convict leasing Justifications, Critiques, and the Case for Reparations Courtney Howell Оковы тяжкие падут, Your heavy shackles will fall, Темницы рухнут - и свобода The prisons will crumble – and freedom Вас примет радостно у входа, will accept you joyously at the door, И братья меч вам отдадут. and your brothers will give back your sword. Aleksandr Pushkin, 1827 he first prisoner received by his two bricks to one of the piles the State of Florida into the at either end of the yard, place convict leasing system was them on the ground, pick up the Tan African-American man named other two bricks, and carry them Cy Williams. He was officially to the pile at the opposite end. entered into prison records as He continued this process for the “No. 1.” rather than by his name. entire day, always carrying two Williams did not know his own bricks at a time. Martin instructed age upon arrival, but one prison Williams to keep the piles of official’s memoir states that the bricks neat and warned him not boy had been convicted “when he to break any of them. If he failed was a mere pickaninny.” Though to keep his stack orderly, or if he not large enough to mount a damaged the bricks, he would horse, Williams nevertheless be whipped. He continued this attempted to steal one and the activity throughout his sentence authorities caught him while he and “grew up at the task” until was trying to lead it off by the given other labor assignments halter. For his crime, a judge “duly years later. Through the abrasion sentenced” Williams to twenty from simply picking the bricks years imprisonment. Malachi up and setting them down, Martin, the warden of the work Williams managed to wear out camp at the time, unsure at first four sets of bricks while carrying how to put such a small prisoner out his sentence. The state never to work, eventually came up with considered commuting Williams’ an idea. He placed a pile of two sentence, even after ten years of bricks at each of end of the prison service as protocol dictated; the yard while giving “the black proper avenues for commutation baby” two more. The warden were not in place at the camp then ordered Williams to carry because of inefficient leadership 57 and poor organizational between the abolition of slavery structures within the prison and the adoption of Jim Crow system. Eventually, however, laws, it is my contention that Williams received “gain time” and contemporaries of the system— only served seventeen years out both supporters and critics— of his twenty-year sentence.1 understood it instead as primarily The experiences of Cy a system of economic control Williams and of the countless that created social and labor other prisoners who passed inequalities. through convict labor camps in Florida were documented by “Slavery By Another Name” retired camp Captain J.C. Powell in his memoir The American Areas within the southern Siberia. In his book, Powell United States primarily utilized argues that the convict leasing the practice of convict leasing. system was an indispensable Though the ratification of the part of life in Florida. He thirteenth amendment of the maintains that convict leasing Constitution abolished slavery was necessary due to a lack of and involuntary servitude within free laborers in the state, while the country, it allowed for one also arguing that the conditions important exception: forced labor and policies of the camp were as punishment for being duly needed in order to maintain convicted of a crime.2 Because of control within the chaotic natural this exception, states subjected environment of Florida. Critics convicted persons to forced of the system challenged these labor even after the general views, however, and Powell end of slavery. Though some repeatedly acknowledges staunch northern states devised contracts opposition to convict leasing for convicted criminals and within local populations. Across required labor within the field of the country, both supporters and product manufacturing, systems opponents of the convict leasing of convict labor were more system engaged in a debate notorious and more pervasive about whether it was morally in the states of the South.3 permissibly, whether it was In southern states, convicts economically viable, and whether labored under the supervision it was effective from a reformative of private companies without perspective. That debate, and pay. In turn, these companies the rhetoric utilized within the or lessees were responsible for conversation, is the focus of this providing clothing, food, and paper. While modern scholarship living accommodations for posits that the convict leasing their leased prisoners. This system functioned as a form of 2. U.S. Constitution. Amend. XIII, Sec. racialized control that created 1. Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865. racial inequalities in the period Ratified on December 6, 1865. 3. John Roberts, “History of Prisons,” World 1. All information on Cy Williams pulled Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Correctional from: J. C. Powell, The American Siberia Systems (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale (Chicago, IL: H. J. Smith & Co., 1891), 15-16. Publishing, 2006) 74-86. 58 arrangement allowed southern to legitimize it as beneficial and states to deal with growing prison necessary, and how detractors populations without making of the system rationalized their the necessary adjustments to discontent. My work also infrastructure in order to support illustrates changes in sentiment them. Convicts were mainly regarding theories of punishment. put to work at privately owned The debates over the convict factories, mines, logging camps, leasing system examined in this and plantations.4 By the turn of paper encapsulate differences the century, convict leasing had in opinion over the scope and become an increasingly lucrative ultimate goal of imprisonment. but significantly abused system Free laborers and progressive of punishment. For example, social organizations critiqued prisons provided black prisoners the system because it created to companies for forced labor competition for employment and more often than white inmates, did not provide an acceptable who instead tended to serve their standard of living. Leaders within time within penitentiaries or the system and within other more jail cells.5 Additionally, leasing conservative spheres of society subjected convicts to hazardous defended it as an improvement working conditions due to a lack over both former systems and of legal safeguards.6 As a result other possible alternatives. My of growing opposition from paper also traces divisions in numerous fronts, the practice theories of punishment from the was officially discontinued in the perspective that hard labor serves 1920s. a reformative purpose to the notion that isolation is a better Purpose of Research means of punishment. I aim to expand upon these historical My research will contribute and philosophical perspectives to the existing literature on pertaining to questions of race, convict leasing by delving into labor, and morality as they relate how certain contemporaries of to convict leasing. the system—prison officials, employers, social organizations, Historical Perspectives and laborers—critiqued or defended its implementation, its Historians have argued that place in Southern society, and the changes that occurred within its final dismantlement. This the South’s social structure paper addresses how rhetoric was after the Civil War served as utilized by different supporters catalysts for the implementation of the convict leasing system of the convict leasing system. 4. Ibid. Prior to emancipation, slaves 5. Robert Atkinson, “Prison Labor Benefits occupied the lowest class of Inmates and the Economy.” How Should society. Reconstruction endowed Prisons Treat Inmates? Ed. Kristen Bailey, (San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2005). At freedmen with citizenship, which Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. subsequently presented the 6. Ibid. possibility for African-Americans 59 to be included within the social this new state function. They structure in terms of both living refused to spend money on their space and political influence. former slaves—even in the case The creation of Black Codes of imprisonment. Nonetheless, and the criminalization of black white communities desired behavior by post-Reconstruction stricter punitive measures that legislatures illuminated white would counter black mobility. discomfort and indignation Historians argue that a major toward this development. priority of white southerners was Legislatures reclassified certain the adoption of a penal system crimes from misdemeanors to that would be both self-sustaining felonies when they believed black and a tool for racialized control.9 offenders primarily committed Convict leasing became the the offenses.7 These developments system implemented to achieve that lead up to the adoption these goals. of the convict leasing system Scholars position the convict addressed a cultural need to leasing system’s place in Southern reinforce white supremacy after history at the intersection of emancipation. Because of this, racialized control and economic some scholars consider convict benefit on behalf of the state. The leasing a functional replacement implementation of convict leasing of slavery.8 The structure of the responded to the desire of white convict leasing system, in other southerners to establish a penal words, mimicked the economic system that would dole out the and racialized benefits of slavery maximum amount of punishment within the states of the South. at a minimal cost to taxpayers. Emancipation additionally Convict leasing allowed local altered the social order of the and state governments both to South by dismantling the discipline newly emancipated traditional structure of African-Americans whose punishment. Following the behavior did not adhere to white Civil War, the South needed an standards and to yet again reap expanded corrections system. the benefits of black labor as Under the previous system of they had prior to the Civil War. slavery, offenses committed by The system dually achieved the African Americans would have goals of discouraging African- been punished by masters.