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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
The state of Texas' determined effort to keep African-Americans performing plantation labor was at the heart of its prison farm system, from Reconstruction through the 1920s. State and penitentiary officials followed a practice of racialized labor control, demanding that African-American convicts perform plantation gang labor, not only to make the prison system profitable but also keep them involved in extractive agriculture. As the prison population grew, so did the abuse of convicts. The story of Texas’ penitentiary system shows the continuing tie between African-Americans, plantation labor, and racism in Texas, as well as other southern states. The sprawling farm system that developed in Texas made it unique in the South. When Progressive Era reformers confronted abuses in the Texas prison system, they had to contend with an overwhelming profit motive that made reform difficult, and warped reform measures they managed to push through the legislature. Among the initial goals of Texas prison reformers were an end to convict leasing and a ban on the use of the whip as punishment. The agenda of reformers collided with the goals of the Texas prison system, with unexpected results. Looking at reform measures after they passed the legislature illustrates how prison managers tried to circumvent regulations that hindered profitability.
2 Reformers also addressed the issues of sexual abuse of female convicts, poor housing and food, and education for convicts. See the Report of the Penitentiary Investigating Committee, 1909, Published by Order of the House of Representatives, August 1910. (Hereafter cited as Investigating Committee, 1910)
3 For examples in other southern states, see: Iichtenstein, Alex, Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Tabor in the New South (New York, 1996)Google Scholar; Fierce, Milfred C., Slavery Revisited: Blacks and the Convict Lease System, 1865–1933 (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Mancini, Matthew, One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866–1928 (Columbia, 1996)Google Scholar; Oshinsky, David M., Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice (New York, 1996)Google Scholar; McKelvey, Blake, “A Half Century of Southern Penal Exploitation,” Social Forces 13 (October 13, 1934)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 In 1850 there were only three inmates in the Huntsville prison and by 1860 there were only 182 state prisoners. The 489 figure in 1870 does not take into account the number of convicts held in county jails, of which there were surely many.
5 Biennial Report of the Texas Penitentiary System, 1870, p. 43Google Scholar; 1880, p. 23; 1900, p. 8; 1912, p. 32. (Hereafter cited as Report)
6 Elisha Marshall Pease, The Handbook of Texas Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/PP/fpe8.html.
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8 Ibid.
9 James Webb Throckmorton, The Handbook of Texas Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/TT/fth36.html.
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32 San Antonio Express, December 5, 1908-January 11, 1909 and “Eminent Banker, Editor, Orator is Dead in Dallas,” Obituary for George Waverly Briggs, Texas Bankers Record, August 1957.
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59 San Antonio Express, December 19, 1908.
60 San Antonio Express, December 17, 1908.
61 For an example of a lease agreement, see “Contract for Ball-Hutchings with the Penitentiary,” August 1895, folder 28-0039 at the Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas.
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74 Investigating Committee, 1913, 37.
75 Investigating Committee, 1913, 57.
76 Investigating Committee, 1913, 57.
77 Investigating Committee, 1913, 262.
78 The Houston Chronicle, September 8, 1913. (Hereafter cited as Chronicle)
79 Chronicle, September 8, 1913
80 Chronicle, September 8, 1913.
81 Chronicle, September 8, 1913, and Houston Daily Post September 8, 1913 (Hereafter cited as Post).
82 Chronicle, September 9, 1913
83 Conduct Ledger of the Texas Penitentiary System. Any random sampling of the punishments in the Conduct Ledgers, for any of the years from 1875 through 1928 will show punishment for slow work or insubordination.
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