. . .dvance them anything at the beginning of the season, for fear of their running away and leaving him without hands in time of harvest; that they were so lazy that all they cared for was to get bread and meat for the least possible amount of work; that, although all his hands were deacons or preachers or ‘exalters,’ they stole so that he could not raise any pigs or chickens; that the members of the church were more licentious than the ‘world’s people’; that they got angry and burned his gin-house every year, etc., etc. He was the first man that I had met, during a residence of nine years at the South, who would admit that he was sorry the slaves had been made free.

“On my way down the river, at about the same point, I had a conversation upon the same subject with a man residing on the other bank. He was a tall gentleman of fine form, with an intellectual, genial, open face. In reply to my inquiries, he said the freedmen were doi. . . Read More