Laborers on an Alabama plantation, 1865
Item
- Title
- Laborers on an Alabama plantation, 1865
- Description
- Proclamation describing labor conditions offered by Robert Jemison Jr.'s to his enslaved people, as reprinted in the Birmingham News, July 19, 1943.
- Transcript
-
"A PROCLAMATION BY ROBERT JEMISON, JR., TO HIS BLACK PEOPLE, ISSUED PRIOR TO THE EMANCIPATION' PROCLAMATION.
"(The following is a copy of the first draft of a proclamation which Mr. Jemison issued to his slaves before the surrender. It was found in the back of an old account book which was apparently used also for memoranda.)
"I have been by the Yankees stripped of the meat intended for your support. They have taken all the good mules and horses and left at without the means of carrying on the farm as heretofore. Under these circumstances it is impossible to feed you as you should be and as I would wish. If what corn we have is not taken from us, you will have an ample allowance of bread with a very small allowance of meat. By proper industry and attention to business you can make bread for another year and a moderate supply of meat if the hogs do not die up with disease, or are not killed to supply the present scarcity of meat.
"You have been told by the Yankees and others that you are free. This may be so! I do not doubt that you will be freed in a few years. But the terms and time of your ultimate freedom are not yet fully and definitely settled. Neither you nor I know what is to be the final result. Amid this uncertainty we can neither of us tell what is best to be done. Heretofore I have endeavored to do a good part by you in feeding and clothing you properly and otherwise making your situation as comfortable as it condition. of slave, would allow. And I still feel an interest in your welfare though the former relation of master and slave is to be dissolved.
"Some of you have left with the enemy. One of these that left (Nathan) was captured by the Confederates and hanged. Another (Emanuel) has been shot we learn by the Yankees. The others are yet out—some with the enemy, some in the woods. Those who have left me to go with the enemy have their lot chosen, and must abide by it. They will not be permitted to return to those of you who have not left. I submit the following proposition, to-wit:
"1. Each of you who wish to go to the Yankees may do so. Those of you who have families must take them with you. Those who leave will never be permitted to return. All relations between at will be forever dissolved and all intercourse between those who go and those who remain must be at an end. I make this requirement for the good of all concerned, not in any spirit of hostility or ill will.
"2. To those who desire to remain I will give the use of the plantation stock. etc., left, so far as necessary to carry on the farm this year, on the following terms:
"They shall return to me the plantation and tools in as good condition as received. They shall return the same amount and kind of forage and provision consumed during the year. They shall pay all expenses of the plantation of every kind, including wages of the overseer. The hogs, after the pork is killed, shall be equal in number and value as when the pork was killed at last season. The cattle and sheep shall be properly taken care of as well as the stock of every kind and delivered up with its increase at the end of the year. For the rent of the plantation there will be no charge except the small grain crop harvested and to be harvested and the putting (in of) this crop of the small grain crop next Fall. The wheat, rye and oats shall all be properly taken care of and threshed so far as needed. After the foregoing allowances to me all the remaining products of the farm shall be divided amongst (you) according to services rendered and merit.
"3. That the amount of services of each may be known, the overseers will keep an account of all lost time and the manner that each does his work, and of his general conduct, all of which shall be taken into consideration in the division amongst you.
"If anyone shall before the end of the year without my consent leave, he or she shall forfeit all interest in the crop, or if anyone is so idle or inattentive as not to be worth a support, he or she may be required to leave. Or, if anyone shall be disorderly, disobedient, or otherwise cause trouble or disturbance on the place, he or she will be required to leave and will not be permitted without my consent for any purpose and under any pretext to afterward come on the place.
"Each and every one of you pledge yourselves to be industrious, attentive and regular to your business, and to conform in all respects to the hours of labor and the other rules and regulations of the place as heretofore.
"This agreement shall be binding for the year whether you are immediately freed or not. If at the end of the year the terms of your freedom be more definitely and clearly defined and settled, and you still desire to remain with me, I shall be disposed to do as well by you as any other person, or at any rate as well (as) I can do in justice to myself and family." - Date
-
Circa 1865
The description is of a document issued "prior to the emancipation proclamation," which went into effect in January 1863, suggesting a date of late 1862, if "prior" means just before. The explanation of the timing as "before the surrender," which happened in April 1865, may be retrospective -- that is, given years later, in recognition of that subsequent event, not as though Jemison himself was at that moment facing the imminent end of the war. For this reason, the document has sometimes been dated to 1862. However, the end of the war could also be the event the statement immediately precedes, suggesting the more likely date of early 1865. He speaks of "the former relations of master and slave" being "dissolved" at some indefinite time in the future (paragraph two), a statement that doesn't make sense for an event with a hard date like the Emancipation Proclamation. The statement in paragraph two, "You have been told by the Yankees and others that you are free," could fit either time frame, but Jemison would have been much more likely to acknowledge the authority of the Yankees at the end of the war, and often enslaved people only learned they were free when told by the Union army at the end of the war. In addition, the privation he describes in paragraph one would be more in line with the late war. - Coverage
- Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
- Source
- Digitized item
- Site pages
- Slavery's End
