Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/498

 482 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

that the negroes had more confidence in a " blue coat " than in a native, and that among the larger planters northern men, as partners or overseers, were in great demand. 17

For a short time after the close of the war northern men in considerable numbers planned to go into the business of cotton- raising. DeBow 18 gives a description of the would-be cotton- planters who came from the North to show the southern people how to raise cotton with free negro labor. They had notebooks and guidebooks full of close and exact tables of costs and profits, and from them figured out vast returns. They acknowledged that the negro might not work for the southern man, but they were sure that he would work for them. They were self-confident, and would listen to no advice from experienced planters, whom they laughed at as old fogies, but from their notebooks and tables they gave one another much information about the new machinery use- ful in cotton culture, about rules for cultivation, how to control labor, etc. They estimated that each laborer's family would make $1,000 clear gain each year. DeBow would not say that they were wrong, but he said he thought they should hasten a little more slowly. Northern energy and capital flowed in; planta- tions were bought and the various industries of plantation life started ; and mills and factories were established. Because of the paralyzed condition of industry, the southern people welcomed these signs of prosperity, but they were very skeptical of their final success. The northern settler had confidence in the negro, and gave him unlimited credit or supplies ; consequently, in a few years, he was financially ruined and had to turn his attention to politics and to exploiting the negro in that field in order to make a living. 19 Both as employer and as manager the northern man failed to control negro labor. He expected the negro to be the equal of the Yankee white. The negroes themselves were dis-

"Swayne to A. F. Perry, New York Herald, August 28, 1865; New York Herald, July 17, 1865 ; Reid, After the War, pp. 211-19; DeBow's Review, Febru- ary, 1866, pp. 213, 220: Somers, Southern States, p. 131.

M DeBow's Review, February, 1866.

"Many of the carpet-bag statesmen were northern men who had failed. -at cotton-planting or as overseers.