accustomed to when slavery existed.

The complaints made about the insubordination of the negro laborers on
plantations have to be taken with the same allowance. There have been, no
doubt, many cases in which freedmen showed a refractory spirit, where
orders were disobeyed, and instructions disregarded. There have been some
instances of positive resistance. But when inquiring into particulars, I
found not unfrequently that the employer had adhered too strictly to his
old way of doing things. I hardly heard any such complaints from Northern
men. I have heard planters complain very earnestly of the insubordinate
spirit of their colored laborers because they remonstrated against the
practice of corporeal punishment. This was looked upon as a symptom of an
impending insurrection. A great many things are regarded in the old slave
States as acts of insubordination on the part of the laborer which, in the
free States, would be taken as perfectly natural and harmless. The fact
is, a good many planters are at present more nervously jealous of their
authority than before, while the freedmen are not always inclined to
forget that they are free men.

_Extravagant notions_.--In many localities I found an impression
prevailing among the negroes that some great change was going to take
place about Christmas. Feeling uneasy in their present condition, they
indulged in the expectation that government intended to make some further
provision for their future welfare, especially by ordering distributions
of land among them. To counteract this expectation, which had a tendency
to interfere seriously with the making of contracts for the next season,
it was considered necessary to send military officers, and especially
agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, among them, who, by administering sound
advice and spreading correct information, would induce them to suit their
conduct to their actual circumstances. While in the south I heard of many