Reconstruction in the Cane Fields

by Rodrigue, John C.

• ISBN13: 9780807127285
• ISBN10: 0807127280
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

In Reconstruction in the Cane Fields, John C. Rodrigue examines emancipation and the difficult transition from slavery to free labor in one enclave of the South -- the cane sugar region of southern Louisiana. In contrast to the various forms of sharecropping and tenancy that replaced slavery in the cotton South, wage labor dominated the sugar industry. Rodrigue demonstrates that the special geographical and environmental requirements of sugar production in Louisiana shaped the new labor arrangements. Ultimately, he argues, the particular demands of Louisiana sugar production accorded freedmen formidable bargaining power in the contest with planters over free labor.

Rodrigue addresses many issues pivotal to all post-emancipation societies: How would labor be reorganized following slavery's demise? Who would wield decision-making power on the plantation? How were former slaves to secure the fruits of their own labor? He finds that while freedmen's working and living conditions in the postbellum sugar industry resembled the prewar status quo, they did not reflec

Author Biography

John C. Rodrigue is assistant professor of history at Louisiana State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Abbreviations	xv
Introduction	1	(8)
Louisiana Sugar---American Slavery	9	(24)
The Sweetness of Freedom	33	(25)
Land and Labor after the War	58	(20)
Sugar and Suffrage	78	(26)
Persistence and Progress	104	(16)
``Of a Move About Disposition''	120	(19)
The Rewards of Wage Labor	139	(20)
Ambiguities of Redemption	159	(24)
Epilogue: The Sugar War of 1887	183	(10)
Appendix	193	(4)
Bibliography	197	(22)
Index	219