The Reconstruction of Georgia

ere were other causes of friction between the two races. Many negroes, on discovering that they were free, assumed what are known as "airs;" and then as now, among things intolerable to a southern white man a "sassy nigger" held a curious pre-eminence. The airs of the negro and the wrath of the white man were both augmented by officious members of the Freedmen's Bureau. Moreover, because the negroes had gained by the humiliation of the South, they received a share of the venom of defeat. Another element of discord was furnished by a particular part of the white population, the so-called poor whites. These saw in the new proteges of the United States not only a rival laboring class, but a menace to their social position, and hence assumed an attitude of jealousy and hatred. Such were the conditions favorable to social disturbance which followed emancipation. In the latter part of 1865 they had already begun to produce their natural result. Violent encounters between negroes and white men (in which the