305:" passed by many southern states immediately after the American Civil War, which sought to control the movement and labor of freedmen, who were sometimes migrating to reunite families and who wanted to do sharecropping rather than work for wages. States required freedmen to work or be defined as vagrants, and sought to regulate behavior by narrowly defining what was acceptable, including prohibition of gambling. Freedmen could also be arrested for such charges as insulting behavior or rudeness to white women. By the 1880s, local and state officials manipulated the system to entrap African Americans. Local officials would arrest African Americans, use white juries to convict them of trumped-up charges, and fine them for their actions plus court costs. Most cash-strapped African Americans could not pay such fines. The state leased them as prisoners to industry and planters for the amount of the fines (usually for $ 50– $ 100). Prisoners had to work off the amount they owed to the state through forced labor on farms, plantations, mills and mines.
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contracts. Researchers have found that the bondsmen were charged for food and medical care; this meant that they were forced to incur debts so they would have to keep working as prisoners. Local and state officials collaborated during the 1880s and 90s, to convert black tenant farmers and sharecroppers into convict labor. Once convicted of petty crimes, these citizens were subject to imprisonment, shackles, and the lash, and worked in the same fields where a few weeks earlier they had been independent, free laborers.
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326:"Comer is a hard man. I have seen men come to him with their shirts a solid scab on their backs and he would let the hide grow on and take it off again. I have seen him hit men 100 to 160 times with a ten prong strop and then say thay was not whipped. He would go off after an escaped man come one day with him and dig his grave the same day."
290:, a practice common in southern industry at the time, throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Comer Plantation leased African-American convicts from the State of Alabama. After a visit to the Comer Plantation in Barbour County in 1883, Richard Dawson, the Alabama Prison Inspector, wrote:
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Between 1878 and 1880, twenty-five bonded convicts died whose contracts had been sold to the Eureka mines. Their bodies were dumped into shallow earthen pits on the edge of the mine site. Jonathan Good testified to the Joint
Commission created by the Roosevelt administration to investigate the use of
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An important source of wealth for Comer was the development of the Eureka Mines. The Eureka complex consisted of two mines, one worked by free miners, and the other by convicts leased under the convict labor system. The vast majority of convict laborers were
African Americans, who were convicted in
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in the southern United States, attacked a polling place in Spring Hill. The son, Willie Kells, of the
Republican Federal Judge presiding over the elections, Judge Elias M. Kells, was shot and killed in a melee that took place in the county courthouse. The White League was attempting to prevent any
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ordered a captured black escapee to lie on the ground and the dogs were biting him. He begged piteously to have the dogs taken off of him, but Comer refused to allow it. Comer...stripped him naked took a stirrup strap, doubled it, wet it, bucked him and whipped him, unmercifully whipped him, over
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Ezekial Archey, a prisoner leased to Eureka mine, wrote that the convicts lived in a stockade "filled with filth and vermin. Gunpowder cans were used to hold human waste that would fill up and 'run all over our beds where prisoners were shackled hand and foot for the night'." Later he wrote to a
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Although illiterate, the prisoners were forced to sign labor contracts, often including stipulations that they would be subject to the same conditions as other prisoners, which meant leg irons, being unable to leave their place of work without being subject to punishment, and extension of labor
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and rowed him down the
Chattahoochee River to Columbus, Georgia, a distance of almost 260 miles. Comer's mother met them there and took Comer and Burrell to Spring Hill where Comer recuperated. Comer maintained throughout the war that Burrell was a "Negro", not a Confederate soldier. Modern
155:. His father, John Fletcher Comer, died when John Wallace was 13 years old. Wallace, as he was known in his family, was educated primarily in private schools and through the use of private tutors. in 1861, when he was 16, the Civil War broke out. J. W. would enlist two years later in 1863.
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historians have described the relationship between black soldiers in the
Confederacy and their masters as complex, but "...clearly was not a soldier-soldier relationship." Following the war, Burrell received a pension from the State of Alabama.
250:, the White League stormed the polling place in Spring Hill and destroyed the ballot box. The League effectively led a coup d'etat in Barbour County as they removed all Republican officials from public office and installed Democrats instead.
275:, established the Cowikee Mills at Eufala. Comer assisted his younger brother, Edward Trippe Comer, in the administration of his seven plantations in Milhaven, Georgia. Comer also had a stake in the firm of Comer and McCurdy which bred
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Legend holds that Comer, who was involved in the assault on the Spring Hill polling place, spared the life of Judge Kells, who, rather than his son, was the intended target of the mob, after the judge made the
222:. Comer was the last officer left in his company when it surrendered to Union forces. He had been promoted to Captain shortly before the surrender, but the commission was not processed before the war ended.
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Although, unlike his brother, Governor
Braxton Bragg Comer, J. W. Comer neither aspired to nor held public office, he did, both publicly and vehemently, denounce the Populist trend in Alabama politics.
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At this time, residents of
Barbour County were notorious for kidnapping and selling African Americans into bondage, to exploit their labor after the war to rebuild the wealth of Alabama's elite.
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Comer had a stake in a multitude of agricultural and mineral interests. He owned and operated a plantation in
Barbour County, known as Spring Hill. Additionally, he and his older brother,
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the justice system at a rate of four times that of white citizens. The Eureka mines were developed by "primitive excavation techniques and relentless, atavistic physical force."
294:"Things in bad order. No fireplace in cell. No arrangements for washing. No Hospital. Everything filthy- privy terrible- convicts ragged many barefooted- very heavily ironed."
210:, Burrell. Body servants were slaves who were often brought into battle by those who claimed their ownership. Burrell, who was only 16 at the time, took Comer to a
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ADAH, "Convicts at Hard Labor for the County in the State of
Alabama on the First Day of March 1883"], microfiche, Alabama Department of Archives and History
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half an hour. The Negro begged them to take a gun and kill him. They left him in a Negro cabin where... he died within a few hours.
199:. Comer served under Captain B. M. Talbot in Company H of the 57th Alabama Infantry Regiment for the majority of his service.
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48:
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Noe, Kenneth W. "Reluctant Rebels: Confederates Who Joined the Army After 1861", University of North
Carolina Press, 2010.
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more Republican candidates from being elected into office by the majority black, Republican electorate of Barbour County.
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Lowance, Mason I. "A House Divided: Antebellum Slavery Debates in America, 1776-1865." Princeton University Press, 2003.
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to serve in the 57th Alabama Infantry Regiment. J. W. Comer achieved the rank of 1st Sergeant and was stationed in
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ADAH, "Convicts at Hard Labor for the County in the State of Alabama on the First Day of March 1883," microfiche
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until 1864. Comer joined the Alabama 27th Infantry Regiment as a Lieutenant in 1864 and followed them to
134:, Alabama. J. W. Comer served from 1863 until 1865 in the 57th Alabama Infantry Regiment during the
374:'Slavery By Another Name': The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
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Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
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118:(13 June 1845 – 20 September 1919) was a businessman, slave owner, mine operator and planter in
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138:. J. W. Comer also operated the Eureka Iron Works throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s.
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peonage in Alabama enterprises. He said that J. W. Comer, manager of the Eureka mines,
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Archey, "Letter from E Archey to Dawson Pratt. Mines. dated 18 January 1884;
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The peonage scheme in the American South grew out of enforcement of the "
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603:"Feedback: "Hey, I know that guy!" | Encyclopedia Virginia, The Blog"
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540:"Battle Unit Details - The Civil War (U.S. National Park Service)"
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A House Divided: Antebellum Slavery Debates in America, 1776-1865
283:. Comer also assisted in the administration of the Eureka Mines.
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Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database: National Park Service
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Encyclopedia Virginia Discussion of Black Confederate Soldiers
516:"Soldier Details - The Civil War (U.S. National Park Service)"
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Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database: National Park Service
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Reluctant Rebels: Confederates Who Joined the Army After 1861
130:, John Wallace Comer operated the Comer family plantation in
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Comer operated the plantation at Spring Hill using leased
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Following his recuperation, Comer rejoined his company in
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J. W. Comer was born on the Comer family's plantation in
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Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865-1900,
465:. Richmond, Virginia: The Dietz Press. p. 169.
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Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000
238:, a paramilitary group opposed to equal rights for
393:, Alabama Department of Archives and History, 1883
591:. University of North Carolina Press. p. 44.
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707:, p. 70 (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009)
564:"john wallace comer « kevin-m-weeks-blog"
93:Catharine Drewry Comer and John Fletcher Comer
830:National Park Service: Alabama 27th Regiment
206:and was rescued from the battlefield by his
880:People of Alabama in the American Civil War
480:. Princeton University Press. pp. xxv.
322:Roosevelt Administration investigator that:
845:Alabama Department of Archives and History
415:Alabama Department of Archives and History
400:Richmond, Virginia: The Dietz Press, 1947.
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179:John Wallace enlisted on 1 April 1863 in
162:J. W. Comer's father, John Fletcher Comer
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170:Carrie Gertrude Seay, J. W. Comer's wife
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804:Testimony taken by the Joint Commission
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398:Braxton Bragg Comer: His Family Tree.
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153:Spring Hill, Barbour County, Alabama
126:and the early 1900s. The brother of
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875:People from Barbour County, Alabama
627:"Alabama Confederate State Records"
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246:Following their invasion of nearby
240:newly emancipated African Americans
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835:"Reluctant Rebels" on Google Books
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650:Dawson, Richard (July 11, 1883).
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202:Comer was injured during the
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128:Alabama Governor B. B. Comer
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753:Slavery By Another Name,
587:Noe, Kenneth W. (2010).
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652:Diary of Richard Dawson
396:Walker, Anne Kendrick.
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870:American slave owners
703:Douglas A. Blackmon,
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379:Curtin, Mary Ellen.
281:Lowndesboro, Alabama
85:Carrie Gertrude Seay
779:Dawson Letter Books
665:Blackmon, Douglas.
277:Hambletonian horses
262:Business Interests
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136:American Civil War
124:Reconstruction Era
116:John Wallace Comer
59:September 20, 1919
20:John Wallace Comer
751:Blackmon (2009),
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389:Dawson, Richard.
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175:Civil War service
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865:1919 deaths
860:1845 births
544:www.nps.gov
520:www.nps.gov
356:B. B. Comer
303:Black Codes
267:Agriculture
122:during the
102:B. B. Comer
77:Businessman
854:Categories
690:2015-10-27
636:2015-11-02
612:2015-11-02
573:2015-11-02
549:2015-11-02
525:2015-11-02
501:2015-11-02
367:References
361:Hugh Comer
147:Early life
107:Hugh Comer
74:Occupation
41:1845-06-13
193:Demopolis
142:Biography
109:(brother)
104:(brother)
98:Relatives
90:Parent(s)
350:See also
802:J Good
793:, p. 69
768:, p. 55
256:Masonic
248:Eufaula
189:Pollard
120:Alabama
806:, 1881
234:. The
212:bateau
185:Mobile
82:Spouse
755:p. 69
421:Notes
742:, 68
729:, 66
187:and
56:Died
35:Born
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