Convict Leasing System Expands Across the South, Re-Enslaving Black Men

By the mid-1870s, convict leasing — in which state governments leased prisoners to private companies for labor — had become the dominant form of forced labor across the South. Mississippi leased its entire prison population to a private planter beginning in 1876. Alabama leased convicts to coal mining companies including Pratt Mines and Tennessee Coal and Iron. Texas leased to railroad construction contractors. Virtually all convicts were Black men convicted under vagrancy and petty theft statutes. Conditions were described in official investigations as worse than slavery: convicts worked in chains, were whipped, had no days off, and died at catastrophic rates — in some Mississippi camps, mortality reached 16% annually.