Analysis Of Slavery By Another Name

Slavery by Another Name is based on the time period after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. This time period is often simplified or wrongly taught in schools. Children are taught from a very young age that the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery and that Black People were free to be Black in America afterwards. That is sadly not the truth because Black People were never truly freed at this time. They lived in fear of backlash from the White community, and they were subjected to physical, mental and emotion abuse, both socially and politically. Since slavery had been abolished, White People needed to find a new way to get labor out of Black People. Shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation is released, the Thirteenth Amendment
is added to the Constitution. It officially states that slavery is abolished within the United States. The wording, however, gives White People and the government a new way to enslave Blacks. It specifically states that slavery is abolished “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” (2). In other words, if you are convicted for a crime, slavery can be used as punishment for that crime. This lead to widespread abuse of the Thirteenth Amendment in a series of unfair and harsh punishments for petty, misdemeanor crimes, known as the “Pig Laws”. Within the Pig Laws, there is the use of vagrancy statutes that made it possible to arrest Black People for simply just standing somewhere or not having a job. If they could not prove they had some sort of “support”, or employment, they could be arrested. This alone led to the arrest of many Black People. Alongside the Pig Laws, Black Codes were also enforced during this time in the South. It “allowed African Americans certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts, but denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, vote, or start a job without the approval of the previous employer” (1).
These two factors made it difficult for Blacks to combat the abuse of power by Whites. This would eventually lead to the convict leasing system and the mass incarnation of Black People. The convict leasing system is a way for companies and plantation owner to have workers by leasing Black Men and Black Women to work for them. In Slavery by Another Name, it is stated that some believed the convict leasing system is worse than slavery because, unlike slavery, convict leasing system is not an investment. Black people are rented, so renters felt no obligation to take care of them. Slavery owners literally own their slaves so they had to feed them, give them clothes, and give them shelter. They need the slaves, so they could not kill them and the slaves also had economic value, so it was best to take care of them (3). All the companies and plantation owners had to do was pay a renting fee once a month, which was about nine dollars. They could have these workers work in terrible, even life-threating and toxic
conditions. The convict leasing system made it possible that a prisoner could be leased and literally worked to death without much thought because they were no labor unions for them. The combination of the Pig Laws and Black Codes, as well as the hands off and lax attitude from the government, lead to mass incarnation of Black People and large prison population, which all made the convict leasing system possible. Slavery by Another Name uses the narrative of Green Cottenham as a first person source for what was actually going on during this time period.
He specifically used Cottenham to talk about the experiences of the convict leasing system and black miners because Cottenham is supposed to represent the nameless and faceless people in the convict leasing system whose stories are not told. He is mentioned in the beginning and as the film goes on they speak more about him and how he relates to what is happening. Cottenham’s story is common to many other people because how he is arrested for vagrancy, and how he is given the choice of a fine and three months of hard labor or six month of hard labor with no fine. Since many people, like Cottenham, did not have the money to pay the fine, they just did hard labor. Many people would get lost in the system and captured by convict leasing. The idea of using Green Cottenham story is a very good one. Slavery by Another Name tries to portray the stories of all convicts through Cottenham, and while it is great to have a story told, it is difficult to follow his story. There are multiple narratives being told in the film, it is easy to forget which story is Cottenham’s. His story is mentioned throughout the film, but it would have been better if they started with Cottenham’s complete or almost complete story. The film watchers will be able to get a better feel for who Cottenham is and why his story is so important if the film would have started
with saying his story. Constantly just mentioning bits and pieces of his story throughout the film is too difficult to follow. Even if they wanted to keep their format, if the film makers should have found a way to transition between Cottenham’s story, the information being told in the film and the other narratives being told so that it would make everything much easier to follow.