as formulated except by the Freedmen's
Bureau. That, however, was not a success. There were all sorts of
makeshifts, such as cash wages, deferred wages, cooperation, even
sharing of expense and product, and contracts, either oral or written.

The employers showed a disposition to treat the Negro family as a unit
in making contracts for labor, wages, food, clothes, and care.* In
general these early arrangements were made to transform slavery with its
mutual duties and obligations into a free labor system with wages and
"privileges." The "privileges" of slavery could not be destroyed; in
fact, they have never yet been destroyed in numerous places. Curious
demands were made by the Negroes: here, farm bells must not ring; there,
overseers or managers must be done away with; in some places plantation
courts were to settle matters of work, rent, and conduct; elsewhere,
agreements were made that on Saturday the laborer should be permitted to
go to town and, perhaps, ride a mule or horse. In South Carolina the
Sea Island Negroes demanded that in laying out work the old "tasks"
or "stints" of slavery days be retained as the standard. The farming
districts at the edge of the Black Belt, where the races were about
equal in numbers, already had a kind of "share system," and in these
sections the economic chaos after the war was not so complete. The
former owners worked in the field with their ex-slaves and thus provided
steady employment for many. Farms were rented for a fixed sum of money,
or for a part of the crop, or on "shares."

* J. D. B. De Bow, the economist, testified before the Joint
Committee on Reconstruction that, if the Negro would work,
free labor would be better for the planters than slave
labor. He called attention to the fact, however, that Negro
women showed a desire to avoid field labor, and there is
also evidence to show that they objected to domestic service
and other menial work.

The white districts, which had previously fought a losing competition
with the efficiently managed and inexpensive slave labor of the Black
Belt, were affected most disastrously by war and its aftermath. They
were distant from transportation lines and markets; they employed poor
farming methods; they had no fertilizers; they raised no staple crops
on their infertile land; and in addition they now had to face the
destitution that follows fighting. Yet these regions had formerly been
almost self