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View, and there is a very great apprehension among the freedmen in reference to the division of the crops + settlement. It is in the hands of the employer and they can be swindled out of their years work or be compelled to obtain it by law + probably spend their whole years wages in lawyer's fees in trying to obtain it. Even at this early day there are persons who are forming in a co-partnership with freedmen who are making haste to gather and dispose of the crop before any action is being taken by the Bureau for their protection; and when the crop of cotton is sold and the money in their pockets they are entirely insolvent + the freedman gets not one cent for his years work - the consequence starvation and suffering is the result.
And where many of them are disposed to divide the crops as per contract, it is left to them + the ignorant negro, he, will have to take the last pickings and the inferior portion of it.

Is not the government under obligations to protect the freedmen in there matters at least for the present year? Again, it is the wish of many of our most correct + best Planters that something should be done. I have frequently been requested to write to you on the subject and they have suggested to me and I