Without the promised “forty acres and a mule,” property or education, many of the newly freed slaves landed back on the very plantations they had fled to become sharecroppers, tenant farmers and agricultural laborers. It was a cruel emancipation that delivered you back into a state of dependency into the hands of your former slave master. For the countless thousands of formerly enslaved Africans who were left to fend for themselves, wandering from place to place like paupers, numerous Southern counties adopted vagrancy laws which provided for the arrest of crowds of people who were not gainfully employed. Once imprisoned, unscrupulous wardens would hire out inmates to local landowners and businesses, utilizing the infamous convict-lease system.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:07:59 +0000
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