Book Review: Slavery By Another Name

The Age of Neoslavery

Stars: 5/5

In reading Slavery By Another Name, you will learn that the millions of African-American slaves emancipated by the 13th Amendment were not necessarily ‘free’ in the Black Belt of the South. From the dawn of Emancipation to the Civil Rights Era, Blackmon exposes one particular form of enslavement, convict leasing, so prevalent, abhorrent and vile that, of the countless who were ensnared in it, many did not survive.

You have to admit you would be skeptical of how well a white author who, raised in the deep south and now a journalist for the Wall Street Journal, would recount this epoch in history. Here are two reasons to quell your skepticism: First, Douglas Blackmon lets the facts, garnered from his years of research, speak for themselves. Secondly, based on a personal anecdote he shares in the final pages of the book, it seems Blackmon has had the propensity to speak the truth to power and fight injustice via the power of the written word since he was eight years old. Kudos to Douglas Blackmon.

In Slavery By Another Name, Blackmon introduces us to Green Cottenham. Born in 1886, Green, the son of former slaves, grew up in a South free of slavery. However, it would be only a matter of time before fate catches up to Green and other young free African-Americans like him.

“Beginning in the late 1860s, and accelerating after the return of white political control in 1877, every southern state enacted an array of interlocking laws essentially intended to criminalize black life.” p.53

These thinly veiled laws and ordinances, such as vagrancy, were concocted and used to trap African-Americans into a system of peonage. Once convicted and sentenced, several fines were applied and the illiterate black men were told to make their mark on work contracts. These work contracts were then bought out by labor agents who, working on behalf of a large enterprise or corporation, were desperate for able-bodied men to keep their ever-growing industrious operation online. Once men like Green Cottenham were snared in the forced labor system, there was no escape. There were measures designed to keep them in the system; such as violation of rules which extended their sentence or the application of more fines which then required them to work longer to pay it off.

Coal mines, timber yards and swampy turpentine camps were all “...nurseries of death” as they took their toll on the convicts. The labor was physical, clothing was minimal and never laundered and the food served in unsanitary conditions was nothing to be desired. At night, the convicts remained shackled in their vermin infested living quarters and, in the case of those working the coal mines, literally only saw the light of day on Sundays.

If one did not succumb to disease such as tuberculosis or dysentery, which was rampant, maybe the physical torture one received as punishment for not making their daily quota did. In many cases, the labor bosses obliged those who wished for death in lieu of the continued lashing of the flesh.

“An unintended distinction between antebellum slavery and the new forced labor system became increasingly clear-and disastrous for the men captured into it. Slaves of the earlier era were at least minimally insulated from physical harm by their intrinsic financial value. Their owners could borrow money with slaves as collateral, pay debts with them, sell them at a profit, or extend the investment through production of more slave children. But the convicts of the new system were of value only as long as their sentences or physical strength lasted. If they died while in custody, there was no financial penalty to the company leasing them. Another black laborer would always be available from the state or a sheriff. There was no compelling reason not to tax these convicts to their absolute physiological limits.” p.96

Blackmon has cast light on a long, dark chapter in our history; history that was glossed over in or omitted entirely from our text books. It is now suggested reading.  There is also a documentary film, Slavery By Another Name, also worthy of recommendation.

As for Green Cottenham, his slow march to death came to an end after five months working in the coal mines. His life may have been forgotten, his body buried long ago in an unmarked grave, his descendants barely traceable but his story and many like him will live on for generations thanks to Douglas Blackmon.

video source:  PBS promotional video.  Slavery By Another Name

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