The theory that there is an organized conspiracy over the whole South to keep the negro in a state of peonage is frequently advanced by ignorant or disingenuous apologists for the negro, but this belief cannot be defended.
Conditions have therefore undoubtedly improved since the peonage trials, but the lumber industry is one in which the labor has apparently everywhere been casual, migratory, and lawless.
It was in the lumber-camps of Maine that the commission found "the most complete system of peonage in the country.
The last phrase was introduced merely to avoid the appearance of sectionalism, for no congressman dreamed that peonage existed anywhere save in the South.
The investigation disclosed, however, the startling fact that immigrant peonage exists in every State but Oklahoma and Connecticut.
And this has been true of black laborers in the South from the time of slavery down through the scandal of the Freedmen's Bank to the peonage and crop-lien system of to-day.
The Senate last night passed a bill, on the report of my colleague, to prohibit slavery and peonage in New Mexico.
In 1905 we first find legislation against peonageor compulsory labor in the Southern States, North Carolina and Alabama.
With the exception of the labor or peonage laws, discussed separately, I have found no legislation which limits his property or contract rights.
The Orange River Colony has severe laws concerning the labor of the blacks, of a nature resembling our peonage laws in the Southern States.
The peonage system continues by reason of that extraordinary difficulty in the development of the tropical lowland of South America--the lack of a labor supply.
Peonage is slavery, though as in all slave systems there are many forms under which the system is worked out.
However, the peonage system is not hideous everywhere and in all its aspects.
In 1927 I wus still in peonagebut I wus back in Mississippi on Gordon's farm.
Ward was taken to Mississippi where he remained in another form of slavery (Peonage System) for 40 years.
I stayed in peonage out dere fer 'bout forty years.
It verged upon peonage to tie them up with an agreement that gave them no protection yet deprived them of the right to defend themselves.
They were driven back to the infamous peonage system with its twelve hour day, a system which American steel workers, of all those in the world, alone have to endure.
Capitalistic culture of cotton, the high price of cotton, and the system of labor peonagehave made land high.
The time had passed for a reestablishment of slavery, but serfdom and peonage were still possible and probable.
If that isn't substitution of peonage for chattel slavery, I don't know what the word peonage means.
But the planters of the South, still a law unto themselves, have maintained actual slavery in sequestered; districts where public opinion against peonage is too weak to support federal authorities in exterminating it.
Even under this cruel system ofpeonage master and slave usually get along pretty well together, but old-fashioned feudal wars are kept up between estates, as was the case in England centuries ago.
He was making an earnest effort to emerge from the squalor and misery of peonage and was soon to see that his overlords were satisfied to keep him right where he had always been.
Between the two dreadful alternatives of peonage or persecution they chose the latter--and the lesser.
The former was determined to restore the palmy days of peonage for all time to come, the latter to fight to the last ditch in spite of hell and high water.
Both Reynolds and Broughton were indicted by the Federal government, but the Federal district court for southern Alabama held that peonage had not been committed.
The government contends that the Alabama statute permits peonage in violation of the Federal Constitution.
If peonage and forced labour still exist in the more civilised upland regions, as they do, the conditions are not likely to be banished in the Amazon forestal lowlands.
Is it a wonder that he has resolved to go where peonage and blood-hounds are unknown?
If Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie labor system shall develop slavery of the Mexican or Chinese race within our territory, this amendment may safely be trusted to make it void.
The fame of peonage is spread among them before they leave their native land.
But this was followed by servile and penal laws in all the Southern states that looked like peonage in place of slavery.
To enforce peonage and contract labor the offence of "running away" is made punishable by imprisonment at forced labor, or by extension of the period of service.
Under peonage the laborer is compelled by law to pay off a debt by means of his labor, and under contract labor he is compelled by law to carry out a contract to work.
Plain instructions went out from Washington: the laborers must be free to choose their employers, no fixed rate of wages was prescribed, and there was to be no peonage or forced labor.
The report of the Attorney General for the year 1907 contains a list of eighty-three complaints of peonage pending in the Department of Justice.
From the usual condition of the great mass of laboring men where these laws are enforced, to peonage is but a step at most.
What peonage is, has been defined by the United States Supreme Court.
Another form in which peonage is practiced is by the passage of acts making it unlawful to entice laborers to leave their employers or landlords, or to employ persons who have left their employers without fulfilling their contracts.
A third law under which peonage is practiced, and which probably is the most fruitful legal source is to be found in Alabama alone.
It is probably true that there are no laws on statute books which resemble the laws under which peonage is practiced in Mexico, and under which it was practiced in New Mexico and Arizona before they became parts of the United States.
These complaints come from every one of the former slave-holding States, with the exception of Missouri, and since the publication of this report cases of peonage have been found in that State.
Sometimes we feel confident that our pounding away for nearly two years has frightened into inactivity those who were practicing peonage in the same State with the persons convicted and sentenced.
Does peonage exist in any part of the United States to-day?
It is difficult to determine how extensive the practice of peonage may be or how many victims may be held in its prison house.
In his message Governor Dawson declared without equivocation that a system of peonage existed under the guard system.
Charges as to Peonage It has been charged that a condition of peonage exists in some of the mining districts of the state.
Three cases ofpeonage in lumber camps had been called to his attention by Secretary of State Elihu Root at the request of the Italian ambassador.
Wilson charged that a condition of peonage existed in the mines and that men were held there by force and compelled to work against their will.
