MURDERS OF NEGROES.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 March 1921, Page 5

MURDERS OF NEGROES.

LARGE TOLL OF VICTIMS. 1 VIRTUAL SLAVERY ALLEGED. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received March 29 9.15 p.m. New York, March 28. The Federal and State authorities of Atlanta, including the Governor, have taken up the work of investigating the alleged peonage system in Jaspers County, Georgia. Eleven dead bodies of Negroes have already 'been found, but it is expected the number killed will total forty. The way in which the peonage operated has not yet been made clear, but it appears that Williams, who is the owner of a plantation of 4000 acres of tillable land, would pay the fines of Negroes who were imprisoned for small offences, and he would then take the men off to work in files on his farm. He conducted these operations in many towns throughout the upper country.-- It is probable he overworked the Negroes, and, fearing they would report him to the authorities, had them killed. The national Press is shocked at the peonage charges, pointing out that the nation supposed slavery was wiped out by the Civil War. —Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn.

[A cable from New York published on Monday morning stated: “Agents of the Department of Justice, who have been investigating allegations of the existence of a peonage system in Jasper County, Georgia, under which Negroes are virtually enslaved, have discovered the bodies of nine murdered Negroes. Some were found chained and weighted with rocks at the bottom of several rivers, and others in shallow graves. John Williams, the owner of the plantation on which some of the bodies were discovered, has been arrested, and charged with murder. His three sons have also been apprehended. Clyde Manning, a Negro employed by Williams, confessed to complicity in murders.”]