Remembering Suwannee: Convict leasing system, Part 1

Eric Musgrove Contributor While writing about various facets of Suwannee County's history, I long ago realized that some events, systems, and so on, must be explained in more detail to fully understand how our ancestors' lives differed from ours. One of those often-forgotten events was the convict leasing system. Therefore, this week's article will begin to discuss, in some detail, the convict leasing system. This system, for a good part of its history in Florida, was intermingled with the history of Suwannee County. As I often say, we need to learn about the good, the bad and the ugly parts of our history so that we can learn what to do and what not to do. The end of the War Between the