Whitecapping: Agrarian Violence in Mississippi, 1902-1906

Abstract

American South at the beginning of the twentieth century. The two issues were not always related, but on occasions they did complement one another. Southern farmers, the victims for more than three decades of the share-crop and crop-lien systems, faced problems of overproduction, falling prices, and inadequate supplies of capital and credit. Organizations ranging from the Grange to the Farmers' Alliance had attempted to help farmers by offering such constructive programs as acreage control, co-operative marketing, cheaper credit, and better farming methods.' Unfortunately for their cause, the racist and nativist elements of the farm organizations tacked on to these laudable goals a steadfast determination to control the Negro. By the 1890's the anti-Negro sentiments that Southern farmers had long held became widespread throughout the nation as many Northern liberals and the national government acquiesced in a mounting tide of racist thought. Within the South during the late 1890's racism became more intense when Democratic leaders attempted to win the support of white Populists by advocating disfranchisement and segregation of the Negro. Probably no other group espoused this anti-Negro sentiment more strongly than the small farmers who for so long had experienced hard times.2 Historians have devoted much attention to the various phases