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house room and medical bill & nothing else. These hands had been offered two hundred dollars by other people to my certain knowledge. Well a month & a half passed off & they became dissatisfied to work hard all the year for their Victuals & clothes, where other negroes are getting pay (some money). So they asked their employer to give them something else besides what was in the Contract. He refused to do so. So they left at night and went four miles and hired themselves to a man (B) for one hundred and eighty dollars for the balance of the year M. the first employer proceeds to a Magistrate who purports to be also an Agent of the Bureau, takes not a warrant, has them arrested for vagrancy. Carries them before a magistrate. There the Freedmen testified on oath that the contract was not read and explained by the employer nor the witnesses: but said the employer M would give them their victuals and clothes and something else, but would not obligate himself to do so that something else the freedmen believed was in the contract wasn't About a week before they left, when The Contract was read and explained to them paragraph after paragraph by an other party, at the request of the freedman, Then and not until then the freedman say swear they did not know what was in the Contract and further stated the reason they assigned to contract was through fear not to do so. Well the witnesses on the other side testified on oath that the contract was read and explained to the freedman before they assigned it. The question was asked the Court by what law or order were they to act in this Case. They said by an order from the Freedman's Bureau. The order was read. It was dated August 65. The old statute of Ala on vagrancy was read. The case did not come under the old vagrant law of Ala. nor did the order of August 65. cover this case for they were not vagrants, for they had employment when arrested & the next morning after they left for their former employer and yet the Court decided for the freedman to go back to the fist employer M In my judgement there is no law or order that will compel freedmen to stay at a place they desire not stay unless they have committed a crime which penaalty is Jael or Resteution at least under the circumstances I have mentioned. Recollect the

Transcription Notes:
2-22-2021: Transcribed per guidelines and marking for review