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.