Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-02-15
Negroes Emigrating to East Tennessee
From the Far South-TrOubIe AmtiCipa-


ted.
Correspondence of the Cincinnati Commercial.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn, Jan u.
The plentiful harvest with which the Ia.
bors of the huSbandman III East Tennes-
see have been blessed, and the protracted
and severe droughts that have visited most
of the Southern States, together with the
prospect of an impartial franchise law in
Tennessee, have attracted to this section
of the State great numbers of negroes, and
the cry is still they come. From North
Carolina and from the cotton regions of the
sea coast, from Georgia and from Alabama,
with their =" plumber" and with the hope
of realizing in this fair country their bright
est dreams of freedom, they come in cars
and carts, on horses and on foot. The
building of our three railroads-the Knox
vile and Kentucky, the Knoxville and
Charleston, and the Morristown and North
Carolina-gives great numbers of them
work, and this, with the large cribs groan-
ing with ripe, yellow corn at 60 and rs cts.
per bushel, attracts them here.
SO long as their coming does not conflict
with the interests of our laboring whites no
complaint is made, but already the MUIR
murings of coming trouble are heard. The
rich bottom lands of the rivers are the
points of rallying, and there the trouble
will first begin. In order that the real con-
dltion Of affairs may be understood it
should be remembered that the laboring
field hands in East Tennessee are most of
them whites, and that during the war they
were loyal and opposed the heavy land
owners. Since the war the public feeling
against the wealthy rebels has been so VIC
lent, and that feeling has taken such Il
shape that they were forced to flee the
country.
On returning now after the storm has
subsidized, they find their lands i'll the pos
session of these whites, either as tenants
under the Freedmen's Bureau, as purchas-
ers at sales ordered by Courts of law under
judgments procured in what are generally
known as damage suits, or as purchasers
under tax sales. These parties in posses
sion cling tenaciously to whatever legal adj
vantage they have thus gained, and for the
past eigheen months our Courts of law
have been adjudicating these novel ques-
lions. These contests naturally provoke Il
bitter feeling. In most cases the original
proprietors come off the victors; and now,
after they have won their lands, they retail
late upon their opponents by turning them
out of their leaseholds and putting in these
itenerant blacks
In addition to the whites who would
work if they had an opportunity this
country has been infested by the hangers
on ana camp followers of the armies
those who, in the garb of Federal soldiers,
plundered and stole everything within
reach. These men have taken advantage
of the unsettled state Of our society, and
have perpetrated the grossest outrages,
stealing and plundering. They have no
thing to gain and everything to lose by
peace and quiet, and they take every OPP
portunlty to keep up the mob power that
at one time, under the rebel power, drove
out and plundered all who were loyal, and
again, under the cover of loyalty, plumber
ed all who were disloyal. These classes
have now new element to contend with,
and under plea of hatred to the blacks,
they wage war alike upon the negroes and
upon the landholders who employ them
This struggle between the laboring whites
and the blacks will continue and will grow
bitter just in proportion to the number OF
the blacks and the extent they affect the in
terest Of the whites.