Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/35

Rh accounts were kept by the officers under whom the work was done, which was practically encouraged by the vacillating policy of the government toward the negroes at that time, is probably the reason for their non-payment. Fearing that it never will be paid, I have exhorted the freedmen to consider this loss as one of their sacrifices for freedom; as something that they should willingly bear for the country's good; and which is in part made up to them by the fostering care of the government over their families, and more than compensated by their assured freedom in all time to come. Roanoke Island is the key of six charming estuaries, whose ready navigation by small vessels and light draft steamboats, must needs make them hereafter the seat of a profitable commerce, in cotton, corn, turpentine, rosin, tar, timber, fish, oysters, wood, reeds, cranberries, and grapes. The Roanoke fisheries alone would yield fortunes every year if pursued in a business-like manner. The scuppernong grape, which is a native of North Carolina, if planted in vineyards and cultivated scientifically, might be made to produce, on Roanoke alone, an income of $100,000 annually. It grows here spontaneously, and without enrichment of the soil, and yields, perhaps, the most delicious white wine that ever tempted the palate. I have corresponded with parties at the North, who are ready to commence its culture here as soon as the way is open. Some persons have predicted that the government would fail to confirm to the Freedmen the rights and privileges they enjoy in these homesteads on Roanoke Island. I cannot believe it. These people are wards of the government. It is an element of our glory as a nation, that we can crush out a slave-holding rebellion with one hand, and sustain a liberated people with the other. The person, be he white or black, who has taken an acre of piney woods, worth two dollars in the market, and increased its value thirty or forty fold by his own labor in a single year, certainly deserves well of his country, and should be permitted to enjoy, while he lives, the fruits of his industry. When a "Bureau of Freedmen's Affairs" is created by Congress, it may well look to this matter. Sir Walter Raleigh's El Dorado, where gay cavaliers hoped to discover mines of gold, but only found starvation and an