A V Barringer (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Brand New. 2nd edition. 370 pages. German language. 8.66x5.98x0.94 inches. In Stock.

New Orleans: Rea's Steam Print, 48 Magazine Street, [ca. 1866]. Approx. 23¾ x 18½ inches. Printed in two columns with typographic borders. Expertly conserved and lined. [with:] 1866 [1½]pp. Autograph letter signed from Sycamore Plantation. Unrecorded. An extraordinary Reconstruction-era broadside printed in New Orleans documenting a system that exploited freedmen sharecroppers working on the Sycamore Plantation in Concordia Parish. This system continued the normalization of forced labor used during Louisiana's slavery period. The Sycamore Plantation sharecroppers were a strictly-controlled work force without labor rights. Each day, they confronted the challenge of surviving in an economic environment where wages "replaced the whip as the chief form of labor compulsion [.] With the former slave's every action subject to the threat of wage penalties [.] Landlords [quickly] learned to safeguard their profits by means of wage penalties." (Davis, pp9597, specifically referencing Sycamore Plantation) Here, within this broadside, formerly used words such as "slaves" and "overseer" have been replaced by the words "hands" and "employees" and "foreman" and "superintendent." The usage of the word "gang" (e.g., "a gang of slaves") continues to be used. At the ringing of the first bell, "at early morn," hands were "required to rise, to prepare their breakfast and make ready for the day's work." At the second bell, a roll call was taken and the workers were to begin their duties "and not tarry by the wayside. They will not be permitted to return to their quarters after their names have been called." The hands could not leave the fields without a foreman's permission. If their tools needed repair, they had to brought to the shops "at meal hours." The regulations were constrictive and punitive. In part: "11. All hands are expected to promptly answer at roll call. Such as fail to answer to their names, or leave their respective duties without permission, or disobey orders given to them by the Foreman or Superintendent, will be charged and proceeded against as provided by law, unless a good and sufficient excuse is given." "12. No employee will be permitted to leave a plantation without a written permit, which must be returned to the office at the expiration thereof." "13. All trespassing on the premises must be reported by any employee who has a knowledge of the fact, that the offender may be duly punished. No white person will be permitted to sleep in negro quarters." "15. A faithful observance of the foregoing Rules and Regulations are enjoined upon all. They are suggested with a view to promote the comfort and interests of all concerned. Prompt and cheerful obedience of orders, proper care of property, kindness and good feeling toward one another is expected, and is calculated to promote your own happiness and future prosperity." With the broadside is an 1866 letter from the overseer, W.H.G. Hall, to the plantation's owner, emphasizing that in Hall's view, both sharecroppers and animals require corn. The overseer's dilemma is that the "Employees are Complaining about the Yellow Corn." His reply seems snarky: "If in your estimation you think that any of the articles in the List of Dry Goods or Groceries will not bring profit on acct. of high prices you can of course Abstain from the Pedigree." In the overseer's perception, there is little distinction between the two groups, implying a dehumanizing and exploitative viewpoint where the Sycamore Plantation sharecroppers are equated with livestock in terms of their basic needs. Two exceptional artifacts offering profound insights into the strategies and ideologies behind economic oppression in the Deep South. Broadsides printed in Reconstruction-era New Orleans are rare. Those with such large dimensions, as in this example, let alone detailing the lives of sharecroppers, are almost unheard of. Ref. Davis, Good and Faithful Labor: From Slavery to Share- cropping in the Natchez District, 1860189.