The Poll Tax before Jim Crow

Abstract

The poll tax is best known as a tool of disenfranchisement. Before Jim Crow, however, the poll tax served a variety of other fiscal and social purposes. Initially, the poll tax was a mainstay of colonial taxation, especially in the southern colonies. After independence, the fiscal importance of the poll tax waned, but its role as a tool of social control grew. Local government imposed its own poll taxes, contributing to a large cumulative burden. During presidential Reconstruction, state and local governments returned to antebellum tax practices. Poll taxes were supplemented with occupational taxes, often imposing a larger burden on tradesmen than large landowners. With the advent of universal manhood suffrage, new state constitutions limited poll taxes, while directing the revenue raised to education. The end of the congressional Reconstruction brought a gradual increase in poll taxes. Decades later, the poll tax became a prerequisite for voting across the South.