Page:A defence of the negro race in America from the assaults and charges of Rev. J. L. Tucker.djvu/24

 thrift of the black race as a consequent on the gift of freedom:

Years. Bales.

1857 2,939,519

1858 3,113,962

1859 3,851,481

1860 4,669,770

1861 3,656,006

Total 18,230,738

Years. Bales.

1878 4,811,265

1879 5,073,531

1880 5,757,397

1881 6,589,329

1882 5,435,845

The five years' work of freedom 27,667,367

The five years' work of slavery 18,230,738

Balance in favor of freedom 9,436,639

Now this item of production is a positive disproof of Dr. Tucker's statement, "that the average level in material prosperity is but little higher than it was before the war." Here is the fact that the Freedman has produced one-third more in five years than he did in the same time when a slave!

Another view of this matter is still more striking. The excess of yield in cotton in seven years [i. e., from 1875 to 1882] over the seven years [i. e., from 1854 to 1861] is 17,091,000 bales, being. If Dr. Tucker will glance at the great increase of the cotton, tobacco, and sugar crops South, as shown in Agricultural Reports from 1865 to 1882, and reflect that negroes have been the producers of these crops, he will understand their indignation at his outrageous charges of "laziness and vagabondage;" and perhaps he will listen to their demand that he shall take back the unjust and injurious imputations which, without knowledge and discrimination, he makes against a whole race of people.

This impulse to thrift on the part of the Freedmen was no tardy and reluctant disposition. It was the immediate offspring of freedom, and the result was—