Slavery by Another Name (85 page)

Advertiser, July 22, 1903, p. 2.

2. Ernest H. Hill to Reese, July 15, 1903, Miscellaneous Papers, Peonage Files, File

76904, EPRRC.

3. Thomas Dixon Jr., The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden

(New York: P. F. Collier, 1902), pp. 381–84.

4. Thomas Nelson Page, The Negro: The Southerner's Problem (New York: Charles

Scribner's Sons, 1904), p. 64.

5. Montgomery Advertiser, April 25, 1903, p. 1.

6. Ibid.; Nation, Aug. 19, 1903, p. 1.

7. William Hannibal Thomas, The American Negro (New York: Macmillan, 1901),

cited in Page, p. 82.

8. Montgomery Advertiser, April 26, 1903, p. 1.

9. Dadeville Spot Cash, May 15, 1903.

10. Montgomery Advertiser, May 21, 1903, p. 4.

11. Ibid., June 5, 1903, quoting Columbus Enquirer-Sun, p. 4.

12. William A. Sinclair, The Aftermath of Slavery (Boston: Small, Maynard &

Company, 1905), pp. 221–22.

13. Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume, Ota: The Pygmy in the Zoo (New

York: St. Martin's, 1992).

14. Montgomery Advertiser, June 10, 1903, p. 1.

15. Proceedings: Joint Committee of the Senate and House to Investigate the

Convict Lease System of Georgia, Vol. 1, transcripts of rst meeting, Gaither

testimony, pp. 187–97, GDAH.

16. New York Times, July 21, 1903.

17. Montgomery Advertiser, April 10, 1903, p. 1.

18. J. E. Sistrunk to Department of Justice, July 6, 1903, Peonage Files, EPRRC.

19. Montgomery Advertiser, April 16, 1903, p. 1.

20. Ibid., May 17, 1903, p. 1.

21. Ibid., May 16, 1903, p. 1.

22. New York Times, July 5, 1903.

23. Associated Press, July 5, 1903.

24. New York Times, July 13, 14, 1903.

25. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903 (New York: Dover, 1994), pp.

23, 65.

1. New York Times, July 25, 1903.

2. Dadeville Spot Cash, July 31, 1903.

3. Ibid., Aug. 14, 1903, publishing Tallapoosa County Grand Jury report, July 27,

1903.

4. Ibid., Aug. 28, 1903: “W. W. Pearson, who was one of the attorneys for the

Cosbys, says he will petition Judge Jones to commute their sentence. It will be

remembered that they plead guilty to charges of peonage against them and were

sent to the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta to serve a year and a day. It is agreed that

their penalty is too severe and the late deliverances of the court show it to be

inclined to mercy and it is thought that the petition will meet with favor…. The

citizens of Tallapoosa county are signing petitions for the release of the Cosbys

now in prison in Atlanta …claimed that the petition will go up with at least 3000

names signed to it.”

5. Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 14, 1903: “The state convict inspectors are

surprised at the county commissioners of Tallapoosa county in awarding the

convict labor contract of that county to J. W. Pace. Pace had the county convicts at

the time he was arrested for peonage. He is now under sentence of ve years but

the sentence has been suspended by Judge Jones of the US court.”

6. Nation, Aug. 19, 1903, p. 1; New York Times, Nov. 23, 1903.

7. M. D. Wickersham to Attorney General, Sept. 21, 1903, File 5280, 14901,

Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

8. Catherine McRee Carter, “History of Kinderlou, Georgia, 1860–1940,”

unpublished typescript, December 1940, in possession of author.

9. “The New Slavery in the South, An Autobiography,” Independent, February 25,

1904, pp. 409–14.

10. Affidavit of Henry C. Dickey, Nov. 24, 1903, EPRRC.

11. Kinsey File, Department of Justice, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

12. Affidavit of Edward McRee, Nov. 24, 1903, EPRRC.

13. Opinion of Judge Emory Speer, U.S. v. McClellan and Crawley, March 17, 1904,

EPRRC.

14. Akerman to Attorney General, March 27, 1905, EPRRC.

15. Sternfeld to Reese, Nov. 12, 1903, ff 5280-17119, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

16. L. R. Farmer to Attorney General, Nov. 17, 1903, 3098-1902, Peonage Files,

RG60, NA:

Morganton N.C., Dear Sir, i write you for information i have a little girl

that has been kidnapped from me and is now under bondage in Ga and I

cant get her out only her but no of others i want ask you is it law for

people to whip (col) people and keep them and not allow them to leave

without a pass my reason for writing you is the people in Ga wont do any

thing with him and if the negroes tell any thing they will beat them to

death and they are a fraid to test e against him because cary them write

back and beat them to death and some of them has beened killed trying to

get away from their and i got a little girl there and get her a way from

their if you could inform me please to write me how can tell me the

proper one over p.s. you pleas ans me at once this little of mine is begging

me to come after and i write you for information i have tried to get outte

a write of habeaus corpus and that could not get her you will nd stamp

for the ans

Rev. L.R. Farmer pastor of Baps of this place

17. Attorney General to Farmer, Nov. 18, 1903, Peonage Files, 3098-1902, RG60,

NA.

18. New York Times, Dec. 4, 1904.

19. Wilcox Progressive Era, Jan. 14, 1904, transcribed by Stephen Lee, Dec. 2003,

ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/al/wilcox/vitals/marriages/gmr12melton.txt.

20. J. R. Adams to Attorney General, Feb. 23, 1904, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

21. Ibid.

22. U.S. Commissioner to W. H. Armbrecht, Feb. 13, 1904, Peonage Files, RG60,

NA.

23. Galveston News, Dec. 27, 1903; Atlanta Constitution, Dec. 29–31, 1903.

24. Nation, Jan. 14, 1904; BTW to Edward Henry Clement, Dec. 30, 1903, BTW

Papers.

25. Finch to Attorney General, Feb. 18, 1904, File 5280-03, ff 29562, RG60, NA.

26. Reese to Attorney General, March 2, 1904, File 5280-03, ff 29606, RG60, NA.

27. Indictment of Alex D. Stephens, Miscellaneous Papers, Peonage Files, File

76904, EPRRC.

28. Akerman to Attorney General, April 14, 1904, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

29. Acting Attorney General to Reese, June 24, 1904, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

30. Reese to Attorney General, Aug. 23, 1904, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

31. Clyatt v. U.S., 197 U.S. 207 (1905).

32. Jamison v. Wimbish, 130 F. 351, 355–57 (S.D. Ga. 1904) (Speer, J.).

33. Reese to Attorney General, March 25, 1905; Attorney General to Reese, March

27, 1905; File 5280-03, ff 53321, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

34. Reese to Attorney General, March 27, 1905, File 5280-03, 53574, Peonage

Files, RG60, NA.

35. “Susanna” to Jones, July 3, 1905, Miscellaneous Papers, Peonage Files, File

76904, EPRRC. Susanna said a store clerk named C. L. Waldrup had detailed

information on the slavery ring; one of the black laborers being held was Dick

Gray, the same name of one of the men captured in the John Pace slavery network

ve years earlier. Susanna didn't know the names of others, but said all were held

against their will, tracked down if they attempted to leave, and forced back to the

turpentine operation at gunpoint.

36. Reese to W. H. Moody, March 27, 1905, Peonage Files, RG60, NA.

37. Reese to BTW, Feb. 1, 1905, BTW Papers.

38. Attorney General to Reese, April 5, 1905, File 5280-03, 53574, Peonage

Files, RG60, NA.

39. Atlanta Constitution, March 18, 1905, p. 3.

40. Ibid., Oct. 29, 1905, p. 2; Aug. 12, 1906, p. 6.

41. Ibid., Oct. 26, 1905.

42. Ibid., Oct. 31, 1905, p. 2; Nov. 1, p. 5.

43. Author's collection.

44. Atlanta Constitution, March 16, 1906, p. 7.

45. Ibid., Nov. 6, 1905, p. 7.

46. Ibid., Oct. 16, 1905, p. 1; Oct. 29, 1905, p. 2.

1. David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 (New

York: Henry Holt, 1993), pp. 354–59, 436–39.

2. R. H. Ellis, “The Calhoun School, Miss Charlotte Thorn's ‘Lighthouse on the Hill’

in Lowndes County, Alabama,” Alabama Review 37, no. 3 (1984): 183–201.

3. Jonathan Grossman, “Black Studies in the Department of Labor, 1897–1907,”

Monthly Labor Review, June 1974.

4. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing

My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (New York: International

Publishers, 1968), pp. 226–77.

5. Du Bois to Charles P. Neill, Nov. 2, 1906, Du Bois Papers, University of

Massachusetts, cited in Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, p. 354.

6. Du Bois, Autobiography, p. 227.

7. Atlanta Constitution, Sept. 20, 21, 22, 1906.

8. For the de nitive account of the Atlanta race riot, see Mark Bauerlein,

Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 (San Francisco: Encounter, 2001).

9. Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 12, 1906, p. 7.

10. Lewis, p. 355.

11. Du Bois, Autobiography, p. 227.

12. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Quest of the Silver Fleece (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.,

1911).

13. Jamison v. Wimbish; Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 17, 1905.

14. Pete Daniel, The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South, 1901–1969 (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 1972), p. 62.

CHAPTER XI : NEW SOUTH RISING

1. Born Sept. 1885, 1900 Census.

2. Fourth Biennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1,

1900, to August 31, 1902 (Montgomery: Brown Printing, 1902), ADAH.

3. Register of Prisoners Committed to the County Jail of Shelby County, 096-1, p.

172, SCHS; Schedule of Convicts obtained by Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co.

from Shelby County, second quarter 1904, SCHS.

4. J. A. MacKnight, “Columbiana: The Gem of the Hills,” c. 1907, published by the

Shelby County Sentinel, SCHS.

5. In June 1892, George W. Vines, superintendent of town schools, posted a notice

inviting “all white persons interested in the welfare of the Dadeville High School”

to assemble at the courthouse to select new leadership of the public school system.

6. Photograph file, SCHS.

7. MacKnight, p. 20.

8. Will Lewis was taken before Judge A. P. Longshore in February 1908. He had

taken $25 to sign a contract in the fall of 1906 agreeing to work in another local

lime kiln, this one owned by C. L. O’Neal. Three months later, he tried to leave, and

O’Neal took out a warrant for false pretense.

9. “Contract on Confession of Judgment Record,” 1903–1913, SCHS.

10. Register of Prisoners Committed to Jail, 1890–1906, SCHS, analysis by author.

11. “Contract on Confessions of Judgment Record.”

12. MacKnight's publicity pamphlet for Columbiana captured a full portrait of the

town's mercantile, legal, and political elite, all of which bene ted in some respect

from the county's active trade in forced labor. D. R. McMillan, predecessor of

Longshore as probate judge, was another of the town's most prominent attorneys.

The son of a cotton planter ruined by the Civil War, he studied law during

Reconstruction and arrived in Columbiana in 1886 to form a law practice with

former Alabama governor Rufus Cobb. By 1907, he was in partnership with J. J.

Haynes, the rising young man among lawyers in the province. The people of

Columbiana were particularly proud of their new “free school,” funded by the

town council and available to any white children living in the city limits. Milner &

Armstrong operated a steam-powered sawmill near the rail line on the outskirts of

Columbiana. Rufus Lester had arrived in Shelby as a young farmer and then taken

work in a general store, weighing sugar and measuring out calico for yeoman

families. He had risen to become owner of the business and a major buyer of

cotton for mills he owned. John S. Pitts was the county's longtime tax collector, the

right-hand man in politics of Judge Longshore. W. R. A. Milner, deputy to Sheri

Fulton, was a respected Confederate veteran.

13. Sixth Biennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1,

1904, to August 31, 1906 (Montgomery, 1906), ADAH.

14. Fifth Biennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1,

1902, to August 31, 1904 (Montgomery, Ala.: Brown Printing, 1904), ADAH.

15. Sixth Biennial Report, 1906.

16. Ibid.

17. W. David Lewis, Sloss Furnaces and the Rise of the Birmingham District: An

Industrial Epic (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994), p. 310.

18. Birmingham Age-Herald, Aug. 2, 1900, cited in Lewis, Sloss Furnaces, p. 251.

19. Justin Fuller, “History of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, 1852–

1907” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1966), pp. 273–74.

20. Birmingham Age-Herald, Aug. 2, 1900, cited in Lewis, Sloss Furnaces, p. 251.

21. W. F. Tyler to Eagle & Phoenix Mfg. Co., Oct. 18, 1899, original in possession

of author.

22. Erskine Ramsey to H. C. Frick, Aug. 7, 1903, File 1.1.11, p. 88, BPLA.