INDUSTRIAL REORGANIZATION IN ALABAMA 497
plow or knocking the dirt and pebbles from his shoes. The negro women refused to work in the fields, and yet did nothing to better the home life; the style of living was "from hand to mouth." Extra money went for whisky, snuff, tobacco, and finery, while the standard of living was not raised. 50 The laborer would always stop work to go to a circus, election, political meeting, revival, or camp-meeting. A great desolation seemed to have passed over the Black Belt country. 61
In the interior of the state the negroes worked better during and after Reconstruction than where they were exposed to the ministrations of the various kinds of carpet-baggers. 52 In the Tennessee valley, where the negroes had taken a prominent part in politics, and had not only seen much of the war, but had also in considerable numbers enlisted in the Federal army, cotton- raising almost ceased for several years. The only crops made were made by whites. 53 In Sumter County, where the black population was dense, it was in 1870 almost impossible to secure labor, and those who wished to work went to the railways. 54 A description of a "model negro farm" in 1874 was as follows: The farmer purchased an old mule on credit and rented land on shares, or for so many bales of cotton ; any old tools were used ; corn, bacon, and other supplies were bought on credit and a lien given on crop; a month late, corn and cotton were planted on soil not well broken up; the negro would not pay for " no guano" to put on other people's land ; by turns the farmer planted, fished, plowed, hunted, hoed, and frolicked, or went to " meeting." At the end of the year he sold his cotton, paid part of his rent and some of his debt, returned the mule to his owner, and sang:
Nigger work hard all de year ; White man tote de money. 55
If the negro made anything, his fellows were likely to steal it. Somers said : " There can be no doubt that the negroes first steal
Washington in Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 324-26 ; oral accounts and personal observation.
1 Somers, op. cit., p. 166. * Southern Magazine, January, 1874.
M Somers, op. cit., p. 117. * Ibid., p. 159.
"Southern Magazine, March, 1874.
