Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/112



Early in 1867, two years after the war, Thaddeus Stevens passed through Congress his famous bill destroying the governments of the Southern states, and dividing them into military districts, enfranchising the whole negro race, and disfranchising one-fourth of the whites. The army was sent back to the South to enforce these decrees at the point of the bayonet. The authority of the Supreme Court was destroyed by a supplementary act and the South denied the right of appeal. Mr. Stevens then introduced his bill to confiscate the property of the white people of the South. The negroes laid down their hoes and plows and began to gather in excited meetings. Crimes of violence increased daily. Not a night passed but that a burning barn or home wrote its message of anarchy on the black sky.

The negroes refused to sign any contracts to work, to pay rents, or vacate their houses on notice even from the Freedman's Bureau.

The negroes on General Worth's plantation, not only refused to work, or move, but organised to prevent any white man from putting his foot on the land.

General Worth procured a special order from the headquarters of the Freedman's Bureau for the district located at Independence. When the officer appeared and attempted to serve this notice, the negroes mobbed him.

A company of troops were ordered to Hambright, and the notice served again by the Bureau official accompanied by the Captain of this company.

The negroes asked for time to hold a meeting and discuss the question. They held their meeting and gathered fully five hundred men from the neighbourhood, all armed with revolvers or muskets. They asked Legree and Tim Shelby to tell them what they should do. There was no