THE NEGRO AT THE CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR 7
in 1863 was placed in charge of all the Negro
camps and colonies in the Mississippi valley
above Louisiana.!
Though there was more than enough work for
all, there was strong rivalry between the War
Department and the ‘Treasury Department over
control of “Negro affairs.” Tn 1863 and 1864
the Treasury Department leased to private
speculators the abandoned Mississippi valley
plantations in the districts controlled by the
Federal forces. The Negroes were then required
to work for the lessees, who in return furnished
them with subsistence and paid or promised to
Pay them wages. But neither Eaton’s colonies
nor the Treasury plantations were successful.
In the camps and on the plantations the neg-
lected Negroes died by thousands from want
and disease. When the crops failed, the laborers
received no return for their work, and even when
good crops were made, the lessees frequently
swindled them out of their wages.
An interesting experiment with Negro labor
was tried in lower Louisiana from 1862 to 1865.
General Butler and his successor, General Banks,
maintained a “Free Labor Bureau,” which was
charged with the supervision of labor on the
plantations of the Confederates who were away
at war, and with the regulation of the relations
between the Negroes and those masters who re-
mained at home. The result here, just as on the
Atlantic coast and in other parts of the Missis-
sippi valley, was a sort of temporary serfdom.
The Negro was forced to work, while the Federal
I Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the F. reedmen, passim.