Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1901 — NEGROES HELD AS SLAVES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NEGROES HELD AS SLAVES

Charges that System in South Carolina Is Worse than Before the Emancipation Proclamation. -

A climax was reached at Anderson, S. C., in the stockade slavery sensation iu a report by the grand jury presented to Judge Benet. The jury reported having visited a number of farms, upon twenty of which the slavery system was found. Iu several cases negroes testified to having been whipped and imprisoned under contracts they had ignorantly signed. One farmer had Knight, a half-witted negro from Georgia, under circumstances that were virtually kidnaping, and others testified to imprisonment in stockades and shackles. On all but one of the farms the laborers were shackled. All others were guarded by men with rifles.

In several places they were worked along with convicts hired by planters from the State and received the treatment given convicts. One negro swore he had been strapped to a tree and given 100 lashes for a slight infraction of the rules. The grand jury is composed almost exclusively of farmers. Judge Benet commended the jury and turned the evidence over to the prosecuting attorney. One result of the investigation is the practical abandonment of the stockade system. Another result is the demoralization of negro labor. Contracts being now declared void, farmers will be without help and are in a quandary as to how they will plant their cotton crop.

GUARD WITH BLOODHOUNDS WATCHING SOUTH CAROLINA SLAVES.