Willie Lee Rose describes what took place in the Sea Islands of South Carolina during the Civil War. When Union troops took over the Islands in 1861 the plantation owners fled. They left behind their negroe slaves.

Administration of the area was divided between the military, various missionary associations and cotton agents. The negroes continued with their agricultural duties, but no longer as slaves.

Under the new system, cotton productivity declined. One major factor was because the negroes preferred to grow food crops rather than cotton. They could not eat cotton.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, some of the old planters returned, but in many instances their land had been forfeit.

From a non-academic layman's viewpoint, even though there is worthwhile information to be learned from this book, it was very hard for me to finish it. The basic ideas could have been presented in a much shorter monograph.

This is perhaps the only book that describes how suddenly-emancipated negroes responded to their new freedom before they were forced back into non-slave servitude under Jim Crow.