mouth of Red River, nearly two hundred
miles below. One of the agents had his office at Lake Providence, a
second was located at Vicksburg, while the third was at Natchez.

Nearly all the plantations near Lake Providence had been leased or
applied for. The same was the case with most of those near Vicksburg.
In some instances, there were several applicants for the same
plantation. The agents announced their determination to sell the
choice of plantations to the highest bidder. The competition for the
best places was expected to be very active.

There was one pleasing feature. Some of the applicants for plantations
were not like the sharp-eyed speculators who had hitherto controlled
the business. They seemed to be men of character, desirous of
experimenting with free labor for the sake of demonstrating its
feasibility when skillfully and honestly managed. They hoped and
believed it would be profitable, but they were not undertaking the
enterprise solely with a view to money-making. The number of these
men was not large, but their presence, although in small force, was
exceedingly encouraging.

I regret to say that these men were outstripped in the struggle for
good locations by their more unscrupulous competitors. Before the
season was ended, the majority of the honest men abandoned the field.

During 1863, many negroes cultivated small lots of ground on their own
account. Sometimes a whole family engaged in the enterprise, a single
individual having control of the matter. In other cases, two, three,
or a half-dozen negroes would unite their labor, and divide the
returns. One family of four persons sold twelve bales of cotton, at
two hundred dollars per bale, as the result of eight months' labor.
Six negroes who united their labor were able to sell twenty bales. The
average was about one and a half or two bales to each of those persons
who attempted the planting enterprise on their own account. A few
made as high as four bales each, while others did not make more than
a single bale. One negro, who was quite successful in planting on his
own account, proposed to take a small plantation in 1864, and employ
twenty or more colored laborers. How he succeeded I was not able to
ascertain.

The commissioners in charge of the freedmen gave the negroes every
encouragement to plant on their own account. In 1864 there were thirty
colored lessees near Milliken's Bend, and about the same number at
Helena. Ten of these persons at