Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/11

Rh being a short board, four or five feet long, split out by hand. The negro is always jolly, and when driven out of one home, he will "tote" his small inventory of household stuff upon his head, until he finds a place in which to establish another. He goes forth like Abraham, journeying for "de promus land." The soldier under orders does not strike his tent with more alacrity, or sing with more unconcern, when he knows not where he shall next lay his head. Large numbers of white refugees, also, left their homes at the same time with the negroes. Many of them belonged to families of North Carolina soldiers in the Union army. Dr. J.W. Page, of the Sanitary Commission, was appointed their Superintendent, and admirably has he discharged the duties of his trust. It was mainly through his care that these poor people were kept from actual starvation, so helpless were they, so totally unable to rally from the depression of spirits consequent upon their sudden change of life and their great deprivations. They have been dependent upon charity from that day to this. They did not build ther own houses, but were placed in soldiers' barracks. It is the testimony of Dr. Page, with whom I have had frequent conferences on topics connected with our kindred work, and who has himself resided years at the South, that the "piney woods" people, the "clay eaters," or whatever name be given to the poor whites of the South, are a more helpless and spiritless race than the negroes of the same section, and indeed, naturally inferior to them. They have more pride, but less activity; they make more pretension, but possess fewer mental resources. Being unused to labor, they know nothing of its processes, and are therefore incapable of self-support. From twelve to fourteen hundred of them have been fed by government, in Beaufort and vicinity, while only three or four hundred negroes have received aid in the same sub-district, the whole number of each being nearly equal. In New Berne, where there are more than eight thousand colored refugees, but little more than three thousand eat government bread. But the whole body of white refugees are the nation's guests. This does not prove that "the negro is better than the white man," but rather that labor is honorable, and tends to independence.