Williams Kills 11 Negroes Fearing They Would Reveal Conditions of Peonage, March 26, 1921

Williams Killed 11 Negroes. . . White Farmer Feared They Would Tell of Existing Conditions of Peonage

Atlanta, Ga., March 25—Investigation was continued today by the Newton county grand jury into conditions about Covington, Ga., where a number of negroes are alleged to have been murdered after having been held in peonage. John Williams, a Jasper county farmer, was indicted by the Netwon county grand jury yesterday on a murder charge in connection with the death of three negroes whose bodies recently were found in the river there.

According to Deputy Sheriff Johnson of Newton county, Clyde Manning, one of the two negroes he brought to Atlanta yesterday for safekeeping, confessed that 11 negroes in all had been killed on the Williams plantation. The negroes are being held as material witnesses.

The dead negroes, who had been held in peonage on the Williams plantation, had threatened to inform the authorities of their conditions, according to Deputy Johnson’s version of the confession which he attributed to Manning. Many other negroes were forced to work on the plantation, the alleged confession said.

The bodies of three negroes were found recently weighted down with rocks in Yellow River, Newton County, near where Jasper County adjoins Newton, and Manning’s alleged confession stated that six negroes in all had been weighted down and thrown into the river and five others killed in other ways and their bodies burned. Newton county authorities took the stand that the negroes found in the river had been killed drowning, their deaths having been caused in Newton county.

United States District Attorney Alexander said he had learned of alleged peonage conditions in Jasper, but that it is in the southern district of the Federal district court of Georgia. He recently indicted the sheriff o Jasper county and the latter’s nephew on charges of peonage, the indictments being returned on the ground that they had come into the northern district and taken back to Jasper county negroes, who, it was alleged, had escaped from peonage there. Their trials are set for April 4.

From The Charlotte News, Saturday, March 26, 1921. Peonage is debt slavery, which is illegal.