The 1927 Peonage Cases Exposed Forced Labor in Willacy County

In January 1927, a federal court in Texas tried nine people from Willacy County for peonage, the illegal practice of holding people in debt bondage. Workers, many of them Mexican and African American, were arrested on vagrancy charges. Friendly farmers paid their fines, then forced them to pick cotton under armed guard to repay the debt. Over 400 vagrancy cases were documented in Raymondville during this period.

Five defendants were convicted. The cases drew national attention and were the first of their kind in Texas. They exposed how Anglo landowners used the local justice system to control farm labor. The Handbook of Texas documents this history at tshaonline.org.