12 THE FREEDMEN'S SAVINGS BANK 
cised an unsettling influence for several years. 
The Negroes had reason for believing that the 
government would give them land with which 
to begin the free life. The use of Confederate 
property for the Negroes during and soon after 
the war, the widespread discussion of confisca- 
tory measures, and especially the action of 
General Sherman in dividing up the Sea Islands 
and the Georgia and South Carolina coasts 
among those who had followed the army, caused 
the freedmen to entertain the fixed belief that 
each family was to get “forty acres and a mule.” 
This pleasing idea, fostered to a considerable 
extent by the subordinates of the Freedmen’s 
Bureau, kept many from settling down to regular 
work, and prepared the way for swindlers who 
for years made a business of selling fraudulent 
titles to lands to thousands of Negroes. 
FAILURE OF NORTHERN PLANTERS 
Another blow to the prospects of the Negro 
was the general failure of the northern planters 
who came south during and immediately after 
the war expecting to make fortunes by raising 
cotton, rice, and sugar cane. The native planters 
had little or no capital, and plantation equip- 
ment and supplies were lacking. The free Negro 
distrusted the southern white, who in turn had 
little confidence in free Negro labor. Land was 
cheap, and a southern planter was glad to secure 
a northern partner or to sell his land to a 
northern capitalist. It was also thought that the 
Negro would work better for a northern em- 
4 North American Review, Vol. 182, p. 721.