A Contract Ensuring Workers' Payroll
This contract shows exactly the steps taken in emancipation and the transition from an owner and enslaved person relationship to an employer and employee relationship. However, the legacy of slavery is one that will always still be present within American culture1 and is also present within this contract.
African workers getting wages was unheard of in the horrid practice of slavery. For decades, enslaved people poured their blood and tears into making the United States the way it is, without getting any recognition or reimbursement for it. The source presented here is a labor agreement between Mrs. Emily Woolfolk and the freedmen workers made in 1865. This contract represents the differences between the working conditions during slavery and after emancipation. A contract, by its very nature, puts obligations on both sides involved which was not a possibility under slavery conditions. This agreement outlines Mrs. Woolfolk’s duties and obligations towards her workers, and it includes one of the most crucial elements, which was the introduction of wages to the freedmen workers. It also requires Mrs. Woolfolk to provide adequate housing and property designated to the laborers, which is completely separate from the worker’s wages as it is expected to come fully from her expense. While the property provided is still not owned by the freedmen workers and is there for them to garden without surveillance, the emphasis on the need for property is an important one because it is often demanded as a right from those who were previously enslaved, which was also the case for the workers in this agreement. It also provides them with more autonomy in their daily lives. Another crucial aspect of this document to consider is how it sets the exact expected hours from the laborers and it also requires additional pay for any additional hours. It does not only expect the employer to provide the smallest amount required for necessities, but it also outlines the need for good necessities with satisfactory quality, or the contract is terminated. It lists consequences for both the workers and the employer, in contrast to how enslaved people were the only ones facing punishments for certain actions, especially regarding labor.2
The agreement shows the reform of a practice that was done during slavery but is done differently by adding wages, housing, and consequences for both sides. The nature of the employee and worker’s relationship is still one reminiscent of slavery since we still must ask, why did the freedmen only have the option to be the workers instead of those providing the work, even after emancipation? How come that even when they are provided with property, they only have a chance of using it but not owning it? Who was this contract more beneficial to, the workers or Mrs. Woolfolk? These are all important questions to consider when understanding this contract and what it represents.
1 Ira Berlin, “American Slavery in History and Memory and the Search for Social Justice,” in Facing Georgetown’s History: A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation, Adam Rothman and Elsa Barraza Mendoza, (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2021), 170–73.
2 National Archives, Washington, D.C., “Agreement with Freedmen on West Oak plantation in Iberville Parish, La., April 3, 1865,” Georgetown Slavery Archive.
Bibliography:
Berlin, Ira. “American Slavery in History and Memory and the Search for Social Justice,” in Facing Georgetown’s History: A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation. Rothman, Adam, and Elsa Barraza Mendoza, eds. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021.
National Archives, Washington, D.C. “Agreement with Freedmen on West Oak plantation in Iberville Parish, La., April 3, 1865,”. Georgetown Slavery Archive.