This is really a revival of
the old Roman idea of the patron under whose protection the
new-made freedman was put. In many instances this system
has been of great good to the Negro, and very often under the
protection and guidance of the former master's family, or
other white friends, the freedman progressed in wealth and
morality. But the same system has in other cases resulted in
the refusal of whole communities to recognize the right of a
Negro to change his habitation and to be master of his own
fortunes. A black stranger in Baker County, Georgia, for
instance, is liable to be stopped anywhere on the public
highway and made to state his business to the satisfaction of
any white interrogator. If he fails to give a suitable answer, or
seems too independent or "sassy," he may be arrested or
summarily driven away.
Thus it is that in the country districts of the South, by
written or unwritten law, peonage, hindrances to the migra-
tion of labor, and a system of white patronage exists over
large areas. Besides this, the chance for lawless oppression
and illegal exactions is vastly greater in the country than in
the city, and nearly all the more serious race disturbances of
the last decade have arisen from disputes in the count be-
tween master and man,--as, for instance, the Sam Hose
affair.
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