Reconstruction In The Cane Fields By John Rodrigue: Summary

John C. Rodrigue’s book Reconstruction in the Cane Fields details the change from slavery to free labor in Louisiana over the years prior to the Civil War to the Reconstruction. Specifically focusing on the crop sugar, Rodrigue conveys the message that sugar growing was significantly different from that of cotton and sharecropping. Following the Civil War, the south changed notably in terms of economics, and Rodrigue details this by examining the relationship between Louisiana’s slaves and masters who then became free laborers and bosses in an economic system that wasn’t quite the same in the Antebellum South. Rodrigue opens his book by describing how the economic system of Louisiana operated prior to the Civil War. Louisiana, Rodrigue submits, was different than cotton producing southern states because the state grew sugar, a more labor intensive crop that required precise timing and the diligent hand of the planters who had to resort to …show more content…
Rodrigue writes how free laborers were more than happy to switch to a free labor system because they then had negotiating powers over owners, a considerable difference from cotton growers. Additionally, laborers now earned wages, giving them the opportunity to save up for their own property (a clear Republican free labor ideology). Free laborers accepted the notion of free labor rather well, notes Rodrigue, because they had the power to negotiate through lower wages. On the other side of things were the owners. This new free labor system represented a change of life to them because they could not rely on force to get the best quality of sugar. Because they did not have the same presence in Congress, much less the state legislatures, owners were forced to compromise with free laborers both with laborers, but also with the notion that the police was no longer in favor of their way of