John and Alan Lomax first encountered Huddie Ledbetter at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in the summer of 1933, while they were recording songs for a book eventually titled American Ballads and Folk Songs. A year later, they recorded him again, including an appeal he made to Louisiana governor O.K. Allen. This chapter explores the history of Angola, conditions there during Ledbetter’s incarceration, and Ledbetter’s extensive efforts to achieve his own early release.

Chapter 2 confronts the gender, race, and class composition of state violence in the American Revolution. General Washington attempted to exclude women and non-White men from the military - moves that foreshadowed similar exclusions from military work and political participation in the United States. At the same time, the work, at times violent work, of marginalized individuals in and around American military establishments was essential. The army also needed money - and the interdependence of state finance, state violence, and military discipline was key. Failed finances led to deplorable army condition. Thirty percent of Continental Army soldiers rebelled in January 1781. Washington was infuriated by the protest, but he was even more upset when political leaders negotiated with the men. Disobedient soldiers, he believed, responded best to physical chastisement. Much like recent work that highlights how American nationalism was forged in violent acts against Loyalists, so too this chapter shows how it was forged in military discipline: violent acts against Continental Army soldiers.

This chapter discusses the process leading up to, during, and after the execution of the three perpetrators of the Dongo killings. Information about the preparations which took place during the few days between the sentencing and the executions comes from a final accounting of the costs of the trial process. Lucero and other court officials made a special point of acknowledging the difficult work accomplished by a number of people over the course of the two weeks between the crime and the execution. Many worked through “sleepless nights” on this “anguishing process.”

In many ways, the workhouse epitomized the brutality of urban slavery. Enslavers sent their slaves to the workhouse for punishment, most often in the form of whippings and paddling. Sometimes they had their slave labor on the treadmill, a dangerous contraption that often lead to injury, including permanent disability. The workhouse also served as a slave pen for slaves awaiting sale – a place for safekeeping slaves who might otherwise runaway before being sold away to New Orleans or some other strange place. In addition, the workhouse was a prison. Captured runaway slaves were lodged in the workhouse. Convicted slaves, like Nicholas, served the terms of their convictions there because the city council restricted the jail to whites and free blacks only.

This chapter explores the various responses of enslaved individuals to slavery, ranging from accommodation to full scale rebellion and everything in-between. It also examines the ways that slave-owners attempted to control their slaves, including brutal mistreatment (whipping) and positive incentives to loyal service such as the promise of liberation.