Besides, the agitators and the Negro troops led them to hope for an eventual distribution of property.

An Alabama planter thus described the situation in December 1865: "They will not work for anything but wages, and few are able to pay wages.

They are penniless but resolute in their demands.

They expect to see all the land divided out equally between them and their old masters in time to make the next crop.

One of the most intelligent black men I know told me that in a neighboring village, where several hundred blacks were congregated, he does not think that as many as three made contracts, although planters are urgent in their solicitations and offering highest prices for labor they can possibly afford to pay.