-supporting, although the farms were small and no elaborate
labor system had been developed. In the planting districts where the
owner was land-poor, he made an attempt to bring in Northern capital
and Northern or foreign labor. In the belief that the Negroes would
work better for a Northern man, every planter who could do so secured
a Northern partner or manager, frequently a soldier. Nevertheless these
imported managers nearly always failed because they did not understand
cotton, rice, or sugar planting, and because they were either too severe
or too easy upon the blacks.

No Northern labor was to be had, and the South could not retain even all
its own native whites. Union soldiers and others seeking to better their
prospects moved west and northwest to fill the newly opened lands, while
the Confederates, kept out of the homestead region by the test oath,
swarmed into Texas, which owned its own public lands, or went North
to other occupations. Nor could the desperate planters hire foreign
immigrants. Several states, among them South Carolina, Alabama, and
Louisiana, advertised for laborers and established labor bureaus, but
without avail. The Negro politicians in 1867 declared themselves opposed
to all movements to foster immigration. So in the Black Belt the Negro
had, for forty years, a monopoly of farm labor.

The share system of tenantry, with its attendant evils of credit and
crop lien, was soon established in the Southern States, mainly in the
Black Belt, but to some extent also in the white districts. The landlord
furnished land, house, fuel, water, and all or a part of the seed,
fertilizer, farm implements, and farm animals. In return he received a
"half," or a "third and fourth," his share depending upon how much he
had furnished. The best class of tenants would rent for cash or a fixed
rental, the poorest laborers would work for wages only.

The "privileges" brought over from slavery, which were included in the
share renting, astonished outside observers. To the laborer was usually
given a house, a water supply, wood for fuel, pasture for pigs or cows,
a "patch" for vegetables and fruit, and the right to hunt and fish.
These were all that some needed in order to live. Somers, the English
traveler already quoted, pronounced this generous custom "outrageously
absurd," for the Negroes had so many privileges that they refused to
make use of their opportunities. "The soul is often crushed out of labor
by penury