A Georgia overseer reported
in 1840 that several such families had made clearings in the woods of
the plantation under his charge, and proposed that rent be required of
them;[45] and travellers occasionally came upon negro cabins in fields
which had been abandoned by their proprietors.[46] The typical rural family
appears to have tilled a few acres on its own account, and to have been
willing to lend a hand to the whites for wages when they needed service.
It was this readiness which made their presence in many cases welcome in a
neighborhood. A memorial signed by thirty-eight citizens of Essex County,
Virginia, in 1842 in behalf of a freedman might be paralleled from the
records of many another community: "We would be glad if he could be
permitted to remain with us and have his freedom, as he is a well disposed
person and a very useful man in many respects. He is a good carpenter, a
good cooper, a coarse shoemaker, a good hand at almost everything that is
useful to us farmers."[47] Among the free negroes on the seaboard there was
a special proclivity toward the water pursuits of boating, oystering and
the like.[48] In general they found a niche in industrial society much on
a level with the slaves but as free as might be from the pressure of
systematic competition.
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