Nevertheless these imported managers nearly always failed because they did not understand cotton, rice, or sugar planting, and because they were either too severe or too easy upon the blacks.
No Northern labor was to be had, and the South could not retain even all its own native whites.

Union soldiers and others seeking to better their prospects moved west and northwest to fill the newly opened lands, while the Confederates, kept out of the homestead region by the test oath, swarmed into Texas, which owned its own public lands, or went North to other occupations.

Nor could the desperate planters hire foreign immigrants.

Several states, among them South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana, advertised for laborers and established labor bureaus, but without avail.

The Negro politicians in 1867 declared themselves opposed to all movements to foster immigration.