[Footnote 1: Emmett J. Scott: Negro Migration during the War (in
Preliminary Economic Studies of the War--Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace: Division of Economics and History). Oxford
University Press, American Branch, New York, 1920.]

Many of the stories that the Negroes told were pathetic.[1] Sometimes
boats would not take them on, and they suffered from long exposure on
the river banks. Sometimes, while they were thus waiting, agents of
their own people employed by the planters tried to induce them to
remain. Frequently they were clubbed or whipped. Said one: "I saw nine
put in one pile, that had been killed, and the colored people had to
bury them; eight others were found killed in the woods.... It is done
this way: they arrest them for breach of contract and carry them to
jail. Their money is taken from them by the jailer and it is not
returned when they are let go." Said another: "If a colored man stays
away from the polls and does not vote, they spot him and make him vote.
If he votes their way, they treat him no better in business. They hire
the colored people to vote, and then take their pay away. I know a
man to whom they gave a cow and a calf for voting their ticket. After
election they came and told him that if he kept the cow he must pay for
it; and they took the cow and calf away." Another: "One man shook his
fist in my face and said, 'D---- you, sir, you are my property.' He said
that I owed him. He could not show it and then said, 'You sha'n't go
anyhow.' All we want is a living chance." Another: "There is a general
talk among the whites and colored people that Jeff Davis will run for
president of the Southern states, and the colored people are afraid they
will be made slaves again. They are already trying to prevent them from
going from one plantation to another without a pass." Another: "The
deputy sheriff came and took away from me a pair of mules. He had a
constable and twenty-five men with guns to back him." Another: "Last
year, after settling with my landlord, my share was four bales of
cotton. I shipped it to Richardson and May, 38 and 40 Perdido Street,
New Orleans, through W.E. Ringo & Co., merchants, at Mound Landing,
Miss. I lived four miles back of this landing. I received from Ringo a
ticket showing that my cotton was sold at nine and three-eighths cents,
but I could never get a settlement. He kept putting me off by saying
that the bill of lading had not come. Those bales averaged