meat, corn meal, sugar,
coffee, molasses, vinegar, tobacco, and coarse clothing for himself
and family. An account was kept by "a young white man," and at the end
of the season "a reckoning" was had. Unable to read or cipher, the
poor, credulous, unsuspecting Negroes always found themselves in debt
from $50 to $200! This necessitated another year's engagement; and so
on for an indefinite period. There was nothing to encourage the
Negroes; nothing to inspire them with hope for the future; nothing for
their families but a languid, dead-eyed expectation that somehow a
change _might_ come. But the crime went on unrebuked by the men who
were growing rich from this system of petty robbery of the poor. For
the cheapest qualities of brown sugar, for which the laboring classes
of the North pay 8 cents, the Negroes on the plantations were charged
11 and 13 cents a pound. Corn meal purchased at the North for 4 cents
a quart, brought 9 and 10 cents at the plantation store. And thus for
every article the Negroes purchased they were charged the most
exorbitant prices.

There were two results which flowed from this system, viz.: robbing
the families of these Negroes of the barest comforts of life, and
destroying the confidence of the Negro in the blessings and benefits
of freedom. No man--no race of men--could endure such blighting
influences for any length of time.

Moreover the experiences of the Negroes in voting had not been
extensive, and a sudden curtailing and abridgment of their rights was
a shock to their confidence in the government under which they lived,
and in the people by which they were surrounded. It was thought
expedient to intimidate or destroy the more intelligent and determined
Negroes; while the farm laborers were directed to refrain from voting
the Republican ticket, or commanded to vote the Democratic ticket, or
starve. There never was a more cruel system of slavery than this.

Writing under date of January 10, 1875, General P. H. Sheridan, then
in command at New Orleans, says:

"Since the year 1866 nearly thirty-five hundred persons, a great
majority of whom were colored men, have been killed and wounded
in this State. In 1868 the official record shows that eighteen
hundred and eighty-four were killed and wounded. From 1868 to the
present time no official investigation had been made, and the
civil authorities in all but a few cases have been unable to
arrest, convict, or