Viewing page 17 of 236

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

0723

Bureau R.F. and A. Lands.
Hd. qurs. 6th Division 5th Sub Dist. Va.
Matthews Court House Va Feby 29. 1868.

S. C. Armstrong
Sub Asst Comr 5th Sub Dist Va.

Sir
In compliance with Cir. No 6 Series/66 Hd qurs. Asst. Comr. Dist Va I have the honor to submit the following Report on the condition of Bureau affairs in this Division for the Month ending Feby 29. 1868.

The weather during the month having been exceedingly unfavorable for outdoor labor the freedpeople generally have been unable to obtain but a meagre subsistence for themselves and families. A number however more hardy and energetic that their neighbors, have in spite of sleet and rain, succeeded in realizing fair wages by cutting cord wood or in gathering oysters to be disposed of by their employers at markets abroad.

Though the season is rapidly approaching for preparing the ground for crops but little has yet been done by the landholders in engaging hands for that purpose. They (the landholders) in being to a certain extent dissatisfied with the system of cultivating the crops on shares, declare it to be as unprofitable as the labor is unreliable. Rejecting a system of labor of their own creation and stamped with the impress of their own inert shiftlessness they are looking for the advent of a class of labor from those despised localities where brains and energy are a marketable commodity — for the introduction of a mode of cultivation by which this barren and fog begirt peninsular is to be

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-22 19:03:55