The New Orleans Democrat., 1876-05-28
THE BLACK LABOR STRIKE.
Werk stopped in the Rice Fields-Dis-
cipline Of the strikers.

iSpeeiai Dispatch to the News and Courier.l
GREEN POND, Tuesday, May 23.-All is
quiet here this morning the bands that
were rowing through the Com bahee
country have stopped all work and seem
to have dispersed. This morning band
OF twenty or thirty we're at the junction
oY the Green Pond and Ashepoo roads,
with flag, a drum, and one bayonet on
q staff, and were seen by o passer-by
Noultrie, whom they had taken from
Mr.. G. Liebenrood's timber place. They
tlidrnot whip him, however. A commit
tee OF ten waited on him. and party OF
q hundred gathered at the road. They
then went to White Hall, the rendeZ-
yous. They were said to be a part OF q
band OF several hundred who are march
ing down the west side Of Ashepoo river,
stopping all hands at work. It is very
difficult TO get any particulars OF their
march or their acts, as they carry all col
ored men they meet along with them.
It Is not known yet how far these
strikes will spread. Several OF the
planters on Ashepoo are paying the old
rates, fifty cents day. COlored people
report that some Of the planters in the
Combahee district are Offering increased
wages to them to return, but this report
is not corroborated.
Very little excitement prevails. Both
the strikes seem to have been conducted
with order and discipline, as il con-
trolled by some skilled leaders as yet
unknown. No violence has been done
10 any Of the planters or overseers, and
only one or two threats were made,
which were promptly rebuked by others
OF the band. The colored people Jared
not so well. All those along the line Of
march were compelled to strike, and If
they showed any reluctance were tied
and beaten. They were told that forty
cents day was eats wages" and II
they worked at that they would be
thrashed. The plan OF operations has
been to collect band as nucleus and
then to march from place to place. ga
thering strength, until all the hands
banded and went home.
The strike seems to have originated
+. among the special day laborers. These
are q class OF negroes who live in the
pine lands and do their own cropping,
and in the working season exc out their
subsistence by hiring by the day to the
planter. 1t was with this class that the
reduction in prices was made, the regu-
lar hands having a contract which for
bade reduction with them.
At first the bands consisted prinei-
pally Of these day laborers, but the &C
cretions from each plantation Of volun-
leer day laborer strikers and impressed
contract hands made at last motley
mass. The regular hands, as general
thing, did not wish to strike, and it is
said they would now go to work were
they not afraid.
The doggerel song, "A Charge to keep
+ have" mentioned some time since in
the NeUs and Courier as having been
distributed in Charleston county, is
used here with great effect. One col
ored man said he couldn't understand
at all what the trouble was about till he
heard that song, and then he knowed
all about 1t.
Distance lends enchantment, and this
matter creates more interest in Charles.
ton than at the scene OF the troubles.
Here the blacks do not appreciate the
trouble they are making and the pos
sible starvation in store for them next
winter by this refusal to save the rice
crop from ruin; and the planters who
do realize the danger are too few and
too isolated to get up an excitement. A
few colored men are lounging about in
the sun at this depot and at Ashepoo.
and everything Is as placid as May
morning. r. n. D.
The Grand. Hotel at Point Clear is managed
~ Do,J,,jp n and fhay "aan EaNn