nd forty-five dollars. In other cases the negroes had authorized the
superintendent to bid for them, but the land was reserved by the United
States. One of the purchases was that made by Harry, noted above. The
other five were made by the negroes on the plantations combining the
funds they had saved from the sale of their pigs, chickens, and eggs,
and from the payments made to them for work,--they then dividing off the
tract peaceably among themselves. On one of these, where Kit, before
mentioned, is the leading spirit, there are twenty-three field-hands,
who are equivalent to eighteen full hands. They have planted and are
cultivating sixty-three acres of cotton, fifty of corn, six of potatoes,
with as many more to be planted, four and a half of cow-peas, three of
pea-nuts, and one and a half of rice. These facts are most significant.
The instinct for land--to have one spot on earth where a man may stand,
and whence no human being can of right drive him--is one of the most
conservative elements of our nature; and a people who have it in any
fair degree will never be nomads or vagabonds.

This developing manhood is further seen in their growing consciousness
of rights, and their readiness to defend themselves, even when assailed
by white men. The former slaves of a planter, now at Beaufort, who was a
resident of New York when the war broke out, have generally left the
plantation, suspicious of his presence, saying that they will not be his
bondmen, and fearing that in some way he may hold them, if they remain
on it. A remarkable case of the assertion of rights occurred one day
during my visit. Two white soldiers, with a corporal, went on Sunday to
Coosaw Island, where one of the soldiers, having a gun, shot a chicken
belonging to a negro. The negroes rushed out and wrested the gun from
the corporal, to whom the soldier had handed it, thinking that the
negroes would not take it from an officer. They then carried it to the
superintendent, who took it to head-quarters, where an order was given
for the arrest of the trespasser. Other instances might be added, but
these are sufficient.

Another evidence of developing manhood appears in their desire for the
comforts and conveniences of household life. The Philadelphia society,
for the purpose of maintaining reasonable prices, has a store on St.
Helena Island, which is under the charge of Friend Hunn, of the good
fellowship of William Penn. He was once fined in Delaware three t