Georgia Turpentine Camps Record 50% Annual Mortality Among Convict Laborers

Georgia state records and later investigative journalism document annual mortality rates at turpentine camps reaching 50% in the worst years of the 1880s. Convicts, chained together, tap pine trees in remote forests with no medical care, inadequate food, and constant threat of violence. Escape means being shot. Disease — particularly pneumonia, tuberculosis, and dysentery — kills as many as violence. The camps are never inspected by state authorities.