The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1864-01-28
Freed Africans.

n ulcIlCdHS anu CldcA hiIlCduS ou lulS COu-
tinent are being developed at a rapid and
fearful rate. The desolation, devastation,
disorder, physical and moral misery which
ensued in Spanish America, in Mexico,
and in islands of the West Indies on at
tempting to elevate Indians and Africansto
an impossible equality with white men,
have already begun in extensive portions
of the United States destruction SO
marked that it may well seem to be the
vengeance of COP upon the perverted pas
sions of miserable men.
The report of Mr.. YEATMAN, president
of the Western Sanitary Commission, as
given in the Tribune, does not permit any
possible doubt of the frightful condition of
the freed Africans who are scattered along
the Mississippi, from Cairo to Natchez.-
No honest and humane man can read it
without a cold shudder. Nothing in the
baracoonS of the African coast; nothing in
descriptions of the horrors of the middle
passage; nothing in the worst cases of cru
ell treatment of field slaves by inhuman
overseers can surpass this awful record of
hunger, starvation, and death. The sys-
tenn Of slave labor was an evil most griev-
Gus to be borne; but it is as nothing in
comparison with the private and public
suffering and injury now being inflicted by
the utter incapacity of the men who play
statesmen in Washington. The President
mas formally announced t, Congress, in q
special message, that he is unable TO grasp
the great problem of the future disposition
of these freed Africans whom abolition
hate and southern treason have thrown up
on our hands. He confesses hims elf 'aops
cons7n. And yet, in the face of this ad-
mitt.d poverty of ability to deal with this
problem which now demands solution, ne
impudently asks the people to give him a
new lease Of office,
Mr.. YEATMAN reports $4,000 freed AZ
rieans gathered in camps aud towns along
the Mississippi; that in Memphis the treat
ment which the negro receives from gov
eminent agents, contractors, aud plantation
lcssees is such that "he feels that he has
exchanged one master for many masters,
and lie sighs Il return TO his former home
and MASTER" that in Northeastern Louisia-
ma the negroes complain that they 'are
hired out to men who 'treat them, 80 far
as providing for them "is concerned, far
worse than their sccesh ''masters did, >
that a majority of Mr.. CHAsE's plantation
lessees are adventures, camp followers,
and army sharks that at Young's Point
there is more squailid poverty and desti-
tuition than in any place ever visited, with
sickness and death frightful," that at De-
Soto the government had furnished no ra-
tons to the starving negroes for more than
two weeks; that at Natchez many of the
negroes had returned to their masters en-
account of suffering in the government
camps, which had by deaths been reduced
from 1000 to 1000.
Mr.. YEArMAN concluded his report as
follows:
There are doubtless some points and
camps which l nave overlooked. l en-
deavored to procure all the information |
could. and in the progress of my ~investi-
cations | found that the simple work OF hui
mainly to the merely destitute, great and
Important as it is, is secondary to some 9th
err things, and the injustice with which
the freedmen are treated, tire continuing
them in a state Of involuntary servitude
,porse than Mot from vhich Aey hare es-
c0ped, made me DESTROYS of returning and
presenting the subject to the commission
If the freedmen wish to contract their
labor, let them do it themselves, and net be
hired out against their wWs' toperSons for
,ohom they are MT wiUung to ,cork. These
people should be educated up to, and made
to realize their new condition. Their mas
ters sold them or hired them out, fed
them, and clothed them, let them now hire
themselves out, and with their wages buy
their own food and clothing, and supply
all their other wants. If they are hired
out against their wills, and are fed and
clothed as before, they do not realize that
they are free men. 1t only appears to
them a change of masters, and that for the
worse; for before the masters interest
prompted him to feed and clothe them well
to supply a physician and medicines, and
to take care of them when sick.
What a picture is this of abolition hui
manity and integrity! The poor negro
will yet cry in the agony OF despair to be
saved from such friends. Day Book