JONES, Saunders - Putnam

The Testimony of the Refugees.  As an answer to the falsehoods that are being so industriously circulated in Democratic newspapers regarding the condition of the colored immigrant who have recently arrived here from North Carolina, we have interviewed a number who have called at this office during the past week and give the results below.  It will be seen that they all speak in the very highest terms of praise of Indiana and their treatment since coming here.  

I came with the first company from Pitt County, North Carolina. I am living with Mr. Browning on a farm near Greencastle. He furnishes me a house, a garden spot and fire wood, free; pays me 75 cents a day when I work by the day.  40 and 50 cents a cord for cutting wood (I cut two and three cords a day) and 75 cents a hundred for making rails.  I have had plenty of provisions and victuals given me since I came. We have a good comfortable house and am already doing three times as well as I did in NC.  Every time Mr. Browning comes where I am he brings me something and he often send me word to come up to the house and get something but I don’t always go for I don’t like to leave my work.  We have plenty of apples given us and sausages and hog meat. We are doing a great deal better than I expected before I came. I don’t have to pay near so much for what I have to buy as I did in NC and I get more for my work and am paid in money instead of orders on stores. Only one man has said anything to me abut how I was going to vote and I reckon he was a Democrat. I left NC to better myself.  I couldn’t live there and thought I would come here where I could have some chance. We had worked there all our lives and were still as poor as when we began.  I find it very different here.  We are treated like men. My children are not going to school yet, but I am going to send them as soon as I can get ready.