From Coal Creek to Brushy Mountain: A History of Race, Labor, and Punishment in the Tennessee Coalfields, 1890-1903

Abstract

My research focuses on the transformation of convict labor away from convict leasing in post-Civil War Tennessee. While previous historians have examined the fiery end of convict leasing in Tennessee focused on the free white miners whose actions in 1891-92 ultimately contributed to the end of convict leasing, my thesis instead centers the experiences of the predominantly Black incarcerated men and youth who labored in the mines. Using newspapers, court documents, government reports, and oral histories to examine this shift, I focus on how race and imprisonment influenced the experiences of incarcerated men in both penal systems, be it through limited social power, forced labor, or violent punishments. In doing this, I argue that although convict leasing ended in 1896, this did virtually nothing to improve living and working conditions for the convict laborers who were transferred to the new Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. In short, the incarcerated men changed hands when convict leasing ended, but their exploitation remained the same. By focusing on the experiences of incarcerated men throughout the transition of the penal system from convict leasing to state-run convict labor, it becomes clear that corruption, coercion, and racism shaped Tennessee's post-Civil War criminal justice system. All of these factors reveal the lived experiences of incarceration in the late nineteenth century, which in turn shows how incarceration functioned from the bottom up.