Slavery by Another Name
Page 61
10. Thomas L. Cochran to R. H. Dawson, Nov. 23, 1887, Administrative
Correspondence, 1881–1897, Dawson Letter Books. Correspondence of the
Inspectors of the Penitentiary, Department of Corrections, ADAH.
11. Shelby County Record of Prisoners, April 11, 1878, to October 11, 1878, SCHS.
12. History of the Penitentiary, Special Message of Gov. Cobb, 1882, pp. 357–58,
ADAH.
13. For an excellent examination of the dialogue between Archey and Dawson, see
Mary Ellen Curtin, Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865–1900
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000).
14. Ezekiel Archey to R. H. Dawson, Pratt Mines, Jan. 18, 1884, Dawson Letter
Books, ADAH.
15. Curtin, p. 69.
16. Testimony of Jno. D. Goode, Testimony Taken by the Joint Special Committee
of the Session of 1880–81 to Enquire into the Condition and Treatment of Convicts
of the State (Montgomery, Ala., 1881), ADAH.
17. Curtin, p. 69.
18. Ethel Armes, The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama (Birmingham: Chamber of
Commerce, 1910), p. 110.
19. Marjorie Longenecker White, The Birmingham District: An Industrial History
and Guide (Birmingham: Birmingham Publishing, 1981).
20. New York Times, Dec. 17, 1882; cited in Curtin, p. 70.
21. Curtin, p. 75.
22. Biennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, 1880–1882
(Montgomery, Ala.: Barrett & Brown, 1882), ADAH.
23. Cobb, Penitentiary, pp. 357–58.
24. Dawson to B. F. Porter, June 21, 1883; to B. H. Warren, June 30, 1883, Dawson
Letter Books, ADAH.
25. Armes, p. 196.
26. Curtin, p. 83.
27. Dawson to Simon O’Neal, Judge of the Probate, Russell County, May 23, 1883,
Dawson Letter Books, ADAH.
28. Dawson to Judge Allston, Aug. 27, 1883, Dawson Letter Books, ADAH.
29. Annual Report of Inspectors, 1878.
30. Lewis McCurdy, of Lowndesboro, Ala., telephone interview with the author,
Aug. 29, 2003
31. Dawson diary entries, Diary of Reginald Heber Dawson, 1883–1906, July 5, 13,
1883, folder 1, ADAH.
32. Dawson to Simon O’Neal, Sept. 10, 1883, A. S. Williams Collection, Eufaula
Athenaeum; Dawson to L. A. J. Cumlie, Sept. 25, 1883, Dawson Letter Books, ADAH.
33. Curtin, pp. 84–88.
34. Convicts at Hard Labor, 1883.
35. Dawson Diary, July 10, 1885, ADAH.
36. Curtin, p. 88.
37. Minutes of the Board of Inspectors, 1883–1913, Department of Corrections,
ADAH.
38. Dawson Diary, July 11, 1883, ADAH.
39. Ibid., Nov. 14, 21, 1883.
40. Ibid., May 22, 1887.
41. Convict Legislation and Rules, 1882–1883, ADAH.
42. Testimony of Pratt payroll agent Justin Collins, Nov. 16, 1883, U.S. Congress,
Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, 49th Cong., 2nd Session, Testimony
Before the Committee to Investigate the Relations Between Capital and Labor 4:441,
cited in Curtin, p. 86.
43. A. T. Henley to R. H. Dawson, Dec. 7, 1883, Dawson Letter Books, ADAH.
44. Ezekiel Archey to R. H. Dawson, Jan. 18, 1884, Dawson Letter Books, ADAH.
45. Milner to Dawson, June 10, 1885, Dawson Letter Books, ADAH.
46. Minutes of the Shelby County Commission, December 1880, SCHS.
47. Shelby County Record of Prisoners, April 18, 1879, to Oct. 1, 1888, SCHS.
48. Shelby County Commission Minutes, July 9, 1883, SCHS.
49. Shelby County Commission Minutes, Feb. 2, 1883, SCHS. Elliott received
approval for $43.50 for fees related to state cases he had adjudged; warrants
totaling $94.65 for work in circuit court cases were also approved.
50. Shelby County Minutes, Feb. 11, 1884, SCHS.
51. J. A. MacKnight, “Columbiana: The Gem of the Hills” (Columbiana, Ala.: Shelby
County Sentinel, circa 1907), pp. 5–6.
52. Shelby County Record of Prisoners, Aug. 17, 1884, to May 16, 1886, SCHS.
53. 1880 Census, Bibb County; Bibb County Commission Minutes, July 1881,
BCCH.
54. Ibid.
55. Bibb County Commission Minutes, Oct. 8, 1881, BCCH.
56. Bibb County Commission Minutes, Oct. 31, 1881, BCCH.
57. Bibb County Commission Minutes, Feb. 13, 1893; Feb. 11, 1895, BCCH.
CHAPTER IV: GREEN COTTENHAM’S WORLD
1. Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1936), 2: 853–54.
2. Nation, April 5, 1877.
3. C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction (New York: Little, Brown, 1951).
4. 1890 Census.
5. Second Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1886: Convict Labor
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1887).
6. Investigations regarding James M. Smith, Peonage Files, Cases 10935, 16214,
18205, RG60, NA (5280).
7. “Interview with John Hill, April 27, 1938,” Slave Narratives: A Folk History of
Slavery in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1941), Georgia
Narratives, Vol. 4, Part 2.
8. Alex Lichtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of
Convict Labor in the New South (London: Verso, 1996), p. 48; William Andrew
Todd, “Convict Lease System,” New Georgia Encyclopedia, December 2005.
9. Proceedings: Joint Committee of the Senate and House to Investigate the Convict
Lease System of Georgia, Vol. 1, 1908, GDAH.
10. Augusta Chronicle, Jan. 3, 1891.
11. Robert Perkinson, “Hell Exploded: Prisoner Writing and the Fall of Convict
Leasing in Texas,” unpublished, Sept. 2002.
12. David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
(Cambridge: Harvard University, 2001), p. 308.
13. Ibid., p. 309.
14. Ethel Armes, The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama (Birmingham: Chamber of
Commerce, 1910), p. 422.
15. Ibid., p. 423.
16. Second Biennial Report of the Inspectors of Convicts, Oct. 1, 1886, to Sept. 30,
1888 (Montgomery: W. D. Brown & Co., 1888), ADAH.
17. First Biennial Report of the Inspectors of Convicts, October 1, 1884, to October
1, 1886 (Montgomery: Barrett & Co., 1886), ADAH.
18. Proceedings: Joint Committee of the Senate and House to Investigate the
Convict Lease System of Georgia, Vol. 1: 4, 9, GDAH; also Atlanta Constitution,
June 24, 1891, p. 6.
19. Second Biennial Report of Inspectors, 1888.
20. Birmingham Daily News, May 23, 1891.
21. Third Biennial Report of the Inspectors of Convicts, Oct. 1, 1888, to Sept. 30,
1890 (Montgomery: Brown Printing, 1890), pp. 14–15.
22. Ibid., p. 15.
23. Ibid., pp. 20–21.
24. Ibid., pp. 242–45.
25. 1904 map of site, BPLA.
26. Third Biennial Report, 1890, pp. 242–45, 262.
27. Ibid., p. 53. Nicholson, the chaplain, boasted of the 197 sermons he had given
in the prior year at various convict camps and attendance of more than one
hundred regularly for a Sunday school at the Pratt Mines. A separate school at
Slope No. 2 prison attracted even larger crowds, he said.
28. Ibid., p. 226.
29. Ibid., pp. 78, 227.
30. Message of Thos. E. Kilby, Governor, Relative to Feeding of Prisoners,
Legislative Document No. 3, Alabama Legi
slature, Jan. 15, 1923 (Montgomery:
Brown Printing, 1923), author's collection; Bush citation, p. 5; “Starvation”
reference is from Dr. Glenn Andrews, quoted p. 6.; “Pale and anemic” reference
from Dr. C. H. Smith, quoted p. 7.
31. Author's analysis of Convict Record, Barbour County, Barbour County
Courthouse, Clayton, Ala.
32. G. Bridges to Lewis Grant, Feb. 24, 1891, Sheriff's Loose Papers File, SCHS.
33. Grant to Bridges, undated, Sheriff's Loose Papers File, SCHS.
34. J. McMillan to Grant, undated; P. J. Rogers to Grant, April 9, 1891, Sheri 's
Loose Papers Files, SCHS.
35. Postcard dated April 21, 1891, Sheriff's Loose Papers File, SCHS.
36. F. E. Bur tt to Grant, May 26, 1891; J. Rowland to Grant, May 27, 1891; W. B.
Fulton to Grant, Nov. 23, 1891, Sheriff's Loose Papers File, SCHS.
37. By the end of 1892, Sheri Grant had amassed scores of such letters and
telegrams, enough to stuff six file folders.
38. P. J. Rogers to L. T. Grant, April 10 and May 6, 1891, SCHS.
39. John Milner, “White Men of Alabama Stand Together,” Pamphlet Collection,
1890, ADAH.
40. Montgomery Advertiser, Feb. 2, 1889.
41. Horace Mann Bond, Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994), p. 142, citing H. Paul Douglass,
Christian Reconstruction in the South (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1909), pp. 122–23.
42. Bond, pp. 160–61.
43. Ibid., p. 162.
44. Annual Report, Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company, Reports to Board of
Directors: Dec. 19, 1892. Cahaba Coal Mining Company conveyed to Tennessee
Coal, Iron & Railroad 44,000 acres in lower Cahaba coal basin, fteen miles of
standard gauge railroad track with appurtenant equipment, 467 coke ovens, 575
tenement houses, stores, and telephone lines, and seven coal mines in active
operation with a daily capacity of 3,000 tons; Rogers to G. B. McCormack, April 14,
1894, Letterbooks of Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad, 1893–1895, A. S. Williams
Collection, Eufaula Athenaeum, Eufaula, Ala.
45. First Biennial Report of Inspectors, 1896.
46. Shelby County Record of Prisoners, Oct. 19, 1890, to Aug. 20, 1906, SCHS.
47. Third Biennial Report of Inspectors, 1890, pp. 54–65.
48. Ibid., pp. 242–45.
49. Thomas D. Parke, “Report by Dr. Thos. D. Parke, MD,” and the subsequent
exchange of claims by Judson Davie and Thomas Seddon regarding Sloss-
She eld's Coalburg prison are compiled in First Biennial Report of Inspectors,
1896.
50. Report of Special Committee to Investigate Convict System, Alabama
Legislature, 1897, ADAH.
51. Second Biennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1,
1896, to August 30, 1898 (Montgomery: Roemer Printing, 1898), ADAH.
52. Fourth Biennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1,
1900, to August 31, 1902 (Montgomery: Brown Printing, 1904), ADAH.
53. “Jefferson County Circuit Court Convict Docket, 1902–1903,” BPLA.
54. Ibid.
55. Fifth Biennial Report of the Board of Inspectors of Convicts, September 1,
1902, to August 31, 1904 (Montgomery, Ala.: Brown Printing, 1904), ADAH.
56. Shelby County Poll Tax Book, 1890, SCHS.
57. 1900 Census, Alabama, Shelby County, ED 120, Precinct No. 4 (June 20, 1900).
CHAPTER V: THE SLAVE FARM OF JOHN PACE
1. Montgomery Advertiser, May 30, 1903, p. 1.
2. 1900 Census, Coosa County, Nixburg beat.
3. O cial Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Alabama,
May 21–Sept. 3, 1901 (Wetampka, Ala.: 1940).
4. Horace Mann Bond, Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994), p. 175.
5. Affidavit of John Davis, May 9, 1903, RG60, File 76904, EPRRC.
6. Affidavit of J. L. London, May 14, 1903, RG60, File 76904, EPRRC.
7. Davis affidavit.
8. Robert Crew Smith, The Coming of the Railroad, privately published compilation
of family historical material, Goodwater, Ala., Goodwater Public Library, Genealogy
Section, n.d., p. 103.
9. Dana David White, “An Unforgettable Character,” in Coming of the Railroad, p.
113.
10. Montgomery Advertiser, July 3, 1903.
11. Deed of Property, Known as “Old Dorster Edwards place,” 1900, Tallapoosa
County Deed Books, TCC.
12. C. A. Abernathy, “The Birth of Calcis: Founding of Calcis, Turner Brothers,
Justice Store, and Our ‘Historical’ House: The Community, Its Historical
Importance, and Our Family Ties to It,” copy of unpublished typescript, Nov. 1,
1992, in possession of author.
13. Compilation by the author, based on a davits in U.S. v. Pace; U.S. v. Franklin;
U.S. v. Turner; U.S. v. Cosby; EPRRC.
14. Montgomery Advertiser, May 30, 1903, p. 1.
15. A davit of J. W. Pace, May 11, 1903, Department of Justice, File 76904,
EPRRC.
16. Sevi Pearson contract, April 28, 1885.
17. Text from April 24, 1902, contract with a man name Patterson: “I further agree
to be locked up in the cell at night and that I will be obedient and faithful in the
discharge of every duty required of me by the said Pace or his agents, and that
should the said Pace advance me anything over and above what he had already
furnished me, I agree to work for him under this contract until I have paid for
same in full, working at the rate of ve dollars per month. I agree that if I fail to
comply fully with all the obligations on my part under the contract that I will pay
the said Pace for all the cost and trouble he is put to in forcing to comply with the
same, including a reasonable attorney's fee for prosecuting or making me company
with this contract. I agree that should I fail to comply with all the requirements of
this contract on my part that said Pace is hereby authorized to hire me out to any
person, rm or corporation in the state of Alabama—at such sum as he may be
able to hire me at for a term su cient to pay him all that I may owe him,
including all cost and expense in making me do the work or apprehending and
arresting me if I escape.”
18. “Interview with Jim Threat, Nov. 4, 1937,” conducted by Jessie R. Ervin,
McAlester, Okla., Oklahoma Writers’ Project, Oklahoma Historical Society.
19. Convict Record, Autauga County Probate Clerk's Office.
20. Booker T. Washington, “Southern Prisons,” Feb. 18, 1886, letter to editor of
Southern Workman, BTW Papers, Vol. 2: 1860–1889 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1972), p. 296, http://www.historycooperative.org/btw.
21. Montgomery Daily Dispatch, Feb. 18, 1886.
22. Tallapoosa County Deed Books, August 1879. Pace paid $200 for two hundred
acres in Section 2. On Christmas Eve of 1883, he bought 200 acres for $200 in
Township 21. In November of 1886, Pace purchased 130 in Section 19, Township
21, Range 22. October 1886, he paid $200 to buy from J.B. and his wife another
portion of Section 28 in Township 21. In 1891, Pace paid $1,200 for four lots
facing the main street in Dadeville, Broadnax Street, one block away from the
antebellum county courthouse. Two years later, he bought a half interest i
n two
more lots on Broadnax, for $200. In 1893, he paid $1,000 for several lots in
Dadeville.
23. As part of a mining venture, late in May 1894 Pace paid for a half interest in
the minerals contained in a section of Section 16, Township 21.
24. Affidavit of J. M. Kennedy, May 30, 1903, File 76904, EPRRC.
25. Ibid.
26. Tallapoosa Voice, April 7, 1892.
27. Reprinted from Alliance Herald.
28. Ibid., Oct. 6, 1892.
29. Ibid., July 7, 1892: “The negro politicians have all been in town this week. A
majority of them will vote for Kolb for governor…. Stand rm to the nominees and
break down this e ort that is being made to have another ’80 campaign in our
county. A majority of the Democrats of our county have named their choice for
o cers—if you are a democrat vote that ticket.; there will be a picnic on R.S.
Patillos’ place in Red Ridge beat on the 20th of July. Everybody invited to come.
The men who have su ered their names to go before the people as independent
candidates have deliberately committed political suicide. Politically speaking the
four men put out on the 5th are as dead as door nails—funeral ceremonies will
occur on the first Monday in August.”
30. 1900 Census, Alabama, Tallapoosa County, Red Ridge District, pp. 1–27.
31. 1900 Census, Alabama, Tallapoosa County, Red Ridge District, p. 12. Mary
Smith was initially entered as a boarder but changed later to “servant,” thirtyseven
years old, married ten years, two children, listed as a cook; Maurice Cunningham,
initially entered as boarder but changed later to “servant,” nine years old, water
carrier with no schooling and unable to read or write; S. J. Harriet, convict,
twenty-eight; William Riddle, convict, twenty-eight years old; Archer Wiggins,
convict, thirty-two years old, married five years; Jack Armour, convict, twenty.
32. Warren S. Reese Jr. to Attorney General, March 22, 1905, Department of
Justice, Peonage Files, ff 5280-3, RG60, NA.
33. Affidavits, 1903, File 76904, EPRRC.
34. Affidavit of Joe Patterson, May 7, 1903, File 76909, EPRRC.
35. A davit of M. J. Scroggins, undated, Peonage Files, EPRRC. Dadeville Mayor's
Docket, Miscellaneous Papers, Peonage Files, File 76904, EPRRC.
36. Affidavit of Wheeler Stone, 1903, File 76904, EPRRC.
37. Compilation by the author of personal ledgers, bank records, and sworn
statements of African Americans who were seized and white men who captured