To what extent, and in what specific ways, did convict leasing resemble slavery? How, if at all, was it different? Who were the “masters” and what was their relationship to the convicts? In what ways were convicts either better or worse off than slaves?
In many ways “convict leasing,” transpired into a more modern transfixed form of chattel slavery. Due to the rise of the industrial revolution after the civil war, the south sought out to find a way to produce their means like once before. Sadly, much of the foundation America is built on has been at the hands of slaves. From later colonial era to civil war, slaves were owned by many families in the south and even in the north. The ideology examined in the book “…that slavery was a manifestation of human order ordained by God…”( Blackmon.13), show the institution of slavery was being justified by the institution of religion. Knowing how strongly many people feel about religion, it is safe to say these viewpoints on slavery would not be changed by any “man-made law” (emancipation), or by any bloody war. White southerners found a way to keep the mind, body, and souls, of many blacks in America. The white men who “contracted” out men for work were much like the overseers of chattel slavery. They would kidnap them or convince the courts they have been convicted of a crime and must pay. The slave master was the government. The courts and political officials would sit back and watch illegal activity, but they were too greedy, or had an agenda to produce and make money that they did not care about the livelihood of the blacks who were enslaved under their order. And the slaves, the slaves were still slaves. Chattel slavery vs. Industrial slavery, we can’t say which once was worse or better. It is still fully slavery, just by another name. The family dynamic, loss of tradition, brutality, humiliation, and death were still there.
ReplyDelete“This alternative is the Master-Slave relationship. One person can voluntarily (the voluntary component is significant) subordinate herself to the other person. This person will become the slave. The benefit to the slave is that the slave doesn't have to die, and the benefit to the master is the master has a slave who can provide conscious mediation for the master. The master can also get the slave to make the world comport with the master's will. The slave does work for the master, so anything the master envisions in the world can be brought to fruition for the master.” This quote is relating to Hegel’s master/Slave relationship. Though this philosophy has most directly pertained to chattel slavery, sadly the relationship, essence, and mindset of slavery did in fact transpire fully into the lives of the “convicts.”
Throughout the book Blackmon illustrates how the forced labor, of which the book gives an account, is diversely different from the labor from the antebellum era. It is different because for the most part this particular adaptation of slavery does not last a lifetime. Also, this form of slavery is not passed down from generation to generation, neither are these men and their families born into slavery. However, it is still slavery nonetheless, it is just in camouflage. The term “slavery by another name” is befitting because these men were free and innocent of all crime but yet they were forced unto labor camps and compelled to work harsh conditions without pay. They were entitled to their freedom, on which this country was supposedly built on, but were bought and sold repeatedly as if they were cattle and not human beings. These black men were forced to do work for their new white master or jeopardize being physically beaten or suffer the agonizing pain of the whip. I agree with the comment that Ryanna made when she explained that the “master” of these convicts was the government. The same way that white slave masters during the slave voyage trapped Africans into becoming slaves is the same way that these state and local officials in a way captured innocent men for no real reason so that they could make a profit from them.
ReplyDeleteThe slave –leasing system is quite similar to the colonial slave period of the U.S. and can be viewed as neo-slavery. African Americans in the leasing system were forced to labor until sunset and sunrise, a characteristic of historical slavery. However, the leasing system did not except women like slavery did. Men, women, and even children were forced into slavery. Nonetheless the “contractors” or white men are the overseers, being that they exerted control and authority over the convict. Like slavery, African Americans who were lease, did nothing wrong except, being born the complexion brown. It was this complexion that validated white Americans ill treatment towards blacks, which made them feel as superior. All in all, neither conditions of slave leasing system or slavery better than the other. Lives were ruined, loved one were taken quickly, and the impetuous cycle of economic depression continued.
ReplyDeleteThe convict leasing system resembled slavery because it was not fair. The labor that was assigned for the African Americans to do was not something they had the chance to decide to do, it was forced. Then they would try to make it seem as if they were working off debt when in rrality they were just used as slaves. They would owrk them extra hard and treat them harshly, it was definitly slavery with another name in the same form. The only way that it was dffrent is that the people that the blacks were working for made it seem as if they were working off debt so they owed them andf persuaded that that wold be trhe easiest way to pay them back. When it is presented in that matter it seems as if the workers have a choice to work thier and choode thier hours and how ard they need top work and once the debth is paid off they couls leave; however that was not the case. The master were people who were famlilar with plantation and some had even owned a few. They were also rich, wealthy white man. Thier relationship with the convicts was a master, slave relationship, the master owned them in to a high exstinct. The convicts were about the same if emotional worse than slaves because this type of endurment and pain was suppose to be over, but it was still going on. The fact that one knows that it is illegal and they stilll get away with it is a hard and dipleasing feeling.
ReplyDeleteAlthough slavery was abolished in 1863, the institution of slavery still existed. White Southerners after the Civil War wanted to redeem their supremacy over African Americans so they created Jim Crow laws and making sharecropping a bigger deal. After Civil War and the institution of slavery ended, farmers lost a great deal of their work force. Not only did they lose a work force but they lost money. In order to compensate for their lost they devised a plan to create a way to make former slaves still be a useful source of work. Industrial slavery was born.
ReplyDeleteConvict-leasing and chattel slavery are more similar than different. I believe convict leasing was worse because at any time freed African-Americans could be abducted, tried and wrongfully convicted of crimes.They would be transported to industries and lost in the system from families for an unknown time period. The masters role with the convicts were similar tto an overlord they controlled when they ate, slept, worked and whether their debt ended or extended.Convicts were worse off than slaves because as slaves they had hopes, dreams, and aspirations of one day becoming free and once they bvecame freedmen they were snatched back into the institution of slavery.
The Convict-Lease System was a new form of slavery, neo-slavery if you will. African Americans were taken into custody mainly for misdemeanors such as vagrancy. The men were charged and had to pay a fine to get out of jail, due to most of the men being poor they would have had to say in jail. The south could not allow the abject individuals that essentially made the south an agrarian powerhouse rot in a jail cell. Overseers knew that businesses needed workers who would work for cheat, but these convicts would be free labor. The convicts would be able to pay off their debt by working the industrial jobs. They were given lodging, food, and hours to work. The masters were the individuals over the jail system. I believe that the convicts were worse off than the slaves, slaves did not know what it meant or felt to free, so they had hopes to one day feel freedom. These convicts were free individuals who were taken back into bondage. The re-enslavement of blacks was to demonstrate that a law or piece of paper could not save you from what your generation and generations to follow were born to be; a slave.
ReplyDeleteThe convict leasing system was much like slavery because it forced African American to labor for no other reason than being born black. Although there were provisions as to where women feel in the situation,it still acted as a form of slavery in a time when i was "Illegal.Most of the convicts were leased to businesses that needed laborers but instead of hiring them they came up with a system that would allow people to pay off their debt."The debt of being black at the time"Convicting leasing was worse than slavery because in slavery you were born into it.As for convicted leasing you were born a "free man" as free as one could be considered at this time and then just randomly convicted of a unjust crime and bow have to pay off the "DEBT "in some of the worse conditions possible.
ReplyDeleteThe convict leasing system that came to exist in the wake of the United States Civil War unquestionably emulated the antebellum chattel slavery in that once again the blacks were subjugated to an unjust labor system. To fuel this labor system blacks were arrested, convicted, and subsequently utilized as assets for the economic needs of the state(typically Southern) they committed the "crime." Just like slavery, labor conditions were horrid, harsh punishment was implemented, and the blacks had no way to voice a grievance to anyone but whomever they prayed (Christian God).
ReplyDeleteThe convict lease system did differ from the popularly referred institutionalized slavery in some aspects. While chattel slavery existed there was the motivation to keep the slave property alive and healthy for it was a living piece of equipment similar to a horse or a mule. Such an investment would be cause for the slave-owner/overseer/ driver to punish for the purpose of chastisement. This motivation was eliminated by the fact there was a fresh supply of bodies to fill the void any dead body would create. With this new convict lease system there was actually a definite term to how long the prisoner was your property; however, the antebellum chattel slavery there existed an indefinite work service term for the slave would work until unfit for further usage. A main difference between the two is the antebellum slavery that existed was marked by race, while the convict lease system prisoners were marked officially by crime.
Oh and the whites with no special connection to the blacks were the slavemasters
ReplyDeleteThe convict lease system so closely resemble the slave system that it was often referred to as penal slavery. Including the racial dynamics of the prison population, the system contained various other imitations of slavery. Some prisoners were organized into gangs for completing certain projects. Others worked on the task system, having to meet quotas every day. Prisoners were separated and given jobs based on the same classifications used by slave masters to represent ability. As in slavery, violence and cruel physical punishment were used to get labor from black convicts. Convicts were flogged and whipped, often to death, for minor acts of misbehavior. Unlike slave owners, the lessees did not have large amounts of money invested in their labor force. Convicts were much cheaper than slaves and court systems of the black belt offered a limitless supply of offerings to the lease system.
ReplyDeleteThe Convict lease system was simply a new form of slavery, without the purchase of slaves. It began during post-Civil War/Reconstruction Era. This new form of slavery was different, in that it was not a generational entity, but rather the force labor of innocent African American men. In this period, black codes were passed that limited the independence of blacks and often forced them to work for whites. Black men were often charged with credulous crimes such as vagrancy, and forced into the leasing system as convicts. During chattel slavery, slaves were investments to their masters and possessed a shield of protection under their masters. Whereas, victims of the convict lease system were not seen as investments and often died of physical abuse and gruesome work environments. It is very hard to determine which form of slavery was worse because they were both morally wrong; and each robbed individuals of freedom and basic human rights. The convict lease system and slavery are not very different at all both were driven by a need for labor, and each targeted the same ethnic group using the same white supremacist theory.
ReplyDeleteThe Convict Release System was a little known form of slavery that had effects that were just as dibiliating as the well known form of enslavement forced upon African Americans in the United States prior to Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclomation. They both treated African Americans as property rather than humans and they both subjected African Americans to harsh labor conditions with the threat of beating, lashes,and lynching. The masters of this form of slavery were industrialists who just like before the Emancipation Proclomation, needed labor cheaply.The convicts who were entrapped by this slavery by another name were in a sense worse off than the previous form of slavery because of its secrecy. Because it was so far from the mainstream media and limelight, there were no limitiations on what could be done to the enslaved as well as repercussions for such malicious and inhumane actions.
ReplyDeleteThe Convict Release System in several respects resembles slavery in many respects. Both forced African Americans to endure harsh physical labor with no compensation for their task. African Americans were charged with faulty crime. Most released convicts never made it out of this cruel servitude forcing them, just as slaves, to die as property rather as humans. The only seeming difference was the imprisonment the second form of slavery was legal, but under false terms. African American were charged of faulty crime thus making their imprisonment illegitimate.
ReplyDeleteThe Convict Lease System was similar to slavery in regard to how it was conducted. In the Convict Lease System, men and women were not bought and sold to different masters as in slavery. They were victims of the Jim Crow south and its horrible laws that made it a crime to be black. The masters had turned into violent and ruthless foremen and the plantation had turned into steel mills and other industries. The slaves had turned into badly treated workers who died from exhaustion, malnourishment, and disease. I believe that slaves, in some aspects, were treated better and had a somewhat better relationship with their masters.
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