No. 22 Freedmen’s Bureau
Mobile, September 9, 1865.
Sir: In compliance with your request I have the honor to report the state of affairs as connected with the freedmen in this city and the counties of Washington, Monroe, Clark, Choctaw and Baldwin.
The civil authorities in this city have accepted General Swayne’s order No. 7, (herewith enclosed,) but the spirit of the order is not complied with, and complaints of injustice and criminal partiality in the mayor’s court have been frequently made at this office, and particularly when Mr. Morton presides there is no justice rendered to the freedmen. Little or no business is done before other magistrates, as the colored people are aware, from experience, that their oath is a mere farce and their testimony against a white man has no weight; consequently all complaints of the colored people come before this bureau.
I have by special order of General Swayne designated one of the justices of the peace, Mr. T. Starr, who adjudicates cases of debt, and in matters where both parties are of color he has so far given satisfaction, but the prejudice so universal against colored people here is already beginning to affect his decisions.
The civil police department of this city is decidedly hostile to color, and the daily acts of persecution in this city are manifest in the number of arrests and false imprisonment made where no shadow of criminality exists, while gangs of idle rebel soldiers and other dissolute rowdies insult, rob, and assault the helpless freedmen with impunity.
All hopes of equity and justice through the civil organization of this city is barred; prejudice and a vindictive hatred to color is universal here; it increases intensely, and the only capacity in which the negro will be tolerated is that of slave.
The fever of excitement, distrust, and animosity, is kept alive by incendiary and lying reports in the papers, and false representations of rebel detectives. The alarm is constantly abroad that the negroes are going to rise; this is utterly without foundation. The freedmen will not rise, though docile and submissive to every abuse that is heaped upon them in this city. If they are ragged and dirty, they are spurned as outcasts; if genteel and respectable, they are insulted as presumptive; if intelligent, they are incendiary; and their humble worship of God is construed as a designing plot to rise against the citizens who oppress them.
It is evident that General Swayne’s good intentions are nugatory from the want of faith on the part of those to whom he intrusted his order.
These men have been recipients of office for years. Old associations, customs and prejudices, the pressure of public opinion, and the undying hostility to federal innovation, all conspire gainst impartiality to color. Such is the state of affairs in this city.
In the counties of this district above named there is no right of the negro which the white man respects; all is anarchy and confusion; a reign of terror exists, and the life of the freedmen is at the mercy of any villain whose hatred or caprice incites to murder. Organized patrols with negro hounds keep guard over the thoroughfares, bands of lawless robbers traverse the country, and the unfortunate who attempts escape, or he who returns for his wife or child, is waylaid or pursued with hounds, and shot or hung. Laborers on the plantations are forced to remain and toil without hope of remuneration. Others have made the crop and are now driven off to reach Mobile or starve; scarcely any of them have rags enough to cover them. Many who still labor are denied any meat, and whenever they are treated with humanity it is an isolated exception. Ragged, maimed, and diseased, these miserable outcasts seek their only refuge, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and their simple tale of suffering and woe calls loudly on the mighty arm of our government for the protection promised them.
These people are industrious. They do not refuse to work; on the contrary, they labor for the smallest pittance and plainest food, and are too often driven off deprived of the small compensation they labored for.
The report of rations issued to destitute citizens on August 1, 1865, was 3,570 persons. Owing to the numerous impostures by those who had means of support, I erased the names of a large number and the list now stands 1,742 persons who are recipients of government alms. Of this number, 95 per cent. are rebels who have participated in some manner in this rebellion. Number of rations issued to destitute colored people is simply six (6).
The report of the freedmen’s colony of this district to this date is (12) twelve men, (71) seventy-one women, and (88) eighty-eight children, and sick in hospital (105) one hundred and five; total (276) two hundred and seventy-six. Of this number many have been driven off of plantations as helpless, while many of their grown children are forcibly retained to hard labor for their masters.
I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
W.A. POILLON, Captain, Assistant Superintendent freedmen, refugees, abandoned lands, &c.
General CARL SCHURZ.