work. The political value of the free food issues was not generally recognized
until later in 1866 and in 1867.

During the first year of the Bureau an important duty of the agents was the
supervision of Negro labor and the fixing of wages. Both officials and
planters generally demanded that contracts be written, approved, and filed in
the office of the Bureau. They thought that the Negroes would work better if
they were thus bound by contracts. The agents usually required that the
agreements between employer and laborer cover such points as the nature of the
work, the hours, food and clothes, medical attendance, shelter, and wages. To
make wages secure, the laborer was given a lien on the crop; to secure the
planter from loss, unpaid wages might be forfeited if the laborer failed to
keep his part of the contract. When it dawned upon the Bureau authorities that
other systems of labor had been or might be developed in the South, they
permitted arrangements for the various forms of cash and share renting. But it
was everywhere forbidden to place the Negroes under "overseers" or to subject
them to "unwilling apprenticeship" and "compulsory working out of debts." The
written contract system for laborers did not work out successfully. The
Negroes at first were expecting quite other fruits of freedom. One Mississippi
Negro voiced what was doubtless the opinion of many when he declared that he
"considered no man free who had to work for a living." Few Negroes would
contract for more than three months and none for a period beyond January 1,
1866, when they expected a division of lands among the ex-slaves. In spite of
the regulations, most worked on oral agreements. In 1866 nearly all employers
threw overboard the written contract system for labor and permitted oral
agreements. Some states had passed stringent laws for the enforcing of
contracts, but in Alabama, Governor Patton vetoed such legislation on the
ground that it was not needed. General Swayne, the Bureau chief for the state,
endorsed the Governor's action and stated that the Negro was protected by his
freedom to leave when mistreated, and the planter, by the need on the part of