Beschreibung:

Title: 1863 Two Union Army orders from occupied New Orleans, encouraging return of unemployed Negroes to their old plantations as share-croppers Author: Place: Publisher: Date: 1863 Description: N.P.Banks, Major General, Commanding (Department of the Gulf, New Orleans). Feb. 16, 1863. 1pg. Army Circular concerning “the immediate employment of negroes”, encouraging their return to their old plantations as share-croppers; and Richard B. Irwin, Lt. Colonel, Assistant Adjutant General. By command of Major General Banks. General Order No. 17, Department of the Gulf. New Orleans, Feb. 18, 1863. 1pg. “No Negroes will be taken from the Plantations, until further orders, by any officer or other person in the service of the United States, without previous authority from these Headquarters. Banks’ predecessor at Union commander in New Orleans, the hated Benjamin Butler, had at first encouraged Southern slaves to flee their plantations and seek refuge with the advancing Union Army. But, with the city under federal occupation, runaway slaves arrived in such large numbers, hungry and homeless, that the Army was overburdened and Butler began ordering the return of the Blacks to their old masters. By these orders, after Butler’s departure, General Banks directed that ”Union officers were “requested to assist…without violence, in inducing the return of negroes and their families to the plantations where they have been accustomed to labor. Without regular employment, many thousands of negroes must perish during the year.” $60,000 had already been spent in January to support “destitute persons”. “The support of many thousands of unemployed negroes will increase the burden to such extent as to make it impracticable to continue the charity.” Besides the “immediate cultivation” of corn, sugar and cotton was “imperatively demanded upon every consideration of public interest, and for this no other labor is now available. On the plantations, they will have secured to them by the officers of the Government sufficient and wholesome food, clothing, kind treatment, and a share of the crop, they produce. The compensation may seem small; but in view of the pecuniary advances that must be made and the risks that attend industry in a period of war, it is not unreasonable.” Blacks not working on the plantations “will be employed on the public works” or for the Army, “without pay, except their food and clothing, medical attendance, and such instruction and care as may be furnished to them and their women and children.” After “anxious consideration”, General Banks believed this to be “the best system of labor that can now be adopted…” This was origin of the share-cropper system that evolved in the South for both whites and Blacks after the Civil War. Lot Amendments Condition: Item number: 247605