{"product_id":"the-shadow-of-slavery-peonage-in-the-south-19011969","title":"The shadow of slavery: peonage in the South  1901-1969","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhether peonage in the South grew out of slavery  a natural and perhaps unavoidable interlude between bondage and freedom  or whether employers distorted laws and customs to create debt servitude  most Southerners quietly accepted peonage. To the employer it was a way to control laborers; to the peon it was a bewildering system that could not be escaped without risk of imprisonment  beating  or death. Pete Daniels book is about this largely ignored form of twentieth-century slavery. It is in part \"the record of an American failure  the inability of federal  state  and local law-enforcement officers to end peonage.\" In a series of case studies and histories Daniel re-creates the neglected and frightening world of peonage  demanding  \"If a form of slavery yet exists in the United States  as so much evidence suggests  then the relevant questions are why  and by whose irresponsibility?\" Peonage grew out of labor settlements following emancipation  when employers forbade croppers to leave plantations because of debt (often less than $30). At the turn of the century the federal government acknowledged that the \"labyrinth of local customs and laws\" binding men in debt was peonage. They outlawed debt servitude and slowly moved against it  but with no large success. Dis-appearing witnesses and acquitted employers characterized the cases that did go to court. Each year  about fifty complaints still come to the Justice Department  few of which are investigated. Daniel holds that peon-age persists for many reasons: the corruption and apathy of law-enforcement officers  racist traditions in the South  and the impotence of the Justice Department in prosecuting this violation of federal law. He draws extensively on complaints and trial transcripts from the peonage records of the Justice Department. The files since 1946  however  are closed to researchers.  PETE DANIEL is assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee. He is former assistant editor of the Booker T. Washington Papers. An article from The Shadow of Slavery was published in the April  1972  issue of American Heritage.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44986694139957,"sku":"ByrdShop_0252002067","price":213.25,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780252002069_96b20703-4135-448d-bbdf-aac7ad51da8e.jpg?v=1772670340","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-shadow-of-slavery-peonage-in-the-south-19011969","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}