Marv readjusted his chair, settling in for what would surely be many more hours of work. He'd already sifted through what must have been a thousand applications for homesteads that day. But no matter how tired he was, he would continue his work. The recently freed slaves from the civil war deserved that much.
Sadly, despite all the sacrifice and bloodshed, many felt otherwise. The Freedmen's Bureau still lacked proper funding and thus had not enough workers to meet the demand.
Marv and his handful of staff would have to distribute the land as fast as they could before the political situation changed once again. The white man should be happy the blacks are so willing to take rough, unwanted land off their hands. It would eventually enrich the government and thus the country.
Marv gave the application in front of him another look before giving it his stamp of approval.
It was for a family. The man was a blacksmith and the wife a sewer of fine clothes. Their family had been reunited after the war thanks to the bureau. He would do them one more kindness and give them a larger plot of land.
They had the skills to make it great. All the blacks who sent in applications did. Marv was surprised how many of them knew how to read and write.
A knock on the door stopped Marv from moving to the next application.
"Come in. The door is always open."
Marv expected to see another poor black, hat in hand, begging for aid. Marv would be happy to give it. No begging was needed, and soon all the freed blacks would come to know this and expect decent treatment.
But the man who stood at the door was no poor black. It was Major General Oliver Howard, commissioner of the bureau.
"Sir. What are you doing here?"
The sound of the general's horse outside muffled his answer, but the general repeated himself. "I've come to speak to my hardest worker."
"It's an honor, sir."
"Honor is mine." General Howard to a seat in front of Marv. "This is not good-paying work."
"But it is godly work, helping freed souls."
"That it is. Tell me, how have you made do with such little staff?"
"Well, not to raise my own self-importance, I do a bit of everything. I negotiate labor contracts, give out loans for the black veterans, and of course, give out land."
"The land is key. Something for them to call their own."
They both nodded their heads in perfect agreement.
General Howard went silent, and so Marv continued to work, stopping only when the general had a question about why he approved some applications and denied others. Marv had to be careful with the applications, as some plantation owners were forcing blacks' still under their power to send false applications in order to take the land for themselves.
This displeased General Howard greatly. "Some would have the results of the civil war reversed. They would have the victors act as the vanquished."
The General spoke of President Andrew Johnson, but could not openly besmirch the president he served.
Marv, a firm abolishonist, could not let that happen. "Is there anything else we can do?"
This seemed to be what General Howard was waiting to hear. He stomped his boot on the ground. "There is. Our offices are too far from the majority of blacks. And so, just as we have taken unused land and given it to the blacks, we will take the centers of power of the defeated to carry out our work."
"What are you saying?"
"You will be reassigned to a plantation."
Marv was to be an owner of slaves.
***
Marv shifted on his horse as he rode up to his new workplace, a plantation. A hell for blacks and a place whose owners demanded war to keep their rights to own people while not fighting in the war themselves.
To take control of this place went against everything he believed in as an abolitionist. But as General Howard explained, it had everything the bureau needed to expand their work; access to the black population, food, shelter, workers.
It was the last part that stuck in his craw. All he knew of the plantation was that the majority of the blacks were house slaves, ill-suited for working the land. That meant he could not simply send them away. They would still be under his employ.
He sighed and hurried his horse along. He found it odd that there were no farms near the plantation. Most of the farms he saw on the way there were owned by poor whites. A question for later.
As he approached the estate of the plantation, Marv saw a tall lady waiting for him. Dismounting from his horse, he dusted off his boots by kicking the ground and greeted her with hand outstretched. "Good evening, lady. I'm—"
"The new master," she said, bowing her head. "A pleasure to meet you."
She wasn't wrong. Still, he was caught off guard.
"This is temporary, I assure you."
The lady raised her head. Standing in front of her, Marv could see was just a pinky taller than himself and that she was black, though very light-skinned.
"I hope not," she said. "Call me Mia, sir."
"Mia, you are mistress of this house?"
