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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 10. The Tradition of Slavery - 3. The Land Problem - 4. The Tenancy Problem
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Chapter io. The Tradition of Slavery 227
of them? And if each Negro had been given a piece of land, for which Uncle Sam
would pay the Southern owner, wouldn’t it have been better for the white man and
the Negro?”
The old man looked at me as if I were a curious individual to be raising such an
unheard-of question. “No,” he said emphatically, “for it would have made the
Negro ‘uppity,’ and, besides, they don’t know enough to farm without direction, and
smart white men and Negroes would have gotten the land away from them, and
they’d have been worse off than ever. . . . The real reason,” pursued the old man,
“why it wouldn’t do, is that we are having a hard time now keeping the nigger in
his place, and if he were a landowner he’d think he was a bigger man than old
Grant, and there would be no living with him in the Black District, , . , Who’d
work the land if the niggers had farms of their own . . ,
?”^®
In spite of the lack of a land reform and against heavy odds in practically
all respects, there was a slow rise of Negro small-scale landownership in
the South until the beginning of this century. But the proportion of Negroes
owning their own land has never been large, and it has been declining for
the last 30 or 40 years.*^
4. The Tenancy Problem
But even if a rational land reform was not carried out, some of the goals
could have been reached by a legal regulation of the tenancy system, aimed
not only at protecting the tenants as well as the landlords, but also at
preserving the soil and raising the economic efficiency of Southern agricul-
ture. There were individuals who saw clearly what was at stake. The
Freedmen^s Bureau was futilely active in regulating labor and tenant
contracts. But it had neither the political backing nor the clear purpose
necessary to accomplish much of lasting importance. And it was not given
the time or the resources. Hence, a most inequitable type of tenancy fixed
itself upon the South.
A survey of the legal organization of landlord-tenant relations in
Southern states today reveals a system which has no real parallel in other
advanced parts of the Western world. There are a great number of state
laws—^some of the most extravagant character—^to defend the planters’
interests. There are few laws which defend the tenants’ interests. The
tenant does not have any right to permanency of tenure on the land he
cultivates. He seldom has any right to reimbursement for permanent
improvements which he makes on the land.^^ The tenant is not secured in
his contractual rights. Woofter, writing in the ’twenties, makes the rather
obvious point that "passage of laws to the effect that no tenant contract is
enforceable unless it is written would . . . help,” but no such laws have
been passed.^®
On the other hand, there is, as we said, elaborate legislation to protect
* See Chapter ii, Section 6.
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