The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-06-20
Poems WHIPPED
SENSELESS If
ASK FOR PAY
Buried in Swamp;
Police Aid Murder
by a Worker Correspondent

0I1lOAGO, liz, 10Y mail -
There is no worse hell hole in the
south than the peonage farms, where
Negro workers are held as slaves.
The worst peonage farm 1 ever saw
is the Hamilton and Walker planta-
ton in Delta, Mississippi.
Trap Jobless Negroes.
| am a Negro worker and was
stuck near here without a penny to
my name after losing my job in
Meridian. They trap Negro work
ers into going on the plantation by
sending out Negro foreman,
Adams, to fool Negro workers into
taking work on the farm. Seeing a
Negro who tells them of the good
conditions and wages" on the farm,
naturally the Negro workers are
fooled and trapped into accepting the
job. They little know what is in
store for them. That is how 1 was
trapped.
The wages promised are $50 =
month. 1t did not take me long to
realize that 1 had not gotten job,
but had allowed myself to be swai
lowed up in a peonage farm.
At the end of a month, when l
inquired for my wages, was given
a severe beating from several OF
the foremen. We were shaving hare
on this farm, being driven to work
with whips. The hours were IA and
more hours a day.
No Pay Given Slaves.
l found out then that there was
no pay given to the workers on the
Hamilton plantation. Then l tried
to escape, running away to a swamp
nearby. They caught me and return
ed me to the farm. Here l was
beaten unconscious by Hamilton and
some foremen. There was hardly a
spot on my body that wasn't a mass
of bruises.
l was unable to work for month
and half. The poems on this farm
are treated with unbelievable cruelty.
They are not given single penny
as pay. Their sleeping quarters are
in a barn, with only a partition to
separate the men from the women.
One Day Off a Year.
The food consists of peas, corn
bread, and fat meat. They work
seven days a week, getting thru the
whole year only one day off-Christ-
mas. On the fourth of July pig
is killed and fed to us, but we work
cd just the same.
Negro Woman Murdered.
The ploughing starts the day after
Christmas, and the poems work in
the cotton and cornfields until the
winter sets in. In the winter they
spend their time cutting wood.
The foreman, John Adams, muir
dered peon, a woman, on May 8,
1928. She had just finished break
fast and coming out of the cabin
saw Adams beating her IL year son.
She pleaded with him not to beat
him so badly and Adams seized an
axe and said he would knock her
brains out if she didn't keep quiet.
Kill Her." Says Owner.
Walker, one of the owners of the
plantation said, go. ahead and kill
the she's too old to be any
more good around here"
Adams hit the woman on the head
with the axe, and killed her instant
ly. To my knowledge as many as
255 women have been beaten to
death on this plantation. These were
buried in the swamp and no report
made to the authorities, but the own
ers, Hamilton and Walker, stand in
solid with the officials anyway and
have nothing to fear from them.
The sheriff would lock up newly
arrived laborers who arrived in the
night, so they could not find out
what kind of slavery they had come
to, and try to escape.
and other ex-slaves on this farm
escaped by hiding in the swamp and
making my way to a railway juno
ton, hopping freight and getting
away. ! wish something can be done
to save the other slaves on the Ham,
ilton and Walker plantation in Delta.
-EX-SLAVE.