulers, accept with all their hearts and
in their true and broadest meaning " the self evident truths" of
the great declaration: "that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
For, let us rest assured, that in these truths are contained the
germs, the vital forces of whatever national prosperity, civilization, and history is possible to us as a people.
In all manner of official proclamations and manifestoes, it has
been repeatedly declared that the war on our part was waged
alone for the preservation of the constitution and the reestablishment of the Union. But what would be the value of the letter
of the constitution unless quickened by the spirit of these "selfevident truths." And what would the Union be, without the
inherent principle of cohesion, the living unity founded in these
truths?
Reunion then, and the preservation of the essential life of the
constitution, demand, not only the release of the slave popula.
tion from their bonds and the degradation thereby imposed upon
them; but the deliverance of the master population also, wholly
and forever, from their mastership, and from the fatal delusions
and depravations that are inherent in it. This is the primary
5 
31
necessity of any rational attempt to establish free labor and a
better social order in the Slave States, the very first step towards
any wise, or well-founded reconstruction; for in no other way can
the rebel States ever be rehabilitated with a truly loyal, demnocratic, concurrent citizenship.
And this brings me to speak of the means which, in the judgment of the Commission are deemed necessary to give practical
effect to the acts of Congress and the President's Proclamation
of January, 1863, " to the end that the colored population thereby emancipated may defend and support themselves."  Their
recommendations embrace three principal measures, which with
more or less completeness have been heretofore, in their several
preliminary reports and are herewith, in their final report, submitted to the War Department.
The object of the first of these measures is to secure beyond
any possible peradventure or doubt, the civil right of the colored
man to personal freedom, by placing that right, in the new order
of thing, on the same broad basis as that of the white man.
In the Declaration of Independence,  and in the Bills of
Right, contained in nearly all of the Constitutions of the States,
even in those of the Slave States, this right of Personal Liberty,
with others, considered as personal endowments of the Creator,
attributes of the human nature-are expressly reserved as above
all governmental interference, as too sacred to be meddled with
by human legislatures.  And this doctrine is the keystone of
our whole system of Free Democratic Institutions.   These
rights are as sacred in the person of the colored man as of the
white man; and upon every consideration of justice to him, as
of safety to the commonweal and honor of the nation, ought to
be as securely guarantied, as sacredly guarded.
This is to be effected most surely by an amendment of the
Constitution of the United States.  That measure is already before Congress, and although not exactly in the form recommended by the Commission, yet it is believed sufficient, especially
if accompanied with other legislation in the same spirit and with
a like intent, to accomplish the great object proposed, and every
true lover of his country's permanent peace, prosperity, and honor,
cannot but await with the greatest anxiety its final consummation. 
35
The second is a measlure of scarcely less importance, and considering the exigencies of the approaching crisis and the present
temper and disposition of the master class, even more immedi ately urgent than the first.
Whenever civil authority shall be re-established in the rebel
States, and they shall be re-admitted to the Federal Union, the
greater portion of the civil and political rights of their inhabitants, necessarily fall under the jurisdiction and control of State
authority. In all these States the colored people, even such of
them as have been always free, have been uniformly debarred
the enjoyment of all political and many civil rights. Unless,
therefore, the emancipated population have secured to them their
civil and political rights by national authority, antecedent to
such re-admission, they will stand in imminent danger of being
defrauded of any practical freedom, notwithstanding "the acts of
Congress and the President's Proclamation."
In the language of a witness whose intimate acquaintance with
the spirit of the master-class, gives great weight to his words:
" They had much better be slaves with the present feelings of
the Southern whites against them, than to be left without national
guarantees for the maintenance of their rights as freemen."
It is the producing class-that class whose whole life is devoted to toil-that under every form of civil government is most
in danger of being made the victim of the leisure, capital, and
opportunities of the non-producing class. Under the most favorable circumstances, therefore, it is this class that most needs
and deserves to be fenced about with civil and political guarantees.  But the circumstances and position of the emancipated
population are most unfavorable and critical. Without their
own volition, without previous preparation, and as a measure
of national self-preservation, they have been suddenly precipitated into new and wholly untried relations with an antagonistic,
far more able and adroit class. To leave them in this position,
defenceless and at the mercy of their old masters, would in its
cruelest meaning be to keep with them " the word of promise to
the ear and break it to the hope."
Nay, not only the national honor, but future national peace
and well being demand that the National Goverinent should
secure to these people now, while they are still under the sole 
36
juarisdiction and control of that government, the permanent pos  session of such civil and political rights as will enable them" to
defend and support themselves," against the machinations and
schemes of any class or power to subject them again to any
form of slavery or serfdom.
To this end, I cannot too earnestly urge that Congress be in voked to fix and establish by law antecedent to, and as a condi tion precedent to reconstruction, the civil rights of the emanci pated population; and, at the same time, to provide for the
future enjoyment by all free persons of color of the findamen tal right of citizenship in a free government, the right to the
elective franchise, based upon the acquisition on their part, of
such qualifications only, as are deemed essential in their white
fellow-citizens.
Another matter intimately connected with the foregoing, and
as I believe, profoundly involving the existence and future pros perity of free society in the Southern States, is the disposition to
be made of the confiscated estates, or other forfeited lands in these
States.  No  such thing as free, democratic society can exist in
any country where all the lands are owned by one class of men
and are cultivated by another. Such ownership of the lands of
a country constitutes the basis of the most permanent and op pressive aristocracies. Upon this foundation stood, for a thousand
years, the feudal aristocracy of France.  And, to-day, the aristocracy of England maintain their supremacy upon the basis of
the partition and tenure of the soil of England, robbed by William the Conqueror from the original owners, the people of England, and granted in large estates to his captains.
So incompatible has that tenure become with modern civilization and the well-being of society in that country, that the
wisest statesmen there are beginning to apprehend the most
fearful consequences from its continued existence.
In the sugar and cotton producing portions of the South,
almost all the cultivated soil has been hitherto held in large
tracts by the master-class.
I need not stop to argue the utter incompatibility of such a
state of things with the existence of a free, independent, democratic yeomanry, or with the development of free democratic in
stitutions. The poor whites of the South are a sufficient illus 
tration of its pernicious influence and effect upon a whole com munity, of the same race with the landholders.
If not for the sake of the emancipated colored people, then for
the sake of these poor whites, these most pitiable men of our own
race, this whole scheme and tenure of the mastership should be
overthrown.  The great necessity, as I have  before intimated
from another point of view, which at the present hour lies upon
the people and Government of the United States, is not so much
a political as a social reconstruction of the Southern States. Any
well founded plan for the former, to be effectual and permanent,
must include the latter; and for the latter, the initiation of a
policy on the part of the National Government, which  shall
have for its aim the ultimate division of the great plantations,
into moderate sized farms, to be held and cultivated by the labor
of their owners, is of the utmost importance.
I am aware that an opinion has been hitherto generally en tertained that sugar and cotton cultivation, could only be profi tably carried on upon large estates, and by the employment of
large gangs of laborers, principally because a large capital is ne cessary to the erection of the sugar mills, cotton gins, and other
machinery connected with the production of these commodities.
All the investigations of the Commission go to show, that this
opinion is but a part of the system of slavery, and has no foundation in the necessities of the case. There is, in reality, no
more reason why the sugar cane should be raised and converted
into sugar by the planter alone, than there is that wheat should
be converted into flour, only by the farmer who raises it.  And
so with the raising, ginning, and baling of cotton.  On the contrary, a proper division of labor in the raising and manufacture
of sugar and cotton, would almost inevitably lead to a great development in their production; while, at the same time, it
would tend not only to mitigate the labor, but to secure the industrial prosperity and independence of all those employed in
that production, and thus constitute an entirely different order
of social relation and condition in these States. I consider this
a matter next in importance to the permanent security of the
civil and political rights of the emancipated population, and beg
leave to recommend it to the earnest attention of the national
authorities
37 
38
And, finally, permit me once more to call the attention of
Government to the third of the measures proposed by the Commission  the establishnment of some uniform system of supervision and guardianship for the emancipated population in the
interim of their transition from slavery to fireedom. No one
acquainted with the facts could hesitate a moment as to the
necessity and propriety of such a system; not only for the sake
of the emancipated, but for the general interest of the Government and country.
In the letter so frequently hereinbefore mentioned, General
Banks most forcibly says: "It is ]indoubtedly true, as you say,
that for some time to come, and until the new order of things
shall be better understood by the employer and the employed,
and the free-labor system be more completely established, there
will be a necessity for some kind of Government supervision and
protectorate for the benefit of both parties."
"But this is not specially incident to the new system of negro
labor. It is only:by Governmental supervision and assistance that
the labor of any race has been fostered and established. It is of
course as necessary for the blacks as for the whites, and if you
look at the stipulations which the blacks in this department have
themselves suggested, as the condition of their service, you will
find that their ideas embody in substance and in character, the
spirit of all statute legislation for the protection of white labor."
"It is no more incident to the condition of the blacks than of
any other class of people, except that they enter the arena of
civilization at a later period and the difficulties of their position
are presented at a glance and a remedy instantly demanded."
All of which is respectfully submitted.
J. IIcKAYE,
Special Cominssioner.
I"
}
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