Question

1. Describe how black peonage and black chain gangs fit into the South's economic, legal, and criminal systems in this era. Whose interests did peonage and chain gangs serve? How did conditions of peonage and the chain gang compare with the conditions of slavery? 2. What role did black people play in seeking to end peonage? what role did the federal government play? 3. How do peonage, lynching, the chain gang, and the campaigns to abolish them illustrate the tension between constraint and agency, between oppression and resistance?

Answer 1

Around the 1990's the newspapers were flooded with stories of the Convict and chain gangs being abused. Considering the expenses at that time chain gangs were a popular solution to the problem.

Chained gangs as mentioned were convicts chained together to labor in activities like construction, farming etc. There were a lot of improvements made by them which eased transportation in villages and rural areas.

Chained gangs were merely slaves and were going through very difficult times since they were all chained together, they faced problems like infection, wounds, aggressiveness by other individuals and they could not do anything much about it.

Legally peonage was outlaid by the Congress in 1867, however this was completley eradicated only in the 1940's. The black people tried their best, however could not do much in this regard.

After the law was laid down to abolish peonage, chain gang, etc the oppression and slavery slowed down since anyone who was caught doing this would go to prison irrespective of them being black or white.