Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

In the spring of 1903, rumors swirled around Alabama that a Secret Service agent was seeking the testimony of Black residents for a federal grand jury case investigating whether white people in Tallapoosa County still possessed slaves. A press release from the Department of Justice stated there was evidence of people being held in peonage—the act of holding another person in servitude to pay off their alleged debts. White Southerners were shocked that the federal government was finally challenging the South’s ability to manage its race issues. Black Southerners, on the other hand, were cautiously optimistic.

President Theodore Roosevelt was concerned about the gaps between Black and white Americans and the fact that the former were not receiving the freedom they had been promised. He had naively believed that most white Americans would see the need to treat formerly enslaved people and their descendants fairly. Roosevelt became unwilling to indulge Southerners and their excuse that they abused Black people due to their economic impoverishment. Moreover, although Black Southerners were largely disenfranchised, Black delegates could still vote in the primaries and thus had a hand in picking the presidential nominees. Roosevelt wanted to court their support, so working to help Black Southerners was also a move to secure his career.

To build his political support, Roosevelt sought the support and advice of Booker T. Washington, a prominent Black leader who encouraged his community to learn trades through schools like the Tuskegee Institute—which Washington established—and rely on self-improvement to fit into white society. Washington’s view on the status of African Americans in society clashed with the perspective of W. E. B. DuBois, a more progressive Black intellectual leader and Atlanta professor. However, Washington’s viewpoint fit squarely with Roosevelt’s form of paternalistic racism, which sought to help Black Americans while maintaining white superiority.

Roosevelt asked for Washington’s help in picking a federal judge in Alabama who supported African American citizenship. Washington recommended Thomas Goode Jones, who openly supported preserving the new rights given to Black citizens in the 14th and 15th Amendments. Roosevelt appointed Jones and invited Washington to dine at the White House. Racist Southerners were outraged by the idea of a Black man sitting next to the president, partially because they believed it endorsed sexual relations between Black men and white women. They were also upset because it implied that African Americans should object to being second-class citizens. An indignant senator stated, following the invitation, “We shall have to kill a thousand […] to get them back to their places” (155).

White Southerners persisted in the delusion that Black Americans were content with their lives despite all the evidence to the contrary. They pinned Black Southerners’ suffering on individual behavior, creating the myth of the “bad” versus the “good” Black person, designations based on how well one submitted to white authority. Further actions, like Roosevelt’s promise of “a square deal for the negro” (170), only inflamed Southern hostility.

Blackmon introduces Attorney General Philander C. Knox, who ordered inquiries into the South’s new slavery practices. The Department of Justice tried to bring charges of slavery on a case in Georgia once before; lawyers argued there was no federal law that made holding slaves a crime, and the judge agreed, stating they needed to defer to the state courts on matters of slavery. But with a sympathetic President Roosevelt and Judge Jones in place, the Department of Justice had another chance to tackle neo-slavery. Attorney General Knox ordered Warren S. Reese Jr., a federal prosecutor in Montgomery, Alabama, with moderate and modern views on race, to investigate the slavery allegations. Indictments were brought against nine men in Shelby County, but Reese quickly realized this was a widespread problem as more evidence mounted.

A grand jury convened in Montgomery, Alabama, composed of 20 white and three Black jurors. A white witness was brought in to corroborate the allegations of slavery brought forward by the Black witnesses. One of the Black witnesses was John Davis, who had been sold to another farmer by John Pace. When word got out about the federal investigation into slavery, the farmer released Davis. After his release, however, Davis was coerced into signing a document stating that his initial arrest—which led to his enslavement—was for correct charges.

From the testimony of those forced into slavery, the grand jury understood that most of these Black men had committed no actual crime. They learned about the financial profits made by the white men who participated in this forced labor system, as well as the poor treatment Black laborers experienced. For example, Black men were sometimes forced to deliver the orders of their white overseers or even hold down their fellow laborers for whippings—a punishment that occurred regularly.

John Pace was the first man in Alabama to face criminal charges for holding Black slaves. During his testimony, Pace watered down the accounts of how he acquired the Black laborers by saying he asked for paperwork showing that the men were convicted of legitimate crimes, despite having no evidence to back up this claim. Pace also lied about Davis’s arrest, saying Davis admitted to owing $40 to a local store. James Fletcher Turner also testified, arguing against claims of violence toward workers on his farm—particularly violence that led to the deaths of Black women.

Then, George Cosby took the stand to deliver his testimony. Like Pace and Turner, Cosby said he was confused by allegations made against him. He blatantly lied, stating he never forced anyone into labor and that he was a friend to Black laborers and allowed them to live on his farm after he paid their debts. Cosby claimed his Black workers were free: “I don’t lock them up at night. I have no hounds, I keep a rabbit dog. I don’t go armed about my place. Those negroes are absolutely free” (190). Afterward, James M. Kennedy testified. He said that he sentenced some men who went on to work for Pace but does not say exactly how many, alleging that his records were lost. Kennedy also claimed he was never paid for trying these cases.

Associates of Pace, Turner, and Cosby—and other men who were not indicted, like Mayor White—began to harass and intimidate other witnesses. Pace and Turner started freeing the Black laborers still on their farms to dispose of evidence that they committed slavery. Kennedy grew worried and testified again, choosing to tell the truth about the cases he tried and the men who were sent to forced labor. He mentioned not only the convicted Black men but also Black women, who were seized to perform sexual services for the white farm owners.

Francis M. Pruitt, the local constable and sheriff, insists during his testimony that his actions were legal. Meanwhile, Pace posted bond for his charges and returned to Tallapoosa County to await his trial. As the trials approach, J. Thomas Heflin expressed sympathy for the indicted white men and the new slavery they had adopted. Very few white Southerners expressed opposition to the new slavery; others, like Mayor White, even doubled down on its defense, stating that there had been no abuse of Black men and women in his town. Southern newspapers published editorials arguing that concerns over widespread slavery were exaggerated, and Southern men cited examples of lynching in the North to defend their own treatment of Black people. A Southern newspaper wrote that in the North, white people loved Black people “at a safe distance,” whereas Southerners saw them as “a necessary worker on the farm, in the shop and the in the home, but not in any way an equal” (200).

Blackmon briefly turns to US Attorney Reese in Montgomery, describing the growing city and how it was fueled by the cotton trade and mineral mines that were booming in the state—primarily due to new slavery. Reese wrote a letter to Attorney General Knox detailing what he had discovered. Given Roosevelt’s mandate to investigate the slavery cases, Knox took the letter seriously, but as a Northerner, he could not believe that this kind of slavery was still taking place in the 20th century. Blackmon then returns to the trial and Judge Jones’ explanation to jurors that if a person forced a worker to sign a contract that stated they could not leave until a debt was paid, then that person was guilty of peonage. Jones further stated that if a person falsely accused someone of a crime to force them into hard labor, then that person was guilty of violating the Slave Kidnapping Act enacted prior to emancipation.

Finally, Jones stated that Alabama’s labor contract law—which tied Black workers to white landowners—was unconstitutional. Southern white people were angered by Jones’ ruling because it would put hundreds of farmers at risk of arrest. The ruling also highlighted the illegal nature of the forced labor contracts between county government and the state of Alabama used for mines and timber camps. Judge Jones did not realize the full implications of his decision because, like most racist moderates, he believed most Black men had been lawfully arrested because they were more likely to commit crimes than white men. Faced with immense opposition, Jones backtracked somewhat, stating that if a white man found a local judge to approve of a contract with a Black person in a court of law, then the white man was not breaking the law.

Meanwhile, Reese compiled his research on additional allegations of slavery throughout the South in a report to government officials in Washington, DC. Lowndes County seemed to be the site of egregious abuses; Reese said the county “[was] honeycombed with slavery” (208). The county sheriff, J. W. Dixon, seemed to be conducting the slavery operation there. Following Reese’s report, the attorney general launched a widespread federal investigation into working conditions of Black Americans in Alabama and Georgia—the largest such investigation since the Civil War.

Blackmon pivots the narrative back to Judge Jones, who ordered the trial of Pace, the Cosbys, and John Kennedy to begin one week later, followed by the trials of Turner, Pruitt, and other indicted men. The grand jury ultimately issued 99 indictments against 15 defendants, including 22 against Pace alone. Blackmon cites angry editorials in Southern newspapers that expressed opposition to the North’s indirect interference through these slavery trials.

John Pace hoped that Judge Jones would offer a symbolic punishment—no jail time—in exchange for a guilty plea. Federal prosecutor Reese wanted to see actual punishments, but Pace’s lawyers remained confident that no Alabama jury would convict a white man of slavery charges. Meanwhile, as part of Attorney General Knox’s federal investigation into working conditions of Black laborers in Alabama and Georgia, Secret Service agents uncovered widespread allegations of involuntary servitude—slavery—throughout the South. These agents faced death threats from white Southerners for conducting these investigations.

Blackmon pivots back to Pace’s trial. Pace’s lawyers asserted that federal laws forbidding peonage did not apply to Pace’s alleged actions. They claimed the federal government did not have the right to charge someone with peonage because that was a matter for state courts to handle. Jones sentenced Pace to five years in prison, though an appeal could be made to a higher court. However, due to Pace’s supposedly failing health, Jones allowed Pace to post a $5,000 bond to remain free until the higher court of appeals ruled on his case. Reese was pleased with Pace’s guilty plea, but Southerners continued to assert that slavery was limited to only a handful of cases. In an interview with a Southern newspaper, Reese challenged these claims and stated that widespread slavery was taking place, largely due to local judges and sheriffs.

The next trial surrounded allegations that Cosby’s nephew George, Pace, and James Kennedy sold a man named Pike Swanson to work on the Cosby farm. The Cosbys pled guilty but insisted they did not know they were breaking the law. Jones did not accept their defense and sentenced them to one year and a day in jail. As the trials went on, tensions rose in the South. White supremacists like Alabama Secretary of State Heflin punished any white man who approved of Reese’s investigations, and African Americans with some degree of financial security grew more fearful that they would be attacked if they expressed support for the trials.

James Fletcher Turner and his son were tried next. Their lawyers presented a strange argument by admitting that while the Turners practiced slavery, involuntary servitude was not the same thing as peonage. Because peonage is defined as forced labor to pay off a debt, the lawyers claimed that what the Turners did was not illegal because the debt fines were fake. Finally, they claimed there was no federal law that made slavery a crime. Therefore, slavery cases could only be tried in the state court of Alabama. Blackmon suggests that a local Alabama court, likely made up of an all-white jury, would have never convicted a white man on slavery charges. He also notes that Turner’s lawyers were correct in their assessment of federal law not penalizing slavery as a crime.

Glennie Helms was the first Black victim to openly testify in the trials of Pace, Cosby, and Turner. Helms told the jury how he was captured, charged with vagrancy, convicted by the town mayor, and sold to James Fletcher Turner. Helms tried to escape but was captured and whipped severely upon his return. Turner’s lawyers tried to discredit each witness by insinuating that the white lawyer helping Helms was overly fond of Black people and thus disobeyed the established norms of race relations in the South. Alabama Secretary of State J. Thomas Heflin even testified as a witness, claiming to know Turner to be a person of good character—even though the two men did not seem to know each other.

Reese presented the government’s closing argument, stating that Turner deserved no mercy because he purchased men as casually as he might purchase livestock. Judge Jones presented an emotional argument to the jury and asked them to set aside appeals to white allegiance and instead go by the facts of the case, which would lead them to find Turner guilty. The jury returned with eight men voting to acquit and four to convict. Jones was disappointed, as he believed Southern white men would hold their peers accountable. He effectively ordered them to return with a guilty verdict, and while more jurors moved in favor of conviction, they were still deadlocked. Jones declared a mistrial and set the Turners free. But Turner surprised everyone by returning to court and pleading guilty to avoid being tried again before another jury. Jones, understanding the difficulty of getting a jury to convict a white man on slavery charges, accepted the guilty plea and sentenced Turner to a $1,000 fine.

The federal trials existed alongside a tide of racial violence in the spring and summer of 1903. Federal prosecutor Reese believed history and the nation supported his efforts to investigate slavery in the South, but white supremacists were outraged. Alabama Secretary of State Heflin argued that Pace and Turner were merely putting Black people in their natural state as slaves, and he demonized Reese and Judge Jones as traitors to their fellow Southerners. White people who appeared to support African Americans—like a sheriff who refused to hand over a Black boy to a mob that accused him of assaulting a white girl—also become targets of the white supremacists’ rage. Blackmon writes, “A pall was descending on Black America, like nothing experienced since the darkest hours of antebellum slavery” (234).

Blackmon notes the challenges to Black advancement in the US. White Northerners naïvely assumed that once former slaves received an education and a wage, they would be able to fully assimilate into American society. Plus, even progressive white people at the time believed in Black men and women’s racial inferiority. This view was supported by the racist eugenics movement drawn from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Before this, white people often used Christianity to justify a racial hierarchy, but their religious beliefs also demanded that they consider compassion for other human beings, regardless of race. The theory of evolution led white people to conclude that the racial hierarchy extended beyond skin color to blood as well. White racists used Darwin’s theory to advocate for a scientific basis for white superiority, even though there was no evidence to back up that claim. Some doctors compared the physical features of African Americans to barnyard animals as a means of dehumanizing them and portraying them as intellectually inferior to white people.

Growing white violence against Indigenous tribes in the Western US also fed into this reinforcement of white superiority. Blackmon cites popular books and other forms of media that perpetuated this racism, such as The Leopard’s Spots, a romance novel written by former preacher Thomas Dixon Jr. Dixon portrayed white enslavers as kind people and formerly enslaved Black people as violent, feeding into racist tropes and erasing the violence of white enslavers. The book dangerously suggested that Black and white people were two separate races, so different they, “[could] not live together under a democracy” (237). Blackmon also cites editorials in newspapers that contributed to worsening relations between white and Black Americans, particularly because they sensationalized issues through hyperbolic headlines like “Race War in Mississippi” (244).

Ultimately, both the South and the North viewed slavery as a “relic of the past” (241) despite the rampant slavery practices still taking place. These racist attitudes made African Americans deeply cynical about their status in society. Even when similar federal inquiries into Georgia’s state convict system were made, Black witnesses were not trusted. Instead, legislators asked for testimony from white people and tried discrediting a Black witness’s testimony by portraying them as a “bad negro” (243). This anger toward Black people manifested in numerous events of mob violence, including one in which a group of Black men in chains was pushed into the sea to drown. W. E. B. Dubois was upset by the immense setbacks to Black progress and wrote that the South, “[was] simply an armed camp for intimidating Black folk” (245).

Despite the negative reactions to the trials and the poor outcomes, Attorney Warren Reese maintained hope that he could still achieve justice. Alabama Judge Jones was embarrassed by what happened in the Turner trial, so at the trial of Robert Franklin, he urged the jury to find the defendant guilty. The jury agreed, and Judge Jones fined Franklin a mere $1,000. Reese wanted to bring forward additional slavery charges, but Jones was tired of the public opposition. Jones cared only that the defendants admitted guilt and hoped that shaming Alabama through these few trials would prevent further debt slavery. Therefore, he felt a lenient symbolic fine was sufficient punishment. The Cosbys were the only defendants in prison for their crimes, and after a growing public outcry, Jones urged President Roosevelt to pardon them, which he did. Although slavery persisted across the South, it was difficult to bring new indictments forward due to harassment of federal agents and intimidation of possible witnesses. It was also hard to distinguish between the formal leasing of forced labor to private companies and the informal slavery on individual farms.

A grand jury was convened in Georgia to hear testimony around allegations of slavery made against Georgia State Representative Edward McRee, his brothers, and other associates. McRee’s plantation and industrial holdings were far larger than John Pace’s farm. There was also a sawmill, a factory, and a turpentine camp. The McRees initially used free Black labor but quickly turned to leasing convicts from the state. One individual testified that men who tried to escape were captured with dogs. He described crude and unsanitary living conditions and numerous whippings. The laborer started out as a free worker, but when he was unable to pay debts owed to the store on the plantation, he was forced into slavery. McRee required the forced laborers to sign a contract allowing them to be held against their will and beaten. The man testified: “We had sold ourselves into slavery—and what could we do about it?” (251).

The McRee brothers, along with county officials, were handed indictments. The McRees appeared in court to face trial. Like some of the defendants in Alabama, they maintained that they did not know holding slaves was illegal. Judge Speer—the judge presiding over this case—decided to accept their guilty plea and sentenced them to symbolic punishments: a fine of $1,000. Like Judge Jones, Speer believed that symbolic punishments were enough to prevent further slavery without angering white Southerners.

Warren Reese pressed the White House to continue investigating slavery, and Special Assistant US Attorney Julius Sternfeld was assigned to the cases. A Black pastor wrote to the Department of Justice, asking for help investigating the kidnapping of his daughter, and received a short, unhelpful reply. Despite Reese’s interest in seeking justice, officials in Washington were growing tired of the sheer number of cases being reported, or what Blackmon calls a “quagmire of unintended consequences” (255), resulting from Roosevelt’s mandate to clamp down on slavery.

Blackmon turns his attention to violence in the rural town of Pine Apple, Alabama. Many white families there had grown rich from cotton plantations worked by Black laborers. One such family was the Meltons. They were known for their brutal treatment and their practice of forcing Black people to work on their farms; the family reportedly killed a Black man who tried to escape. It was Christmastime—the end of a long harvest and a brief payday for Black sharecroppers. White sharecroppers not only took much of the Black sharecroppers’ crops but also deducted their pay for the cost of seeds, rent, and other various expenses, so the laborers ultimately ended up with only a little in cash that would quickly run out.

On Christmas Eve, one of the young Melton men known as “Pig” got into a fight with a group of gambling Black men. Someone shot him, though it was unclear who was responsible. The Black men fled, but the townsfolk apprehended one—Arthur Stuart—and branded him as a guilty accomplice, even though there was no evidence to back up their claims. He was taken to jail, where a white mob broke in, beat him, and set him on fire—along with the jail. The fire spread, destroying many more buildings in town. The Meltons were never prosecuted for Arthur Stuart’s murder or the enslavement of Black workers. A year later, two more Black men were accused of murdering a white man in the town and killed by a mob.

Blackmon returns to the trials, which were not holding any of the white men truly accountable for their crimes of enslaving Black workers. Meanwhile, the federal investigations were at a standstill because the investigators received death threats and Black witnesses were being intimidated. John Pace’s 55-year sentence was suspended, and there was no new activity on his appeal. Even Reese admitted that, because there was no federal law that made slavery a crime, Pace would likely never serve time in prison. One of the other men charged appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which granted him a new trial but also upheld the constitutionality of the anti-peonage statute—a pleasant surprise to Reese and others.

Based on the Supreme Court ruling, Judge Speer declared that Georgia’s forced labor system was illegal and that local courts did not have the power to punish men based on petty or non-existent crimes. Speer’s ruling had widespread implications for slavery. Reese also learned that the still-free John Pace had re-enslaved Black workers. Reese wanted to file a habeas corpus petition—which is used to bring prisoners before a court to determine whether they are lawfully being detained—on behalf of the thousands of Alabama convicts working in privately owned mines. Attorney General Moody—Knox’s successor—told Reese not to take any action until the Supreme Court ruled on Judge Speer’s decision.

Finally, the chapter returns to the writer Thomas Dixon, who had released another book entitled The Clansman. The book painted the violent actions of the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan, in a favorable light. Dixon adapted his book into a play, which he showed across the US. White people throughout the country praised the play, even though it idealized a group that violently terrorized Black individuals. Only a handful of activists opposed the play’s racist rhetoric. Responding to critics, Dixon said, “God ordained the Southern white man to teach the lessons of Aryan supremacy” (269).

W. E. B. DuBois wrote a series of articles and a book, The Souls of Black Folks, about the terrible state of race relations in the US. With support from the government, DuBois undertook a wide-scale sociological survey of Black sharecroppers in the South—the first of its kind in the country. DuBois focused on Lowndes County, where more than 30,000 Black sharecroppers picked cotton and lived under the rule of white landowners despite being technically free. This was the area that Warren Reese believed was the new home of slavery in Alabama. One of the most notorious managers of slave mines in the state, W. D. McCurdy, kept Black leased convicts on his plantations in Lowndes County, and the local sheriff kept this business of leased convict labor afloat.

However, Reese was unable to bring charges because witnesses feared they would be killed if they testified. While DuBois and his team were in Lowndes County, he stayed at the Calhoun School, which encourages Black land ownership. His team surveyed more than 21,000 Black men and women. While conducting the survey, a white mob attacked Atlanta, Georgia—DuBois’ home—enraged in part because the Atlanta Constitution newspaper published false accusations that Black men were raping white women. Two dozen African Americans and fewer than a half-dozen white Americans were killed in the resulting violence, and DuBois rushed back out of concern for his wife and child.

In 1906, DuBois delivered his report to the Department of Labor. However, in the wake of continued racial violence, his research was seen as too political, and the department declined to publish it. Instead, DuBois wrote a novel based on his research: The Quest for the Silver Fleece. One of the central characters is Colonel Cresswell, who lives in fictional Tooms County—based on Lowndes County—and operates thousands of acres of cotton, which is harvested by Black laborers. The Cresswells buy and sell sharecroppers like slaves by paying off the workers’ alleged debt and using labor contracts—essentially the same system of convict leasing used in real life. DuBois also wrote about Black men being forced into chain gangs, in which they were put in chains and forced at gunpoint to patrol roads.

Meanwhile, all the progress Reese worked for was derailed. The US Supreme Court overturned Judge Speer’s ruling that made forced convict leasing illegal in Georgia. The Supreme Court stated that the federal government did not have the right to remove the system of convict leasing because it was the state’s business. Unhappy with this decision, Reese left his position as a US attorney. President Roosevelt pardoned John Pace for his crimes, and James Fletcher Turner was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives.

Blackmon returns the book’s focus to Tallapoosa County, which had become a symbol of slavery in the South, before turning to Columbiana, a town in neighboring Shelby County that was growing due to new iron mines, furnaces, and cotton mills.

Many of the formerly enslaved Cottingham workers and their descendants—including Green Cottenham—lived in Brierfield, Shelby County, which used to produce weapons for the Confederacy. Blackmon describes Green’s uncle, Abraham Cottingham. Abraham had two sons, Jimmy (known as “Cap”) and Frank, who had never been enslaved. They had experienced the right to vote, as well as having that right taken away due to laws intended to disenfranchise Black Southerners. Green—being younger than either of them—never got the chance to vote. Cap was arrested for supposedly carrying a concealed weapon and sentenced to four months of hard labor. He was sent to work in the Pratt Mines and released the following year.

White people in Columbiana were proud of the wealth generated by Shelby County, which led to new roads and better public schools—though these benefits were generally not extended to African Americans. A brand-new courthouse was built with tall spires, much like the jail on the other side of town. The booming economy was partially dependent on cotton, which required laborers—specifically Black laborers, according to the white landowners. Blackmon brings up Judge Jones’s ruling, which stated that people using forced labor or convicts who admitted to their alleged crimes could avoid prosecution under the peonage statute. There were three conditions: One, the forced laborers had to be convicted in a real local court; two, a written record of the crime and punishment had to be documented in court; and three, the contract between the convict laborer and the person paying their fine had to be signed in court. So, thanks to Jones’s ruling, as long as a local judge legally signed off, white Southerners could continue using slavery in practice.

Despite Reese and Jones’s efforts, this new form of slavery seemed to expand. Nearly 90% of prisoners arrested in Shelby County between November 1890 and August 1906 were Black, and a majority were sold into forced labor. Many were sold to Shelby Iron Works, the largest employer in the county, but the largest number was sold to Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co (TCI). A great number were also sold to the Sloss-Sheffield mining company and lumber companies and private landowners, like the McCurdy brothers in Lowndes County. As Blackmon notes: “Alabama’s slave system had evolved into a forced labor agricultural and industrial enterprise unparalleled in the long history of slaves in the United States” (287).

Upward of 6,000 men worked in the Pratt Mines, and a quarter of these men were forced laborers brought in through the court system. Blackmon briefly describes the mining process. TCI did not want the rest of the country knowing how much it relies on forced labor, but privately, the higher-ups spoke of how beneficial it was to the company. TCI’s chief of operations, Erskine Ramsey, wrote about the convict labor to Henry Clay Frick, an industrialist who became a major owner of US. Steel. Ramsey talked about how cheaply the coal was produced because they did not pay the slaves—who were almost entirely Black men. When the free workers—largely white—went on strike for better working conditions, the company could continue running operations using slaves, thus ending the strike. TCI received many slaves from the Turner family, even after Turner went to trial for slavery.

Meanwhile, TCI dramatically expanded its business by providing steel for the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads—a move that challenged US Steel, the dominant steel company in the North. However, instability in the stock market affected two major firms that owned shares in TCI, resulting in US Steel buying out TCI to prevent further instability. Roosevelt approved the merger, even though TCI was the largest recipient of enslaved labor. US Steel acquired 400 more forced convict laborers from Alabama for between $10-$42/month per laborer. They would be sent to Slope No. 12—the same mine where Green Cottenham would perish.