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serfdom or peonage, that shall still retain all the spirit of slavery.

The freedmen are so suspicious and fearful that they will be again enslaved, that great difficulty is experienced in inducing them to contract, as they "fear it may be signing them back to their masters", as they express it.

At present, labor is almost completely disorganized; But very few planters are raising more than will secure a good support, to all on their plantations, till next spring, and many not so much.

Great difficulties have been met, in working the laborers this year, from the fact that there were no settled regulations to govern them until quite late. The crops have suffered from this fact.

A perfect understanding, between the planters and freedmen, under the present regulations of the Freedmens Bureau, and assurances of kind and considerate treatment, and prompt and liberal wages will soon induce the negroes to labor well and faithfully and restore systematic labor to such a degree as will insure to the planters as large and good crops of cotton, corn &c, as ever produced by slave labor."

Aug 20"/65  "A number of complaints have been made to me by freedmen, who have been whipped and cruelly abused, by their former masters. In each instance I have immediately arrested the party offending, and compelled them to give heavy bonds to hold the peace and to appear, if summoned, before any military

Transcription Notes:
peonage — the use of laborers bound in servitude because of debt