Assessed valuation of property in Alabama, including slaves, in 1860 $432,198,762 Assessed valuation in 1870 156,770,387 State taxation in 1860 530,107 State taxation in 1870 1,477,414 County taxation in 1860 309,474 County taxation in 1870 1,122,471 Now consider, as representing average conditions in the counties of the Black Belt, these facts derived from the report of Judge Hill, an expert, employed to investigate affairs in Marengo county. Taxes in 1870 were threefold greater than in 1860. The value of subjects of taxation had diminished two-thirds; 22,000 slaves, of an average value of $500 each, had ceased to be enumerated as taxable property; lands had depreciated in value sixty per cent.; there was less than one-half as much live stock as formerly; two townships had been lopped off and given to the newly-created county of Hale. CHAPTER ELEVEN THE WHITES AROUSED The people of the Black Belt had borne with all possible patience the multiplied grievous wrongs recited in the foregoing pages. During the transition from master and slave to the new relations between them there was a strong disposition in both races to live in peace and harmony and make the best of their altered relations; the negroes were civil and confiding, scarcely realizing the change in their status, while the whites appreciated their good behavior during the war, when families of men in the army were unprotected, and were disposed to gratitude for it. But since the establishment of the league friendly intercourse between the races had been growing rarer, and now ceased altogether; the estrangement was complete.