'You are not bound to remain with me any longer, and I have a proposition to make to you.If any of you desire to leave, I propose to furnish you with a conveyance to move you, and with provisions for the balance of the year.' The universal answer was, 'Master, we want to stay right here with you.' In many instances the slaves were so infatuated with the idea of being, as they said, 'free as birds' that they left their homes and consequently suffered; but our slaves were not so foolish."** "Black and White under the Old Regime", p.158, The Negroes, however, had learned of their freedom before their old masters returned from the war; they were aware that the issues of the war involved in some way the question of their freedom or servitude, and through the "grapevine telegraph," the news brought by the invading soldiers, and the talk among the whites, they had long been kept fairly well informed.What the idea of freedom meant to the Negroes it is difficult to say.Some thought that there would be no more work and that all would be cared for by the Government;others believed that education and opportunity were about to make them the equal of their masters.The majority of them were too bewildered to appreciate anything except the fact that they were free from enforced labor.
Conditions were most disturbed in the so-called "Black Belt," consisting of about two hundred counties in the most fertile parts of the South, where the plantation system was best developed and where by far the majority of the Negroes were segregated.The Negroes in the four hundred more remote and less fertile "white" counties, which had been less disturbed by armies, were not so upset by freedom as those of the Black Belt, for the garrisons and the larger towns, both centers of demoralization, were in or near the Black Belt.But there was a moving to and fro on the part of those who had escaped from the South or had been captured during the war or carried into the interior of the South to prevent capture.To those who left slavery and home to find freedom were added those who had found freedom and were now trying to get back home or to get away from the Negro camps and colonies which were breaking up.A stream of immigration which began to flow to the southwest affected Negroes as far as the Atlantic coast.In the confusion of moving, families were broken up, and children, wife, or husband were often lost to one another.The very old people and the young children were often left behind for the former master to care for.Regiments of Negro soldiers were mustered out in every large town and their numbers were added to the disorderly mass.Some of the Federal garrisons and Bureau stations were almost overwhelmed by the numbers of blacks who settled down upon them waiting for freedom to bestow its full measure of blessing, and many of the Negroes continued to remain in a demoralized condition until the new year.
The first year of freedom was indeed a year of disease, suffering, and death.
Several partial censuses indicate that in 1865-66 the Negro population lost as many by disease as the whites had lost in war.Ill-fed, crowded in cabins near the garrisons or entirely without shelter, and unaccustomed to caring for their own health, the blacks who were searching for freedom fell an easy prey to ordinary diseases and to epidemics.Poor health conditions prevailed for several years longer.In 1870, Robert Somers remarked that "the health of the whites has greatly improved since the war, while the health of the Negroes has declined till the mortality of the colored population, greater than the mortality of the whites was before the war, has now become so markedly greater, that nearly two colored die for every white person out of equal numbers of each."Morals and manners also suffered under the new dispensation.In the crowded and disease-stricken towns and camps, the conditions under which the roving Negroes lived were no better for morals than for health, for here there were none of the restraints to which the blacks had been accustomed and which they now despised as being a part of their servitude.But in spite of all the relief that could be given there was much want.In fact, to restore former conditions the relief agencies frequently cut off supplies in order to force the Negroes back to work and to prevent others from leaving the country for the towns.But the hungry freedmen turned to the nearest food supply, and "spilin de gypshuns" (despoiling the Egyptians, as the Negroes called stealing from the whites) became an approved means of support.Thefts of hogs, cattle, poultry, field crops, and vegetables drove almost to desperation those whites who lived in the vicinity of the Negro camps.When the ex-slave felt obliged to go to town, he was likely to take with him a team and wagon and his master's clothes if he could get them.
The former good manners of the Negro were now replaced by impudence and distrust.There were advisers among the Negro troops and other agitators who assured them that politeness to whites was a mark of servitude.Pushing and crowding in public places, on street cars and on the sidewalks, and impudent speeches everywhere marked generally the limit of rudeness.And the Negroes were, in this respect, perhaps no worse than those European immigrants who act upon the principle that bad manners are a proof of independence.
