He called attention to the fact, however, that Negro women showed a desire to avoid field labor, and there is also evidence to show that they objected to domestic service and other menial work.
The white districts, which had previously fought a losing competition with the efficiently managed and inexpensive slave labor of the Black Belt, were affected most disastrously by war and its aftermath.

They were distant from transportation lines and markets; they employed poor farming methods; they had no fertilizers; they raised no staple crops on their infertile land; and in addition they now had to face the destitution that follows fighting.

Yet these regions had formerly been almost self-supporting, although the farms were small and no elaborate labor system had been developed.

In the planting districts where the owner was land-poor, he made an attempt to bring in Northern capital and Northern or foreign labor.

In the belief that the Negroes would work better for a Northern man, every planter who could do so secured a Northern partner or manager, frequently a soldier.