James Lee Dickey: An Analysis of One African-American's Leadership in Jim Crow Texas

Peonage

Freed slaves had an enormous obstacle to cross in order to survive. Since they no longer had the necessities of life provided by their owners, they had to provide for themselves. They had no money for food, they had no capital to start a business nor the knowledge to run it, nor did their former masters have money to hire them. Since farming was the most common skill amongst slaves and landowners desperately needed someone to farm the fallow fields, former masters divided uptheir land between workers and established their own fiefdom. The freedman would work he land for his former master in exchange for a share of the crop. The cost of seed, rent of mule and plow and any other necessities would be taken out as a “deduct” when the tenant brought in the harvest. The arrangement was legalized with a contract in which the tenant may negotiate for a third or a fourth of the crop’s value. The problem was, most freedmen couldn’t read the contract nor compute the figures resulting in increasing indebtedness to the landowner. Black codes prevented tenants from transferring to a different landowner thus Negroes traded slavery for peonage. The situation essentially bound the freedman to the landowner again, this time without the responsibility of care.
 

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