The Political Underpinnings of Debt: Reconstructing Debt Enforcement

Sofia Butnaru, University of Chicago

In the wake of the civil war, with a decimated credit system, southern planters and their allies passed, in each state, a law “for the encouragement of agriculture” (Woodward et al. 1997; Woodman 1995) Across the South, these laws created crop liens as a way of promoting the rebuilding of the South Agricultural economy through credit. Merchants and landlords would extend credit to small farmers, tenants, and sharecroppers in exchange for a lien– a legal claim on future crops and profits come harvest. Sociologists and other social scientists have done essential work detailing the role credit played in the rebuilding of the south and the development of our contemporary political economy (Du Bois 2007; Prasad 2012; Muller and Schrage 2021; Raper 2005; Wiener 1981). Nonetheless, many of these accounts focus on credit distribution as opposed to debt enforcement. As a result, the various institutions and actors–local courts, justices of the peace, and sheriffs– that allow enforcement to occur remain largely underdeveloped and under-theorized. Thus, this paper seeks to answer, how did debt enforcement develop and what role did it play in the larger political economy of the South? I compiled a diverse dataset of constitutional and legislative histories in four deep South states. I also review contemporaneous news reports. To deepen my analysis, I compiled justice of the peace registries from 1844-1883 and 1893-1897 sampling from over ten Alabama counties with variation in demographics and industry and review the collection of three landlord and merchant families who executed liens and extended credit to tenants and sharecroppers. This project articulates how the credit regimes that emerged post-reconstruction were the result of a contentious political and economic battles for distinct forms of debt and enforcement schemes.

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 Presented in Session 13. Environment, Justice, and Land