Summary Of David Oshinsky's Worse Than Slavery

When the word slavery is mentioned one immediately thinks of death, injustice, and inhumanity. One would presume that not much, if anything at all, could be worse than slavery. However, David Oshinsky proved such a thought to be false. Oshinsky’s novel Worse than Slavery depicts events and places, which one might consider being worse than times of slavery. Oshinsky being a professor of history has given insight to the hardships that African-Americans endured after slavery was abolished. He goes on to discuss the parchman farm and sheds light on how not only blacks but whites as well suffered at penitentiaries such as this one. Oshinsky’s focus for this novel is to explain how horrific life after slavery and time spent at the parchman far was. …show more content…
The extremely strict laws specifically geared towards blacks resulted in mass incarceration of them. With no where to house them prisons started convict leasing, which was profitable to plantation owners but horrendous and deadly for the mostly black workers. The black convicts were worked to death essentially. Convicts worked from dusk till dawn in strenuous conditions such as extreme heat, which was a common cause of death due to heat stroke. As convict leasing became more popular the convicts were forced to work in more dangerous places such as coal mines and building railroads. Explosions and accidents were common, killing a great number of convicts. However, the main concern of convict leasing was the harsh treatment of the convicts. Being involved in convict leasing was essentially a death sentence. Oshinsky explains that “convict leasing was about profits, brutality, and racist ideas. (Oshinsky 1996: p. 78).” It was common to see convicts sleeping and eating on the ground with no bedding material or even clothes (Oshinsky 1996). Since the laborers were paid to house the inmates, they were able to keep the profits of whatever money they did not use on the convicts. Convicts were whipped, flogged, and shot often for being insubordinate in anyway. The extreme abuse and neglect of convicts resulted in …show more content…
Oshinsky explains that the parchman farm “…resembled an antebellum plantation with convicts in place of slaves (Oshinsky 1996: p. 139).” His description of the penitentiary resembles that similar to slavery, however, the deciding factor of whether or not the parchman farm would be considered worse than slavery is the way the laborer viewed the convicts. Considering the laborers did not have to pay for the convicts, the convicts’ lives were of no value to them. Numerous convicts continued to die due to poor conditions and constant over-working. Taking into consideration that whites and the parchman farm owners took no ownership of black lives they could still be killed without remorse. Oshninsky gives an example of the continuation of lynchings ****Example