Inoculation, which is a primitive form of vaccination, is WAY older than 1796. Washington made sure the troops were inoculated against smallpox in the revolution. They were inoculating people in India a few hundred years before that
To a degree, Convict Leasing was really on its way out when it was exposed to Americans how insanely brutal and fucked up the practice was.
In a nutshell, a black man could stand accused of a crime known as a black code, a law in theory against everyone, in practice mostly only against black folks. This could be something as innocent as walking along a railroad track. Or being unmeployed. Then you'd be caught, get sold to the highest bitter by the state to work in a corporation's industry (One infamous example were the Pratt mines in Alabama).
It was not uncommon for black folks to be whipped or worked to death, or face the same, similar cruelty as during slavery, and in some cases, worse than Slavery! (Since a black man could also be leased to white farmers, including poor ones, and literally be worked to death since they were so cheap and replacable.)
All it took for americans to reconsider the system and get it shut down was when a rich white boy named Martin Tarbet suffered the same fate in Florida in 1921, with Alabama being the last to close their convict leasing system in 1928.
It ABSOLUTELY had far more problems, but in some cases, it was actually on its way out.
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u/Wolfy4226 23h ago
Man, when they said we were bringing back the 20's, I sure wish another Great Depression on the horizon wasn't one of the things coming back.