Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [317]
Ole mass’r had ’greed to give we one tird de craps, an’ we dun got ’em all up,—got de corn shucked, an’ de tatees digged, and de rice trashed; an’ ole mass’r he dun gone sold all de craps, an’ he bringed we all up yere yes’erday, an’ gif we seven dollar fur de man an’ he wife to buy de cloth wid to make we clofes, an’ he say may be he gif we some shoes; an’ he dun gif we’n none o’ de craps, none o’ de rice, none o’ de corn, none o’ de tatees.
The same incomprehension gripped the laborers on the Butler plantation in Georgia, each one convinced he had been cheated, invariably greeting his payment with some variation of the remark: “Well, well, work for massa two whole years, and only get dis much.”80
Puzzled, bitter, angry over the settlement, the freedmen might insist that their employer had erred in his calculations. If he deigned to respond to such charges, he would hold up the ledger and explain to his laborers how the advances of food, clothing, seed, tools, and fuel, in addition to other deductions, had consumed the greater part of their wages or shares. He would remind them of the items they had purchased and the number of days they had lost because of illness. He might even scold them for their thriftlessness and indulgences. “Now, auntie, you have a right to spend your earnings any way you please; you’re free. It’s none of my business what you do with your money. But if you would let me give you a little advice, I’d tell you all not to waste your money on fish, and candy, and rings, and breastpins, and fine hats. If you will have them, we’ll sell them to you, but you had better not buy so freely.” Denying any intent to deceive his laborers, the employer would contend in this instance and others that he had simply enforced the contract, which stipulated the amount of compensation and enumerated the deductions.81
Unfortunately, the contract said nothing about the cost of the provisions the employer agreed to furnish his laborers. Although the culprit may have been the supply merchant rather than the planter, the fact remained that provisions were sold at highly inflated prices and the laborer had no recourse but to trade where he could obtain credit. “I have neighbors,” a Mississippi planter conceded, “who keep stores of plain goods and fancy articles for their people; and, let a nigger work ever so hard, and earn ever so high wages, he is sure to come out in debt at the end of the year.” Even if the laborer could understand the deductions for actual purchases, he found far less comprehensible if not fraudulent the fines for negligence, the number of days or hours allegedly absent from work, and even in some cases charges for items like bagging and ropes; in Mississippi, planters reportedly gave “presents” to certain laborers during the season to accelerate the pace of work and then charged the cost of these gifts to their accounts. After the various deductions and charges had been assessed, the most brutal truth that greeted the laborer on the long-awaited “countin’ day” was that he stood in debt to the planter! That revelation created such a reaction on a Virginia plantation that the employer, fearing trouble, agreed to pay a token amount ($2 to $5) to each worker.82
No matter how carefully his employer explained the situation, the laborer still found it difficult to understand why his months of hard work should have left him with so little or actually in debt. After what seemed like endless disputations over each settlement, Frances Butler thought it useless to argue any further; henceforth, she would pay her father’s laborers and refuse to discuss the matter. Besides, she had concluded that the freedmen indulged in these discussions not because they thought they had been cheated but only “with an idea of asserting their independence and dignity.” If an aggrieved laborer appealed his case to the Freedmen’s Bureau, and many did, he might obtain a measure of relief—but