US Sugar indicted for peonage: Black cane workers held under the 13th Amendment's ban (Clewiston, Hendry County, 1940 to 1942)

SUMMARYUS Sugar indicted for peonage: Black cane workers held under the 13th Amendment's ban (Clewiston, Hendry County, 1940 to 1942) [Connections: Miami & Lake Okeechobee, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDLabor Action (Trotskyist weekly), 23 November 1942, reports a federal grand jury indictment of the United States Sugar Corp., personnel manager M.E. Von Mach and three camp superintendents for violating the 13th Amendment, with at least twenty overt acts from November 1, 1941 and "a long time prior": recruits were told they owed rail fare and had to work it off; those who left were hunted by the sheriff and returned; field hands (described as all Black) were kept by force, threats and beatings; each defendant was released on $1,000 bond. The same grand jury indicted Glades County Sheriff Jeff Wiggins for working county prisoners on his farm without pay. Northeastern's Civil Rights and Restorative Justice archive holds a New York Times article dated November 5, 1940 on indictments of US Sugar for "holding Black sugar cane workers in conditions of peonage," and records the February 9, 1940 shooting of Jessie Williams, 24, by unknown persons at "Bare Beach Plantation," a US Sugar site in Clewiston. Hostile/partisan witnesses: the company denied the charges; Labor Action was openly anti-capitalist

PATTERNThirty years after drainage, the lake's farms ran on debt bondage of Black workers, with a county sheriff enforcing it

LENS (WW9)Slavery renamed "debt," on the Mayaimi's drained lake bed

OPENOutcome of the indictments (Wikipedia says only the company was charged in the 1940s, no result); whether there were two indictments (1940 and 1942) or one reported twice; federal court docket, Southern District of Florida

SOURCEReva Craine, "Peonage Uncovered in South," Labor Action 6:47 (1942); NYT article record (CRRJ Archive); Killing of Jessie Williams (CRRJ Archive).