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By Root 1403 0

promise to pay his laborers “what was right” left him free to pay them nothing or very little; indeed, he might even persuade himself that to pay his workers any more could only demoralize them and encourage indulgences not befitting inferiors. The Mississippi planter who deprived his ex-slaves of the crop shares he had promised still thought of himself as an honest man; he simply presumed, a neighbor said of him, that northern capitalists always treated free laborers in this way.77

If the planter pleaded financial poverty and indebtedness, he might place the blame on falling cotton prices, a bad crop, or the slovenly work habits of his laborers. Not uncommonly, an employer would charge that the work of his blacks had not even paid for the food he gave them. The problem with confessing an inability to pay, even when justified, was that few of his laborers chose to believe him. And if they did believe him, why should they work for him another year on the vague assurance that conditions would improve? That made no sense at all. The “impoverished” planter might discover soon enough that he had become an undesirable risk among all the freedmen in the vicinity, even more so if they suspected him of deceit or fraud. The much-heralded contract, moreover, seemed less than sacrosanct when it denied them the very fruits of their labor. Such initial experiences, a black man wrote from Helena, Arkansas, in early 1866, would not be soon forgotten. “They may cheat the poor negro out of a year’s work, but in spite of them he has gained a year’s experience, and had the advantage of being thoroughly acquainted with that system of morals, that teaches the negro to observe and fulfill the moral obligations of a contract, but has no meaning or significance when applied to the white man.”78

Although most employers agreed to compensate their laborers on the basis of the contract, the annual settlement of accounts, in itself an unprecedented event, produced new disappointments, angry confrontations, and near rebellion on some places. Even as the freedmen eagerly looked forward to this day, the employer found it unnerving if not downright humiliating. “Staid on New Hope Plantation all day preparing to settle with the Negroes,” a Louisiana planter confided to his diary. “I had almost as lief be shot as to do it, but it must be done.” Equally depressed, Wilmer Shields, who had managed several plantations through a turbulent wartime experience, anticipated nothing but trouble as the dreaded payday approached. “I do not expect to satisfy any of them,” he informed the owner, “for each one seems to think his share will be a fortune.” Whatever the planter’s financial position, he came to look upon this day as an unavoidable ordeal. Unaccustomed to dealing with blacks over such matters, his demeanor was all too likely to crack under the torrent of complaints and challenges—what a South Carolina planter described as “the most gross abuse.”79

But to the ex-slave, “countin’ day” set off his new status from the old, and his expectations were high—almost always too high. Outside the main house the freedmen would assemble and face the table where the planter or his agent sat, holding in his hands the payroll and store book. As each laborer heard his name called, he would step forward to be informed of the number of days he had worked, the debts he had accumulated, the fines assessed against him, and the precise amount he had earned after deductions. That was when the trouble began. If he barely comprehended the often complicated balancing of debts and earnings, he understood the final sum soon enough, his face suddenly assuming an expression of utter dismay and incredulity. “Ain’t got nary a hundud dollars! Ain’t got nary a hundud dollars! Done wucked all de year an’ ain’t got nary a hundud dollars!” a Florida freedwoman kept shouting, waving the dollar bills wildly above her head. On a Louisiana plantation, one of the laborers thought there had to be a mistake: “I done wuck mighty hard fo’ you, chop briars and roll logs, and you haint paid me nuffin at all.