history of USA

Slavery: Convict leasing and Peonage

Weirdo

In 1898, some 73% of Alabama’s entire annual state revenue came from convict leasing.

There were two types of slavery in the post-Civil War USA south:

1) Convict leasing, where the States generated much revenue and where business owners got very cheap labor (even cheaper than having slaves)

2) Peonage, which meant being in debt and paying off that debt.

Peonage was far more criminal than convict leasing. Law-abiding citizens were arrested on fake charges, then told they had to pay a ‘fine’. They could not afford to pay that fine.
Then someone would step in (this was all set up) and pay that fine. And in order to pay back that money, they had to work for free for a very long time … how long? Nobody said.

One of the first American…

Weirdo

One of the first American spies was a women during the Revolutionary War. To this day, her identity is not known and is referred to only as Agent 355. She was actually one of George Washington’s personal spies and completely vanished near the end of the war. No one knows if she died mysteriously or secretly retired. She collected crucial information from the British to win the war and, to this day, remains the only unidentified member of the Culper Spy Ring.