places a burden of proof on the Negro that he can hardly overturn. The law is defended[Pg 96] on the ground that Negroes will get money any way they can, sign any sort of paper for it, and then run off—if there is not a stringent law to punish them. But it may be imagined how this law could be used, and is used, in the hands of unscrupulous men to keep the Negro in a sort of debt-slavery. When the case came up before Judge William H. Thomas of Montgomery, the constitutionality of the law was brought into question, and the Negro was finally discharged.

[Pg 96]

Often an unscrupulous landlord will deliberately give a Negro a little money before Christmas, knowing that he will promptly waste it in a “celebration” thus getting him into debt so that he dare not leave the plantation for fear of arrest and criminal prosecution. If he attempts to leave he is arrested and taken before a friendly justice of the peace, and fined or threatened with imprisonment. If he is not in debt, it sometimes happens that the landlord will have him arrested on the charge of stealing a bridle or a few potatoes (for it is easy to find something against almost any Negro), and he is brought into court. In several cases I know of the escaping Negro has even been chased down with bloodhounds. On appearing in court the Negro is naturally badly frightened. The white man is there and offers as a special favour to take him back and let him work out the fine—which sometimes requires six months, often a whole year. In this way Negroes are kept in debt—so-called debt-slavery or peonage—year after year, they and their whole family. One of the things that I couldn’t at first understand in some of the courts I visited was the presence of so many white men to stand sponsor for Negroes who had committed various offences. Often this grows out of the feudal protective instinct which the landlord feels for the tenant or servant of whom he is fond; but often it is merely the desire of the white man to get another Negro worker. In one case in particular, I saw a Negro brought into court charged with stealing cotton.

“Does anybody know this Negro?” asked the judge.

Two white men stepped up and both said they did.

The judge fined the Negro $20 and costs, and there was a real contest between the two white men as to who should pay it—and get the Negro. They argued for some minutes, but finally the judge said to the prisoner:

[Pg 97]“Who do you want to work for, George?”

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