The Dallas express. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970, 1921-04-23
PEONAGE IN LOUISIANA FOR LAST
20 YEARS.
Debts Are Created Which Bring
About Virtual SlaYery.
By ]. D. Savers in n. Y. Post.

Goods on the Landlords Account,
BY Allowing Negroes to Purchase
than the old chattel slavery exists to
this day in the South is not very
well known in the North and is sur
prisingly ignored in the South itself.
This, too, in spite of Lincoln's proc
lamation and the later Federal stat
| utes making it felony hold persons
in involuntary servitude for debts,
real or alleged. 1t would not be
true to say that there are no com
munities and many individual planters
and smaller farmers who are excep-
lions to this indictment of the cotton
raising South, but the following par
agraphs describe conditions at their
worst-and it is a very prevalent
worst.
The term Landlord" as here used
includes both large and small land
owners, for it is often the case that
small farmer holds a Negro family
in debt year after, or finally SELLS
the famiiy's account which of course
means the family, too, just the same
as the big plantation owner who
deals in many families.
The writer is a native of Louisiana,
rearer in an outlying agricultural
section where the Negro population
is three to every one of the whites.
Having grown up with peonage sys-
TEN, | naturally become familiar with
il as few men could who might 90
there from the North or even from
Southern cities to study the condi-
lions. Very recent visits and close
observation, purposely made, con-
vince me that conditions of peonage
are nearly as common and as much
condoned In my home State and gen
orally throughout the cotton raising
sections of the whole South as dur
ing my childhood, over twenty years
ago.
How PeOnage Starts.
Practically all the Negroes either
work for wages or work on shares"
that is, the owner furnishes the Negro
and his family land, animals, and
tools with which to work and the
tenant gives the landlord half hiscroD
for the use of the land, work animals,
and tools. AS soon as the young
Negro marries he begins working for
some land owner under these con-
ditions He never has enough in cash
ahead to buy everything in the way
of food and clothing that he and his
family need therefore he must go to
the landlord for these things. The
landlord either has a plantation store
or has arrangements made with the
nearby village or small town store
to credit the Negro and charge the
account to the landlord In the ma
jority of cases the Negro is unedu-
Gated and unable to keep an accurate
account of what he buys. He simply
trusts the landlord. Even if he has
an education and keeps an account;
he is not permitted to compare his
books with those kept by the land
lord. The account as kept by the
latter is the one the settlement is
based on at the end of the year when
the crop is sold.
If the Negro has bought five bacon
middlings for 40 cents a pound he is
charged up with fifteen or so, and
at much higher price than the reg
ular store price. He may have bought
a barrel of -four, but he must pay
for two or three at eXtortinate prices.
He may have ploughed in rocky
fields barefooted to save having tc
buy more than one pair of shoes.
but he finds at the end of the year
his memory has played a trick and
he has really, according to the store
account, enjoyed the luxury Of two
or three pairs of healthy priced
shoes. His wife may have gone
through the year with two cheap
calico dresses and find in December
that she has, in fact, dressed quite
sumptuously during the year-accord-
ing to the infallible store record.
Purchasing Negro Debts.
At the end of the year the Negro
may decide that he could do better
in some other locality and want to
move. He and the landlord make a
settlement. The Negroes part of the
crop is worth so much. The good
bookkeeping landlords accaunt a.
gainst the Negro is always considerab-
ly more, never less. If some other
landlord likes the Negroes style of
work we'll enough to pay the excess
account, he can have the Negro start
ing the latter in with a good sized
beginning of debt at the first of the
year. Frequently the buying land
lord bargains secretely a sort OF
split in the excess account charged
against the Negro. It often happens
that the buyer thinks the price, or,
speaking more automatically, the
account" of the Negro is out of
reason and a dispute between the
landlords is the result. Recent in
cidents of this character make the
telling of one of my earliest child
hood adventures appropriaty here.
A selling landlord had. an the opin-
ion of the buyer, asked too much.
The buyer declared he would move
the Negro and paying nothing unless
the seller would name reasonable
sum. The two with their respective
supporters, relatives and close sym
pathizers on each sl0e, gathered at
the Negroes cabin, the one group in
tending to move the Negro, the other
to prevent such action, Each side
was heavily equipped with Winches-
ters, double-action pistols, and shot
guns loaded with buckshot. From q
fence corner, where l had safely pre-
pared to dodge stray bullets, | heard
them patch it up on a split-the
difference basis-which saved some
lives.
Some years ago, soon after the
enactment of the Federal anti-peon-
age statute, some land owners in
Florida were convicted under that
law, and attention was attracted from
all sections of the country. People
living in far parts of this country
we're shocked out of their satisfied
state of mind about this being land
wholly free; but they recovered from
their shock with the comforting be-
lief that the new slavery had been
deservingly wiped out at one blow
by the paternal Federal Government
1t was not so and still is not so.
Planters Bought Prison Release. ..