Page:Extracts from letters of teachers and superintendents of the New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen.djvu/18

 A paymaster told me that, under the order of General Saxton, permitting them to apply for lands hereafter to be sold, the sum of $4,000 has already been deposited by freedmen. One man is now owner of the plantation of his former master, which he purchased with money loaned him, and which he has now paid for by the earnings of this year's crop. What interested me most in what I saw, was the conviction, that here is being worked out the problem of whether tbe black race is fitted for freedom. In many respects the circumstances in this locality are such as to make the experiment peculiarly satisfactory. 1st, The colored people on these Islands are admitted to be inferior to those in most portions of the South, partly because kept more degraded, and partly because close intermarrying has caused them to deteriorate. 2dly, After being left by their masters, they lived for a time under no kind of restraint. And 3dly, By a well meant generosity, when first visited by our sympathy they were encouraged to believe that they could live under freedom without the necessity of labor. Yet, under all these disadvantages, the experiment has been a triumphant success—apparent, beyond question, to any one who can observe. To be sure, it can probably never happen that on any general scale, those who shall give to the newly freed people their first instructions in freedom, shall be men and women of such high character and ability as those who have undertaken it here. I was amazed when I saw among the teachers and superintendents so many persons of the very highest culture, and fitted for the very highest positions. I confess I felt sometimes as though it was lavishing too much upon this work; but then I considered (what is now the great feeling with which I regard the whole thing) that this is a grand experiment which is settling for the whole nation this great problem. And when I saw how completely it has settled it, I felt that it was worthy of all that had been given. I believe that the importance of the movement is yet to be realized when the operations on this field shall become the great example for every part of the land.

Dr. LeBaron Russell, Boston.

The following letter to the Treasurer of the Committee for Aid to the Freedmen of the West, is from Mr. Edward S. Philbrick, one of the first company sent to Port Royal by the Commission, in March, 1862. After a term of active and most efficient service as Superintendent of Plantations under Gen. Saxton, Mr. Philbrick became the purchaser, at the Government sale for taxes, of thirteen plantations, which he has since conducted, with the result given below. Mr. Philbrick has treated the blacks with great humanity, giving them liberal wages, and paying for the support of teachers out of his own funds. 28, 1863., Treasurer: ,—Enclosed please find my draft for one hundred dollars, for the relief of the families of Freedmen, in response to your circular. Please state to your committee and to any other gentlemen interested in the question of free labor, that I have disbursed the sum of $20,000 during the past nine months among the freedmen here, in the shape of wages, well earned, besides which they have now on hand ample provision to feed their families for twelve months to come, the fruit of their own toil.

I employ about 500 laborers—women and children, mostly, having a population of 920 on my lands. They have raised for me 73,000 pounds of clean Sea Island cotton this year, worth 50d. sterling in Liverpool, besides their own provision crops, above referred to. This has been done in hearing of Gen. Gilmore's big guns on Morris Island, surrounded by camps, with no civil law, and without the help of the able-bodied men, who were all pressed into the military service, leaving the plantations with none but old men, women and children. I have no paupers, all the old and infirm being fed and clothed by their friends and children. I mention these things to show how easy it is to render the negroes a self-supporting and wealth-producing class with proper management; and I, at the same time, fully appreciate the duty imposed upon us as a nation, to extend the area of charity where the unsettled state of the country renders industry impossible until time is given to re-organize and force to protect it. We are more fortunately situated than the people of the Mississippi valley, and have got the start of them.