crow1961

@PhDThesis{ crow1961,
	author = {Herman L. Crow},
	title = {A Political History of the {Texas} Penal System, 1829-1951},
	school = {University of Texas at Austin},
	year = 1961,
}

p. 85-86: “Two hundred and nine convicts were admitted to the penitentiary from 1861 to 1866. Suddenly in 1866, 263 additional persons swelled the rolls … With his liberty the Negro became, suddenly and without previous training in citizenship, liable to the state for his conduct, with the result that the increase in the prison rolls overflowed the penitentiary facilities, Negroes accounting for over 40 per cent of the prison population.”

p. 93: “During the period from 1849 to 1870, finances were in a chaotic state which the legislature tried frantically to correct by appropriations. Interested citizens and merchants of Huntsville came to the rescue of prison managers by advancing money, selling provisions on credit, or buying up guards’ time checks. … It cost the taxpayer of the state approximately $522,000 to operate the penitentiary from its establishment to the date of the Ward, Dewey, and Company lease. Approximately $127,000 of this amount was spent in erecting and maintining the cotton and woolen factory which proved to be an invaluable asset to the state during the Civil War.”

p. 94: “Traffic in ‘convict slavery’ was the predominant feature of the lease system. The convict lost his identity as a human being, becoming a pawn on the chess board of Texas politics, to be moved by the exigences of public demand.”

p. 97n9 mentions a strange case of a prisoner sentenced in Dallas County to “one hour hard labor in the penitentiary,” which required the state to pay $68 to convey the prisoner to Huntsville.

p. 98: “The treatment of convicts assumed an even harsher aspect than did chattel labor, for the owner of slaves at least wanted to protect and conserve his personal property. The leasee was concerned with only the labor output and not at all with the methods employed by the overseers to obtain that end. The irresponsible brutalities commanded the attention of responsible citizens who in turn demanded a legislative investigation.”