The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-17

virgin forest of the line of counties
that crosses the state from east to
west, Barbour, Macon, Montgomery,
lLowndes, Autauga, Dallas, Wilcox, Ma
rengo, Perry, Greene and Sumter, Il
in all, was destroyed and the match
less soil brought under the cultivation
of the hand hoe An engineer charged
with the duty of running the section
lines in part of Marengo reported the
| forest and cane growth so dense that
he must cut his way through and so
slow was the progress by reason OF
that necessity that he could accom-
plish not more than two or three miles
| a day.
| The negro did the work and throve
and multiplied his race in the perform
ance The negro was at the bottom of
the power of these IL counties in
the state government. In 80 years from
the birth of the state these counties
| became in large measure open fields
They paid in 1860 more than twice the
| taxes paid by the other 40 counties
From these counties came men of state
| influence, far more numerous than
their proportion of white inhabitants
entitled them Bibb, the first governor,
was a cotton planter of Autauga; An
drew B. Moore, John Gill Shorter,
| Thomas H. Watts, the last three gov
ernors before reconstruction, We're of
the black belt, Yancey and DIR. Marion
Sims and John A. Elmore were OF the
black belt.
The drivel we must read in the his
| haf ho NJ in
plantations was deprived of his native
rights and privileges of human men,
bership and that his white masters
| lost character by contact with their
slaves, must encounter and overcome
| the very facts developed in the SO years
| of reconstruction in Alabama.
| The fall of the Confederacy left the
negroes in unchallenged control of the
entire field of manual labor In the
most desirable part of the southern
country, the black belt of Alabama.
| They were absolutely free of disease.
| They were not only free from COM
petition but they We're so efficiently
trained that no competition could dis
place them. l recall at this moment
distinctly the comment of a freedman,
who had been my property. He re-
marked in a perfectly respectful man
ner: Master, I can carry my row
against any three of these white men
| you bring here to work for you"
| The art of chopping cotton and pick
| ing cotton is a higher art than at
tending the machinery for the spin
ming and weaving, of any class of cot
ton goods now manufactured by the
mills of Alabama. The negroes of the
black belt were, ne plus ultra, perfect
in the labors of the cotton field. IL
an observer of events will stand near
a blackboard in Patterson's Ca Scotch
maui negro school in Montgomery and
see full blood negro girls and boys 10
years old dash off examples given to
them from the arithmetic in simple
fractions, compound fractions, without
a halt, or an error; see them draw
from memory outlines of continents and
of states; see the girls with their
needles. and the boys with saws and
plane and chisel, he may be prepared
to contemplate the mystery of the
ever widening margin between the
black and white races. He will rec
ognize even more acutely the mystery
of the circumstance that the negroes
who cleared the forest of the black
belt, whose labor sent out through Mo-
bile in 1860 some $40.000,000 exports
from the plantations. failed. when
emancipated and offered the support of
the United states army to become as
great menace to white supremacy
here as the yellow men are on the Pa
clf1c SLOPE When the Confederacy fell
the negroes of the black belt heard the
news without a ripple of excitement
The plantation bell that at dawn called
all hands. men and women to their
field tasks and at noon called all to
dinner was obeyed in the same regu-
lar order as on Monday, July 22, 1861
the day after the victory of Manassas
Indeed, news of Appomattox reached
the camp of Brig. Gen. John I. Nor
gan. near Uniontown, Perry county,
while he was mastering in volunteer
negro recruits for the Confederate
army.
The election of 1874 separated for
ever from the life of Alabama the
motif Of reconstruction, planted here
by the Washington government.
White supremacy was reached by that
election and the attainment left behind
the 10 years of awe inspiring degradation
of the political, social and industrial con-
ditfons.
The election OF 1874 drove out the carpet
baggers. the scalawags and the negroes
from political power The civil rights
bill of 1867 the social equality bill of
1875 remained on the statute book, but the
later elected supreme court of the state
reversed the decree of the court legislated
in by Congress- that legalized miscegena-
ton. United States prosecutions for cleo
tion, riots in Mobile. Barbour and Sumter,
were dropped. The debt commission ef-
fected reduction of the bonded debt.
to the entire extinction Of all that part
due to frayd or neglect. while the frac-