On the record
They have stocked their plantations, paying the highest prices, and often bidding against white men, at the auction sales of condemned Government property.
Said by
Whitelaw Reid
Source
gutenberg.orgWhitelaw Reid: “They have stocked their plantations, paying the highest prices, and often bidding against white men, at the auction…”
Editor's note · Context
Reid observes that formerly enslaved individuals have successfully stocked their farms and are competing in the market, indicating economic advancement.
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More from Whitelaw Reid
Public sentiment was against the sale of lands to the Yankees; “Get white laborers,” they urged, “and in a year you’ll make enough to be able to hold on to your lands.
Here was the opportunity for a statesman to grasp.
It seems to me, then, idle to thresh over old straw when the grain is not only winnowed, but gone to the mill.
Fully believing the debts of their Rebel Government legal and just, they were prepared to repudiate them at a hint from Washington.