If You Don't Take Us; They Are Going to Kill Us

Sumner Courthouse in Tallahatchie County Courthouse
Photo Credit: Walter C. Black, Sr.  

On April 8, 1912, Jerry Weekly was seeking help to free his wife and children along with others who were held on Jerry Robinson Plantation in Swan Lake. The following letter is a reprint from the peonage files at the National Archives. 

We poor colored men here in the State of Mississippi and poor women does ask the Civil Government to please please send us someone here to take us out of this place our wives and children are naked and barefooted and we are the same they have here what is known as pennick slavery they go to work and beat poor negroes with sticks and shoot them and kill them juke like they were wild bears in the woods and we make big crops here and they won't settle with us they just work us like dogs and mules and they just take our labor if you think we are lying please send your men here and just let them see our little naked children and wives and come and question with the labor on the place. When you send someone please send them to carry us away if you don't they will shoot us down after they are gone, please come and take us away from here. They only give us half enough to eat. The man is Jerry Robinson and Harry Beaton Robinson of Albin, Mississippi and all down Swan Lake and had people whipped with straps weight about 6 pounds they whip here just like they do in Penitentiary if they hire us to work by the day they don't pay for that they don't pay for nothing and won't furnish clothes.  We are just forced to make some complaint to ask for help and if the Civil Law don't whip us we are bound to die for the need of help through written and signed by Sam Dromond and Jake Ricks, Harry Henry and Joe Herring and Joe Roundtree and Will Smith and Joe Carson and Jerry Weekly. 

Case Study: 

When was Jerry born? 1893. 

Was he married? He was married to Emma Weekly, 

Did he and Emma have children?  Jerry and Emma were the parents of; Isaiah, Son, James, Beatrice, Georgia, Wille and Esther Weekly.

What was his occupation? Farmer

Did he own or rent it home? He rented his home

Could he read or write? According to the 1920 United States Census, he couldn't read or write.

Are there other people living in the community with the surname Weekly? Yes, there are others who live in Charleston Community with the last name Weekly.

I want to point out that Jerry Weekly U.S. World War I Draft Registration Card, 1917-1918 listed Jerry Robinson as his employer in Swan Lake, Mississippi. It also said that he was born in Alexandria, Louisiana. Jerry Robinson held Jerry Weekly and others in involuntary servitude on his plantation.