A History of Prison Labor in Arkansas

Executions, Corporal Punishment & Punitive Transportation

Before 1790, European and American jails were not used as a form of punishment. Instead, they served as holding cells for debtors and those awaiting trial. Punishments, on the other hand, were meted out expeditiously. Those with wealth could pay fines and receive lesser offenses. Those who could not experience the full weight of the law.

In the opening of his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault describes an 1757 execution in Paris. Prior to his execution, the man underwent a slew of macabre tortures, all ordered by the court: flesh burned from his limbs by scorching pinchers; boiling resin and oil and molten lead poured across open wounds, drawn and quartered, burned body, and ashes tossed into the wind. This punishment, though gruesome, was commonplace.

The death penalty was not only for murder but for theft also. Penalties of corporal punishment

included stocks and pillories, whippings, brandings, and amputations, unfolding as acts of public spectacle. Other modes of punishment included banishment, public shaming, forced labor in galleys, appropriation of the accused person’s property, and punitive transportation to Australia or the American colonies.

Protestant Reformers and the Case for Prisons

Ironically, the modern-day prison emerged as an attempt at reform, a response to the torturous sanctions that came before it. The writings of protestant reformers became instrumental in building support for the penitentiary movement.

John Howard, England’s top proponent of penal reform, published The State of Prisons in 1777, in which he imagined imprisonment as an opportunity for religious self-reflection and self-reform. Howard went on to co-author the British Parliamentary Penitentiary Act of 1799, recommending imprisonment as an alternative sentence to death or transportation, and opening the way for the modern-day prison.

Philosopher Jeremy Bentham published a series of letters (between 1787-1791), envisioning the

panopticon. The panopticon was a prison model where circular tiers of single-person cells all faced a multilevel guard tower. Through blinds, a complicated play of light and darkness, prisoners would be unable to see the warden in the guard tower, while the warden would be able to observe every prisoner.

Bentham theorized that because prisoners could never know whether they were being watched, they would be compelled to act (labor) as if they were at all times. Bentham's ideas on to influence the construction of England’s first national penitentiary in 1816 and those that would later be built in the United States.

The Rise of the American Penitentiary

In 1790, a portion of Pennsylvania’s Walnut Street Jail was converted into the nation’s first

penitentiary. The penitentiary was largely the work of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, which had its first meeting three years earlier at the home of Benjamin Franklin. The Society’s membership was made up largely of Quakers who saw the penitentiary as a more humane alternative to common punishments like flogging, the pillory, and stocks. Rooted in the Quaker belief that penitence and self-examination led to salvation, ‘sinners’ held at Walnut Street Jail lived, ate, read the Bible, and labored in isolation to reflect on the error of their ways. This model came to be known as the “Pennsylvania Model” and was adapted thirty-nine years later by the Eastern State Penitentiary.

I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow creature.

I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore the more I denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.

Meanwhile, a second model emerged in Auburn, New York. The “Auburn Model” had one notable difference from the “Pennsylvania Model.” Prisoners were held in solitary confinement, but labor happened in congregate settings under the condition of silence. This became the dominant model, both for the United States and Europe, in large part because it was more conducive to prison labor.

First Penitentiary in Arkansas

In 1838, just two years after joining the Union, the Arkansas General Assembly passed legislation approving the construction of a state prison. Construction began the following year after the purchase of 92.41 acres roughly a mile west of Little Rock’s city limits. The prison’s design was modeled after Eastern State Penitentiary, but commissioners preferred the Auburn model (which allowed for collective labor). As a result, in addition to the cell house and officer’s quarters, the prison included a blacksmith shop, a smokehouse, and a shoe shop.

While the state purchased the land and funded the prison’s construction, it had never intended to pay operation costs. Instead, private parties were contracted, which forced incarcerated persons to work as contractors, manufacturers, and planters. In 1846, prisoners “rioted” and burned the penitentiary to the ground. It was later rebuilt on the high ground where the state capitol stands today.

Chattel Slavery in Arkansas

Prison can not be removed from the horror of chattel slavery. The first enslaved Africans were brought to Arkansas Post by the French around 1720. Although the colony failed in a mere two years, settlers and enslaved Africans remained and became a part of subsequent French and Spanish colonies until Arkansas received statehood in 1836. The first official United States census in 1810 found 188 enslaved persons (roughly eighteen percent of the entire population). However, after becoming an incorporated territory in 1819, the number began rapidly escalating, reaching 111,115 by 1860.

Slavery was big business in Arkansas, bolstering the economy through cotton production. By 1860, Arkansas was the sixth largest cotton producer in the United States, adding $16 million dollars to the economy each year.

Enslaved persons were punished for a number of reasons: not working fast enough, arriving to the fields late, defying authority, and running away, among others. The punishment took the form of whippings, torture, mutilation, imprisonment, being sold away from the plantation, rape (considered a form of trespassing), and in some cases murder.

The Convict Leasing System

With the end of the Civil War came the end of chattel slavery (with one exception). A legal concession still cemented in the United States Constitution allows for the involuntary servitude of incarcerated people:

Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

While the Thirteenth Amendment built this language into the United States Constitution, the

practice of prison slave labor had already been widely used in Arkansas. From its origin, Arkansas State Penitentiary had leased prisoners to private contractors; however, in 1858, legislation was passed allowing the state to lease the entire penitentiary and grounds rather than just those incarcerated there. In 1867, the state contracted with James L. Hodges, John C. Peay, and Charles Ayliff. In exchange for the use of prison slave labor, the firm was responsible for operating the facility and paid the state thirty-five cents per prisoner each day.

A new bidder, Asa Hodges, took control in 1869. Under this contract, Hodges would also pay the state thirty-five cents for each prisoner. In exchange, the state would purchase the materials and machinery owned by the previous lessees. The following year, Hodges told the Governor that he was “too lenient” and that nobody "is suitable for a prison superintendent but one that has a heart as cold as an icicle, and as deaf to human appeals as the Czar of Russia." Despite this fact, Hodges continued to hold the contract until 1873, when the Arkansas legislature passed a new lease law that changed how prisons were managed in Arkansas.

Under the new law, the state would grant the lessee control of the penitentiary for ten years, at no cost to the state. The contract was granted to John M. Peck and Colonel Zebulon Ward, who bought out Peck’s interest and took full control in March 1875, holding the contract until 1883. Near the end of Ward’s contract, the Gazette noted that he had accumulated a “handsome fortune.” This was largely due to the state’s ballooning prison population caused by the passage of laws known as Black Codes that criminalized people of color for petty crimes. One such law was known as the Larceny Act, which made the theft of any property worth two dollars or more punishable by one to five years of imprisonment. Ward reported having ten prisoners leased to him in 1875 and 68 by 1876. In 1900, there were nearly 800. As the prison population grew, Ward received a contract to build a major expansion of the state prison using prison labor.

1883 brought yet another change to convict leasing in Arkansas. The state adopted the practice of other Southern states, now requiring the lessee to pay the state in exchange for prison labor. This created a new income source for the state, further entrenching the system and making it even more difficult to eliminate. The Arkansas Industrial Company acquired the contract. While the corporation continued to utilize the labor of prisoners within the penitentiary, it also sent hundreds to work for subcontractors outside the penitentiary, building railroads, mining coal, and toiling on plantations.

Coal Hill

Contractors and subcontractors were able to acquire cheap labor and had no obligation to provide proper care. A legislative committee report into the conditions at a coal mining camp (released in 1890) indicated that incarcerated persons suffered from overcrowding, received inadequate food and housing, poor clothing, no facilities for health or hygiene facilities, and were subjected to physical violence and abuse from guards.

The report was the result of an investigation into conditions at Coal Hill. The investigation found that men were dying “by the dozens,” largely from being overworked, disease, and being whipped or beaten to death. One man died after receiving 400 lashes. Another was beaten so badly “he had no flesh on his back.” The warden, J.A. Gifford, forced incarcerated men to fight one another for his own entertainment. To prevent escape, the feet of incarcerated persons were shackled together and attached to iron balls.

Farming movements (including the Agricultural Wheel, National Farmers’ Alliance, and Industrial Union of America) and the Knights of Labor began demanding an end to the system of convict leasing. In 1893, the Arkansas legislature chose not to renew the Arkansas Industrial Company’s contract and resumed control of the penitentiary. However, due in part to the state’s lack of financial resources, it began its own system of subcontracting prisoners to serve as sharecroppers on farms and work the railroads, among other roles. The Arkansas Penitentiary Board (made up of only three individuals: the governor, secretary of state, and the attorney general) was immediately authorized to “procure [prisoners] as soon as possible” and purchase “any lands, buildings, machinery, livestock, and tools” needed to operate a penitentiary for “the largest number of convicts that can be accommodated.” This authorization paved the way for the prison farms and the continued abuse that followed.

A New Capitol, Cummins Prison Farm, and the End of Convict Leasing

At the beginning of January 1899, large pieces of ceiling plaster fell in the Senate chamber following heavy rain. By January 12, legislation had been introduced calling for the construction of a new capitol building. Governor Daniel Webster Jones proposed the new Capitol be built on the grounds of the state penitentiary, stating the land was “too valuable” to continue being used as a prison. The new law allocated $50,000 for the hiring of an architect and stipulated the entire project not exceed one million dollars. Construction began in June with two hundred prisoners allotted for the construction of the new Capitol, although due to the state’s “pay as you go” model and alleged shortcuts in construction it would not be completed for nearly fourteen years.

A penitentiary, popularly known as “The Walls,” was built to replace the pre-existing penitentiary and prisoners were leased to the Arkansas Brick Manufacturing Company and the rest forced to work at a convict leasing camp in England, Arkansas. Despite opposition from Governor Jeff Davis, in 1902, a 10,000-acre plot of land was purchased in Lincoln County and transformed into Cummins State Prison Farm. The space was used to house exclusively black prisoners for the picking of cotton.

During the first week of December 1912, Governor George Donaghey attended the Governor’s

Conference in Richmond, Virginia. During a panel on prison reform, Donaghey learned of how

Governor Cole Blease of South Carolina had pardoned four hundred prisoners in two years. On

December 17th, Governor Donaghey followed suit, pardoning 360 of the state penitentiary’s 850 prisoners. This intense disruption of the system removed all surplus prisoners (those not needed to run the Cummins State Prison Farm), leaving none to lease to private contractors. Two months later, the Arkansas legislature abolished the convict lease system, doubling down on the prison farm model.

In 1916, additional land was purchased in Jefferson County and transformed into the Tucker State Prison Farm, where white prisoners would be housed and also pick cotton.

The women’s reformatory movement attempted to reform prisons by moving women from traditional facilities where they were housed on the same grounds as men to separate institutions. Reformatories attempted to legislate morality by criminalizing female sexuality. Women were sentenced for a variety of reasons including “lewd and lascivious conduct, fornication, serial premarital pregnancies, adultery [and] venereal disease.” Spearheaded by white middle and upper-middle-class women, the movement often excluded people of color — as was the case in Arkansas. In 1920, Arkansas State Farm for Women, colloquially known as the “Pea Farm,” opened. Mary Dewees, the first superintendent, embraced the commonly held belief that women committed crimes as a result of lacking feminine qualities. Women’s daily routine included ironing, sewing classes, hauling and canning vegetables, repairing clothing, and setting tables for dinner.

In 1933, the Arkansas State Penitentiary, also known as “The Walls,” was closed, and everyone held there was transferred to Cummins and Tucker Prison Farms. In 1951, white female prisoners were moved from the State Farm for Women to the Cummins Prison Farm. Black female prisoners were already at Cummins and Tucker.

More of the Same

Incarcerated Arkansans are still forced to work with no compensation. Prison labor is still big business in Arkansas. This financial incentive continues to have life-or-death consequences for people in prison. In 2020, a decades-long American policy failure—mass incarceration—collided with a brand new American policy failure—the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. After decades of needlessly locking up ever more people in jails and prisons, state and federal lawmakers now faced a public health disaster. One of the worst outbreaks anywhere in the nation happened at Cummins Prison Farm.

The virus spread rapidly, largely through labor in congregant settings. Yet, amidst this public health crisis, nothing changed. Throughout March, what is commonly referred to as the hoe squad was assigned to swing-blade the grass in muddy ditches around a chicken plant reeking of ammonia. Prisoners worked shoulder to shoulder without masks.

In 2023 alone, Arkansas brought in more than $230 million from the sale of produce, livestock, and other goods produced by the unpaid slave labor of incarcerated people. In Arkansas prisons, profit still trumps everything: the health, the safety, and the humanity of incarcerated people.