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Updated: May 16, 2025
Seal lamented the high prices of this work; but then, as he said, 'It was much better to have Irish do it, who cost nothing to the planter if they died, than to use up good field-hands in such severe employment," Russell added on his own score: "There is a wonderful mine of truth in this observation.
But for a few thousand poor ignorant field-hands, in the face of poverty, a falling market, and social stress, to save and capitalize two hundred thousand dollars in a generation has meant a tremendous effort.
So the Negro forms to-day one of the chief figures in a great world-industry; and this, for its own sake, and in the light of historic interest, makes the field-hands of the cotton country worth studying. We seldom study the condition of the Negro to-day honestly and carefully. It is so much easier to assume that we know it all.
Usually when a debtor thus eclipses himself the official expects to learn he is a defaulter and has "taken French leave," as was said on the border. But the ex-postmaster immediately came over, and, producing an old blue woolen sock, such as field-hands wore, poured out coin, copper and silver, to the exact amount of the debit.
"Well, sir, I dunno. The field-hands are buzzing like bees, en I kyant get nothin' out of 'em." "Well, Perkins, be watchful. Do your best. God only knows what's coming. You are well armed, I suppose?" "You may reckon that, sir, en I'll use 'em too, ef need be. The hands are cute, mighty cute. I kyant lay my finger on any one in particular, but they're all a sort of bilin' up with 'citement."
Farther: "Forty able-bodied field-hands, of different ages. Several first-rate domestic servants, coachman, cooks, chamber-maids, wagon-drivers. A number of likely mulatto boys and girls, from ten to twenty," etcetera, etcetera. The list followed in extenso. I read "Lot 1. Scipio, 48. Able-bodied black, 5 foot 11 inches, understands house-work, and the management of horses.
According to the census of 1870 there were in the United States, out of a total population of 38,500,000, less than 400,000 females occupied in the labor of agriculture, either as field-hands or indoor workers. Of this number, 373,332 were hired laborers, and 22,681 the cultivators of their own lands.
Some owned from ten to twenty thousand, mostly field-hands. Many householders possessed as many as five hundred. Horace gives it as a sign of the simplicity of his life as a bachelor, that he is waited on at table by only three slaves. Slave-holding among the Romans brought in temptations to all sorts of brutality and vice. It brought a poisonous atmosphere into every household.
"Why," said Mrs. Bradley, "I 'lowed you'd go off an' eat with some o' yore young friends. But we are glad you come." "I never go back on home folks," he said, making an effort to speak lightly. "Well, I fetched enough fer a dozen field-hands," laughed Mrs. Bradley. "Two young preachers have promised to eat with me; that's all I've axed.
They were examined in part by the Hon. Mr. Ashley, M.C. from Ohio, then a visitor at the fort. On May 27th, forty-seven negroes of both sexes and all ages, from three months to eighty-five years, among whom were half a dozen entire families, came in one squad. Another lot of a dozen good field-hands arrived the same day; and then they continued to come by twenties, thirties, and forties.
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