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The Persistent Use of Forced Labor in the Postbellum South

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The Persistent Use of Forced Labor in the Postbellum South University of Nevada, Reno “Wringing Their Bread from the Sweat of Other Men’s Faces” The Persistent Use of Forced Labor in the Postbellum South A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Judicial Studies by Reba Ann Page Dr. James T. Richardson/Dissertation Advisor May, 2017 Copyright © by Reba Ann Page 2017 All Rights Reserved THE GRADUATE SCHOOL We recommend that the dissertation prepared under our supervision by REBA ANN PAGE entitled “Wringing Their Bread from The Sweat of Other Men’s Faces” The Persistent Use of Forced Labor In The Postbellum South be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY James T. Richardson, J.D., Ph.D., Advisor James Ming Chen, J.D., Committee Member David Cuillier, Ph.D., Committee Member Dana Chandler, Ph.D., Committee Member Greta de Jong, Ph.D., Graduate School Representative David W. Zeh, Ph. D., Dean, Graduate School May, 2017 i ABSTRACT The Mistreatment of Blacks in the 1927 Mississippi River Flood Mississippi Levee Been workin’ on de levee, Workin’ like a tuck-tail dog Workin’ on de levee Like a tuck-tail dog. When this flood is over, Gonna sleep like a water-log. Don’t know why I build this levee And de levee don’t do no good. Don’t know why I build this levee When de levee don’t do no good. I pack a million bags o’ sand But de water still makes a flood. Levee, levee. How high have you got to be? Levee, levee, How high have you got to be To keep them cold muddy waters From washin’ over me? Langston Hughes.1 For many, “involuntary servitude” is intellectually understood as unconstitutional; it is viewed as a vague legal concept that is difficult to define. For its prey, “involuntary servitude” is a harmful and damaging reality in which they are forced to work for another and prevented from leaving. For black refugees of the great 1927 Mississippi River flood in Greenville, Mississippi, it seemed a nightmare return to slave-like conditions that were forbidden by law if not custom after the Civil War. This dissertation examines the events that took place, and key people who affected them, against the backdrop of three centuries of American law that facilitated or forbade the use of coerced labor, particularly against those of African American descent. Specific legal topics and relevant caselaw assessed include the development of slavery in colonial and post- 1 LANGSTON HUGHES , THE COLLECTED WORKS OF LANGSTON HUGHES . THE POEMS : 1941-1950 39 (University of Missouri Press) (2001). The poet was inspired by a 1920 journey from Harlem to Mexico, as his train crossed the Mississippi River en route. ROBERT BURLEIGH , LANGSTON ’S TRAIN RIDE (Orchard Books) (2004). Correspondence between Langston Hughes and Thomas Monroe Campbell found at the Tuskegee University Archives Repository, Tuskegee, Alabama (Tuskegee Archives) in the Thomas Monroe Campbell Papers (TMC Papers) shows that Hughes and Campbell were acquainted. ii revolutionary America; coerced labor and emerging civil rights as consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction; the use of racially-motivated violence to subvert freedmen’s rights; and President Theodore Roosevelt’s peonage investigation, which led to landmark decisions and new views on debt enslavement and misused convict labor as surrogates for chattel slavery. The dissertation builds on this historic legal framework to explore the question of whether Greenville’s black refugees were illegally victimized or simply mistreated within harsh but acceptable social norms. 1. Introduction to the Flood The devastation wrought by the 1927 Mississippi River flood remains almost beyond imagination. While official tallies are suspect, at least 245 people drowned, and a land mass exceeding 26,000 square miles spread over seven states was inundated by waters up to 80 miles wide;2 a map of the affected area is provided in figure (2). 3 This was a cataclysmic natural event with geopolitical consequences that are little acknowledged, yet are still experienced today. Repercussions spurred an increasing number of African Americans to move from the South, and undermined the power of the Republican Party. The overwhelming task of meeting the needs of those affected by this overwhelming natural catastrophe helped change official disaster policy from a primary reliance upon charitable organizations, to greater federal funding and support for relief and recovery. The human toll of the floodwaters was compounded by racialized abuses in segregated refugee camps that were established by the American Red Cross (ARC). Black victims’ pleas for help went unmet until “leaks” to the northern “Negro press” ignited public outcry. When this 2 AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS , THE FINAL REPORT OF THE COLORED ADVISORY COMMISSION : MISSISSIPPI VALLEY FLOOD DISASTER 8 (1927). (CAC Final Report). 3 Map accessed on April 17, 2017 at http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger image.html?i=/publications/prologue/2007/spring/images/coast-miss-flood l.jpg&c=/publications/prologue/2007/spring/images/coast-miss-flood.caption.html. iii scandal threatened to derail U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover’s presidential aspirations and diminish desperately needed donations, the ARC convened a “Colored Advisory Commission” (CAC) comprised of representatives from Tuskegee Institute and other leading African Americans to investigate the charges. CAC member Thomas Monroe Campbell (1883- 1956) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the son of slaves, handled particularly sensitive matters in Mississippi. This included controversial orders issued by local relief committee chairman William Alexander (Will) Percy (1885-1942) of Greenville, Mississippi, one of the white planter elite, to detain local African Americans in a “concentration” camp under armed guard. Similar encampments were formed along the length of the river, with similar maltreatment. The CAC was instrumental in improving conditions, but Hoover later reneged on reforms he offered in exchange for receiving more positive press. 2. The Flood as a Snapshot of Southern Society: Racial Prejudice and Forced Labor While not isolated instances, the wrongs at Greenville were among the flood’s most politically explosive in a “Jim Crow” South that perpetuated racial subordination. 4 The situation there and at other river towns provides a snapshot of life in the American South of that era, and the effects of longtime discrimination against African Americans. The tragedy of the flood was compounded by the fact that the coercive tactics were common, and unremarkable measures that were (at least to the white population) accepted practice. In striving to put events in perspective, this dissertation delves into significant judicial decisions on the persistent use of forced labor in the South and the civil rights of enslaved and emancipated African Americans. It begins with involuntary and contractual forms of servitude during the colonial era, and continues through 1927, the year of the Mississippi River flood. 4 C. Vann Woodward explained that “The origin of the term ‘Jim Crow’ is lost to obscurity. A song entitled ‘Jim Crow’ [was] written in 1832 and [] the phrase was used as an adjective for segregation statutes and customs by 1838.” C. VANN WOODWARD , THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW 7 (Oxford University Press 2 nd rev.) (1966). iv Additionally, the work references contemporaneous ancillary writings to furnish social context. The examination brings together legal enactments and rulings, the power of the pen, and history. It draws upon original source documents of the CAC and Campbell’s personal papers. Section 1, “Setting the Stage,” provides an overview of the 1927 flood, the ARC, and the CAC. Background information is provided for Campbell and Percy and their families; the flood marked a signal event in their lives, and each went on to larger careers and wider influence. 3. Linking the Flood to the Dissertation The title of this dissertation is taken from the second inaugural address of President Abraham Lincoln on March 4, 1865. He invoked Biblical imagery in speaking against those who strove to benefit from the labor of a subjugated people. The former were those who, as Lincoln paraphrased Genesis 3:19, 5 were guilty of “wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces.” The title is apropos, as it was the “Great Emancipator” 6 who is credited by many as a central political figure in helping African Americans achieve freedom. 7 The road proved 5 The full text of Genesis 3:19 in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is as follows: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” 6 Lincoln became known as the “Great Emancipator” following his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and his continuing fight for abolition. Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and the Abolitionists , 24 THE WILSON QUARTERLY 58 (2000). 7 Historian Ira Berlin cautioned that it is important to remember that Lincoln neither acted alone to achieve emancipation nor was he entirely the figure popularly portrayed in fiction and film: “The demise of slavery was not so much a proclamation as a movement; not so much an occasion as a complex history with multiple players and narratives.” Berlin credited free and enslaved blacks who, for over a century, worked to end chattel slavery, and described their persistent efforts in reshaping American society. They resisted enslavement by actively and passively refusing to accept masters’ control, and sought citizenship grounded in equality and liberty. IRA BERLIN , THE LONG EMANCIPATION : THE DEMISE OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES (Harvard University Press) (2015). Berlin observed that, just as blacks knew that freedom could only be achieved by the destruction of slavery, Lincoln and others came to understand that this would “require[] every bit as much brutality as the making of slavery.” Lincoln said in his second inaugural address that “‘justice would not be achieved until … every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.’” ( Id .
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