The state of Texas' determined effort to keep African-Americans performing plantation labor was at the heart of its prison farm system, from Reconstruction through the 1920s. State and penitentiary officials followed a practice of racialized labor control, demanding that African-American convicts perform plantation gang labor, not only to make the prison system profitable but also keep them involved in extractive agriculture. As the prison population grew, so did the abuse of convicts. The story of Texas' penitentiary system shows the continuing tie between African-Americans, plantation labor, and racism in Texas, as well as other southern states. The sprawling farm system that developed in Texas made it unique in the South. When Progressive Era reformers confronted abuses in the Texas prison system, they had to contend with an overwhelming profit motive that made reform difficult, and warped reform measures they managed to push through the legislature. Among the initial goals of Texas prison reformers were an end to convict leasing and a ban on the use of the whip as punishment.² The agenda of reformers collided with the goals of the Texas prison system, with unexpected results. Looking at reform measures after they passed the legislature illustrates how prison managers tried to circumvent regulations that hindered profitability.

     Convict leasing came easily to Texas. After emancipation, Texas planters, as well as other southerners, sought ways to force former slaves back into plantation labor.³ Since they could not whip freedmen to get more labor out of them, many planters found convict labor an attractive alternative to free labor. From 1870 to 1880, the convict population in Texas grew from 489 to 2,157.⁴ By 1900, the numbers had swelled to 4,109. Although African-Americans never made up more than 31 percent of Texas' population in this period, the percentage of blacks in the prison population stayed at 50-60 percent.⁵ Faced with a growing prison population, little money in the state treasury, and sugarcane and cotton growers who were clamoring for a labor force they could control and exploit, the state found that convict labor solved all of these problems.