Masses of
Negroes stood idle, or, if they worked spasmodically, were
never sure of pay; and if perchance they received pay,
squandered the new thing thoughtlessly. In these and other
ways were camp-life and the new liberty demoralizing the
freedmen. The broader economic organization thus clearly
demanded sprang up here and there as accident and local
conditions determined. Here it was that Pierce's Port Royal
plan of leased plantations and guided workmen pointed out
the rough way. In Washington the military governor, at the
urgent appeal of the superintendent, opened confiscated estates
to the cultivation of the fugitives, and there in the shadow of
the dome gathered black farm villages. General Dix gave
over estates to the freedmen of Fortress Monroe, and so on,
South and West. The government and benevolent societies
furnished the means of cultivation, and the Negro turned
again slowly to work. The systems of control, thus started,
rapidly grew, here and there, into strange little governments,
like that of General Banks in Louisiana, with its ninety
thousand black subjects, its fifty thousand guided laborers,
and its annual budget of one hundred thousand dollars and
more.
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