16 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 
obtain an education, and to be like the old 
masters. There was enthusiasm to get all the 
good that freedom could give, but conflicting 
with this was a general notion that freedom 
meant either less work or no work. Negro women 
frequently declined to work in the fields or as 
servants. Negro men proved that they were free 
by neglecting their crops to go hunting and fish- 
ing and to camp meeting. Intemperance was 
widespread, while swindlers found the credulous 
people an easy prey, and the savings went for 
such luxuries as excursions, circuses, jewelry, 
and subscription books. After a while too many 
of the abler Negroes went into politics instead 
of farming. Though land was cheap the Negroes 
secured titles to but little of it. Most of them 
became tenants, and after a period of experimen- 
tation the share system was adopted to govern 
the division between landlord and tenant. This, 
with the accompanying credit system and crop- 
lien was good enough at such a time to enable a 
very thrifty and energetic laborer to get a start, 
but for the average Negro it meant the removal 
of incentive to progress. Those who purchased 
land were frequently tricked by rascals into 
buying bad titles. 
The result was that the better class of Negroes 
in a few years went to the towns and cities; the 
whites of the black belt gradually left the plan- 
tations for the villages and cities and entered the 
industries or the professions. So with absentee 
landlords and inefficient overseers the Negro 
tenants were left more and more to their own 
incompetent ways. The removal of the personal