The Farmers' Alliance was an organized agrarian

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

movement among American farmers that developed and flourished ca. 1875. The movement included several parallel but independent political organizations — the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union among the

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

farmers of the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

, the National Farmers' Alliance among the

and

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

farmers of the

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

and High Plains, where the Granger movement had been strong, and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of the African American farmers of the South. One of the goals of the organization was to end the adverse effects of the

crop-lien system The crop-lien system was a credit system that became widely used by cotton farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1940s. History Sharecroppers and tenant farmers, who did not own the land they worked, obtained supplie ...

on farmers in the period following the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. The Alliance also generally supported the government regulation of the transportation industry, establishment of an

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

in order to restrict speculative profits, and the adoption of an inflationary relaxation of the nation's money supply as a means of easing the burden of repayment of loans by debtors. The Farmers' Alliance moved into politics in the early 1890s under the banner of the People's Party, commonly known as the "Populists."

Background

Agricultural crisis in the US Midwest and Plains

The quest to achieve a

First transcontinental railroad America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad), Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the exis ...

across the U.S. was delayed somewhat by the

before being finally completed in May 1869. There followed a rush to complete additional railway lines to open up new frontier areas for economic development, a situation in which the United States government and the great railroad companies of the day maintained a common interest. Rather than directly undertaking railroad construction as a

public works Public works are a broad category of infrastructure projects, financed and procured by a government body for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings ( municipal buildings, ...

project of the federal government,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

granted cash loans and grants of

public land In all modern states, a portion of land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land, state land, or Crown land (Commonwealth realms). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countries. ...

to subsidize construction.John D. Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt: A History of the Crusade for Farm Relief.'' Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1931; pg. 3. Some 129 million acres (52.2 million hectares) of public land was ultimately transferred from public ownership to the privately owned railways as part of this process. A great part of this massive stockpile of land needed to be converted into cash by the railways to finance their building activities, since railroad construction was a costly undertaking. New settlement had to be attracted to the virgin lands west of the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

, which had been previously regarded by the public as worthless to the needs of agriculture due to insufficiencies of the soil as well as the arid climate. Millions of advertising dollars were spent by the railway companies promoting the agricultural development of the land which they had to sell.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 15. This effort was to be rewarded, particularly after the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "L ...

left many unemployed and seeking a new start. Settlers began to flood into the

and Northern Great Plains in response to the railway companies' blandishments. Populations skyrocketed. The state of

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

grew from a population of just under 365,000 to nearly a million people during the 1870s.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 16. The number of inhabitants in

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

nearly tripled, rising to nearly half a million.

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, and the

Dakota Territory The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of ...

showed parallel population gains. New counties, villages, and towns sprang up by the hundreds throughout the region and a

speculative bubble Speculative may refer to: In arts and entertainment *Speculative art (disambiguation) *Speculative fiction, which includes elements created out of human imagination, such as the science fiction and fantasy genres ** Speculative Fiction Group, a Pe ...

emerged around the buying and selling of farmland and urban lots.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 18. Population continued to surge throughout the region well into the decade of the 1880s. Unfortunately for those who chose to attempt to farm new lands in such places as Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Eastern

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, the unusually rainy years of the early 1880s which had buoyed land prices gave way to a protracted drought beginning in the summer of 1887, bringing an end to the giddy, speculative boom. With crops failing, artificially inflated land prices plummeted; Eastern capital began to withdraw from the region.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 31. Banks collapsed and credit dried up. A decade of hard times followed, marked by the abandonment of entire communities. A sense of deep discontent with the current state of affairs was felt by the farmers who remained.

Agricultural crisis in the southeastern US

The agrarian and

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

-based economy of the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...

was virtually destroyed by the

. Those who had their fortunes invested in Confederate bonds and currency saw them lost, as did those whose wealth was tied up in the ownership of

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

. Great landed estates were broken up or rendered unworkable by the lack of a free labor supply and the flood of land sold on the marked depressed prices and reduced the economic possibilities of those who counted their dollars in acres. The region faced enormous costs to replace the buildings destroyed in the war and the factories looted.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 37. The capacity of the gutted financial market to make loans was grossly insufficient for the needs of the region, exemplified by the 123 counties in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

with no banks whatsoever even in 1895. Merchants, finding a sellers' market, extracted extraordinary profits through inflated prices and usurious credit terms. A new mode of production replaced the slave-based large-scale agriculture of the pre-war years. Now it would be small-scale agrarian enterprise that would proliferate and the emergence of the so-called "share system" or "cropping system," in which non-landowners paid rent for the use of the land they farmed in the form of a fixed percentage of the output generated. This system in theory served the needs of landowners and poor farmers alike, as the sharecroppers would have the incentive to produce more and benefit from increased output while landowners would be provided with a labor source to produce upon the land they held without the necessity of paying cash wages. In practice, however, a system of virtual slavery emerged, in which poor whites and freed blacks became enmeshed in the

usury Usury () is the practice of making loans that are seen as unfairly enriching the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is charged in e ...

of merchants and landowners providing essential supplies on credit. A

emerged in which future crops would be mortgaged to merchants or landowners (often one and the same) in exchange for credit for current purchases.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 43. Written contracts made these loans legally enforceable and those so enmeshed frequently found themselves forced to pay inflated prices at high rates of interest. If the value of the credit exceeded the cash value of the crop, the arrangement was automatically rolled over for another year and a never-ending cycle amounting to a condition of perpetual servitude resulted. Moreover, this crop-lien system contributed to the establishment of a cotton

monoculture In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monocultures increase ease and efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting crops short-term, often with the help of machinery. However, monocultur ...

, as merchants demanded this easily storable, readily marketable commodity to be produced for the satisfaction of debt.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pp. 45–46. Not accidentally, the requirement by merchants for cotton production made production of adequate food and fodder for sustenance virtually impossible, further deepening the debt of the farmer to his merchant-creditor. A sense of deep discontent with the current state of affairs was felt by the small-holding and tenant farmers of the South.

Organizational histories

The Northern Alliance

The National Farmers' Alliance, commonly known as the "Northern Alliance," was established on March 21, 1877, by a group of members of the

Grange movement The National Grange, also known as The Grange and officially named The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, is a social organization in the United States that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and pol ...

from

New York state New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 97. The group sought to organize in order to fight what they deemed the unfair practices of the railroad transportation mill, for the reform of the tax system, and for the legalization of Grange-sponsored

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

companies. This first organization proved largely ineffectual but does seem to have provided the inspiration for the first effective Alliance group, which was established on April 15, 1880, by newspaper editor Milton George in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. George's paper, ''Western Rural,'' gave the new organization public exposure and inspired the establishment of chartered local organizations, beginning in Filley, Nebraska and soon spreading throughout the American Midwest. Dues were not collected in the earliest phase of Northern Alliance's existence, with editor George financing the group's launch — a fact which spurred growth. Within a month more than 200 locals had been chartered, with claims made that 1,000 local groups had been established by the end of the organization's first year.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 100. The Northern Alliance made its greatest inroads in areas which were stricken by drought in 1881, including the states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Growth was slower in states less severely affected, including as

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, and

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. Local organizations proved easier to launch than did statewide bodies and in its first years the Alliance was dominated by these local groups, with state-level bodies floundering. The locals did organize themselves at the state level, however, with delegates gathering in founding conventions in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan between January 1881 and the middle of 1882. The new movement strove to protect farmers from the capitalistic and industrial powers of monopolies (such as railroads) and unsympathetic public officials.Theodore Saloutos, ''Farmer Movements in the South, 1865–1933.'' Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1964. The Northern Alliance sought to enact a more equitable tax system on mortgage property, pass income tax law, abolish free travel passes to public officials, and regulate interstate commerce by Congress. By the time of the organization's 2nd Annual Convention, held early in October 1881, the organization claimed a membership of 24,500.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 101. A year hence, at the 3rd Convention of October 1882, some 2,000 locals and a total membership of 100,000 was claimed. This proved to be a high-water mark for the organization, however, as prosperity returned to Midwestern agriculture in 1883 and the 4th Convention was poorly attended and no convention was held at all in 1884. With work to do and money to be made, early enthusiasm in the new radical reform organization fell precipitously. Even National Secretary Milton George lost heart, publishing less and less news of the Farmers' Alliance in his newspaper's pages. State and local organizations became moribund. A fall of

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

prices following the harvest of 1884 reinvigorated the Farmers' Alliance and activity again exploded. In 1885 a new Alliance group was established for the

, where wheat reigned supreme, followed by a state organization for

, as interest spread westward.Hicks. ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 102. New national principles were composed and mailed out to the entire readership of ''Western Rural'' and a 5th Convention was successfully held in November 1886. A system of dues was established, thereby funding and energizing the state organizations. The program of the organization became steadily more radical in this interval, including demands for government ownership of one or more of the intercontinental railroad lines as well as for unlimited coinage of silver at its historic ratio to gold. Connections began to be forged with the

Knights of Labor The Knights of Labor (K of L), officially the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was the largest American labor movement of the 19th century, claiming for a time nearly one million members. It operated in the United States as well in ...

, the leading industrial

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

organization of the day.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 103. Ten state organizations were fully functioning by 1890 and new members flooded into the Farmers' Alliance at the rate of 1,000 per week. Kansas alone boasted 130,000 members, closely followed by Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, and the national office optimistically projected 2 million members in the near future. The idea emerged to put this enthusiastic and growing membership to work to advance the group's goals through a political organization.

The Southern Alliance

The roots of the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, commonly known as the "Southern Alliance," dated back to approximately 1875, when a group of ranchers in Lampasas County,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

organized as a Texas Alliance as a means of cooperating to apprehend horse thieves, round up stray animals, and cooperatively purchase large stores of supplies.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 104. This group gradually moved into more extensive action in response to the perceived abuses towards smaller operators engaged in by land speculators and massive cattle operations. The organization grew and was organized on a statewide basis in 1878 but was almost immediately killed when it attempted to enter the political field and was torn asunder by antagonistic factions favoring the Democratic and Greenback parties. In 1879 the influence of the Northern Alliance made itself felt in

Parker County, Texas Parker County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 148,222. The county seat is Weatherford. The county was created in 1855 and organized the following year. It is named for Isaac Parker, a ...

when a new group was established there by a former member of the Lampasas County Alliance group. The Northern Alliance's constitution and its precedent of non-partisan activity were closely followed and in short order a dozen local groups had been established upon that model. This Texas group was incorporated in 1880 as the "Farmers' State Alliance" and it subsequently expanded throughout the Central and Northern parts of the state and into the neighboring

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

(today's Oklahoma). By the end of 1885 this growing organization claimed a membership of approximately 50,000, scattered between more than 1200 local groups, known as "Sub-Alliances." During the early 1880s this Texas Farmers' State Alliance was considered to be a loose part of the Northern Alliance organization.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 108. Owing to the lack of dues of the national group in this period, such a relationship was more theoretical than practical. The adoption of a dues system in the middle part of the decade forced the Texas group to closely consider its organizational affiliation. Charles W. Macune, the son of a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

preacher, emerged as the leader of this Texas organization when he was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Texas organization in 1886. Macune immediately stifled an impending split of the organization threatened by a faction inside the Texas Alliance pushing to launch the group as an independent political party. He then united the group around a vision of organizational independence from the Northern Alliance coupled with a program of active expansion. As a first step towards this end, Macune negotiated a merger with the

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

Farmers' Union, a group established in 1880 and transformed into a

secret society A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence ag ...

in 1885.Hicks, ''The Populist Revolt,'' pg. 109. The groups were joined under a new name, the National Farmers' Alliance and Cooperative Union of America. This was one of the first steps in unifying farmers along the American

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

belt. The demands of the Southern Alliance were similar to those of its northern counterpart. They pressed for abolition of national banks and monopolies, free coinage of silver, issuance of paper money (Greenback or Fiat money), loans on land, establishment of sub-treasuries, income tax acts, and revision of tariffs. In 1889 the National Farmers' Alliance and Cooperative Union united with a large rival organization known as the Agricultural Wheel to form a new group called the National Farmers' and Laborers' Union of America. Negotiations were begun to further unify forces by joining this newly expanded Southern Alliance with its Northern Alliance counterpart. While merger of the two organizations would have created a larger and more powerful organization, unity was stalled over terms of the union, including the composition of the governing bodies, divergent views on non-white membership, and disagreement over program owing to divergence between Southern and Northern farmers' economic interests. At its December 1889 convention in St. Louis, the National Farmers' and Laborers' Union of America changed its name again, this time to the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union — the name by which it would be known for the rest of its existence.

The Colored Alliance

Southern counties with 40 percent African-American population in 2000

The Southern Farmers' Alliance was unapologetic about its color bar banning black farmers from membership. The Alliance's National Secretary-Treasurer J.H. Turner, himself the son of a former slave-owner, wrote that in fact the liberated slaves' "worst enemies" had been the Northern

carpetbaggers In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical pejorative used by Southerners to describe allegedly opportunistic or disruptive Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War and were per ...

of the

Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...

, who "promised each head of family forty acres of land and a mule if only he would vote right." Moreover, Turner noted, the liberated slaves of the South had been promised "

social equality Social equality is a state of affairs in which all individuals within society have equal rights, liberties, and status, possibly including civil rights, freedom of expression, autonomy, and equal access to certain public goods and social servi ...

with the whites, and a great many other things which, since he has found out better, he neither needs nor wants." Turner argued that relations between the races were fundamentally benevolent now that black farmers had recognized that "his old master" had "almost invariably" been on hand to provide "the best advice" regarding agricultural problems and had very often been the one to "protect and defend him in his business affairs." Such a view of the indebted and impoverished black sharecroppers of the South, also typical of Southern whites of the era, did nothing to reassure African-American farmers that their concerns were shared by their European-American counterparts. With their presence from the Southern Farmers' Alliance barred due to

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

farmers were forced to establish an organization of their own. In December 1886 a group of black farmers organized themselves in

Houston County, Texas Houston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 22,066. Its county seat is Crockett. Houston County was one of 46 entirely dry counties in the state of Texas, until voters in a Novembe ...

as the Alliance of Colored Farmers of Texas — forerunner of the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, commonly known as the "Colored Farmers' Alliance."R.H. Humphrey, "History of the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union," in Dunning (ed.), ''Farmers' Alliance History and Agricultural Digest,'' pg. 288. A declaration of principles was adopted which identified the new organization as a mutual aid society dedicated to education, improvement of agricultural efficiency, and the raising of funds for collective benefits for "sick or disabled members, or their distressed families." The initial form of the organization was that of a

.Humphrey, "History of the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union," pg. 289. In February 1887 the group was chartered under the laws of Texas as the Alliance of Colored Farmers. This was followed by a convention in

Lovelady, Texas Lovelady is a town in Houston County, Texas, Houston County, Texas, United States. The population was 570 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Lovelady was founded by investors of the Houston & Great Northern Railroad as a rai ...

held on March 14, 1888, at which the group was redefined as national in scope under the name Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union. A national newspaper was launched by the organization called ''The National Alliance.''Humphrey, "History of the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union," pg. 290. The organization rapidly spread across the

American South The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is census regions United States Census Bureau. It is between the Atlantic Ocean and the ...

, establishing a presence in every Southern state of the union.William F. Holmes, "The Demise of the Colored Farmers' Alliance," ''Journal of Southern History,'' vol. 41, no. 2 (May, 1975), pg. 187. The Colored Farmers' Alliance sponsored cooperative stores at which members could obtain necessary goods at reduced prices, published newspapers which attempted to educate members of the organization as to new farming techniques, and in some places raised money to help support the underfunded segregated black schools of the region. The Colored Farmers' Alliance's organizational strength peaked in 1891, with some 1.2 million members claimed.

Opposition

The Alliance was opposed by a group called the Knights of Reciprocity, founded in

Garden City, Kansas Garden City is a city in and the county seat of Finney County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 28,151. The city is home to Garden City Community College and the Lee Richa ...

in winter of 1890 by a group of Republicans including Jesse Taylor, D. M. Frost and S. R. Peters. By 1895 the Knights claimed 125,000 members and had lodges in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio. Founders included Masons,

Oddfellows Odd Fellows (or Oddfellows when referencing the Grand United Order of Oddfellows or some British-based fraternities; also Odd Fellowship or Oddfellowship) is an international fraternity consisting of lodges first documented in 1730 in London. ...

and Pythians. Its program included trade reciprocity, protection of American industries, just pensions for Union veterans and disenfranchisement of those who accepted or offered a bribe for a vote. The Knights were adamant in their opposition to what they called the Democratic Union Labor - Farmers Alliance combination in politics. One of their circulars from 1891 reads:

The only way for the farmers to meet the Alliance secret political society is with a secret society the object of which shall not be to nominate men for office, but to assist in educating the people and making them thoroughly acquainted with the wants of all the people and the fallacies of the Alliance "calamity" howlers, who are traveling from State to State, county to county, town to town, township to township, schoolhouse to schoolhouse, not for the good of the people, but for the money they make and in hopes of political promotion. The people should organize at once in opposition to this gigantic scheme.

Agenda and achievements

As a widespread movement consisting of three independent branches and existing for more than two decades, reduction of the Farmers' Alliance to a few universal objectives is problematic. As Southern Alliance leader C.W. Macune noted in 1891, the agenda of the organization was both amorphous and dynamic, a response to local problems and conditions: Included among these concerns to greater or lesser extent were the question of exploitative terms of credit, insufficient money supply to sustain the economic needs of society, super-profits extracted by merchants, millers, and other middlemen, systemically unfavorable terms of trade levied upon small-scale agricultural shippers by the railroad industry, negative impacts on land prices caused by speculation. The accomplishments of the Farmers' Alliance are numerous. For example, many Alliance chapters all set up their own cooperative stores, which bought directly from wholesalers and sold their goods to farmers at a lower rate, at times 20 to 30 percent below the regular retail price. Such stores achieved only limited success, however, since they faced the hostility of wholesale merchants who sometimes retaliated by temporarily lowering their prices in order to drive the Alliance stores out of business. Additionally, the Farmer's Alliance established its own mills for

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

cottonseed oil Cottonseed oil is cooking oil from the seeds of cotton plants of various species, mainly ''Gossypium hirsutum'' and ''Gossypium herbaceum'', that are grown for cotton fiber, animal feed, and oil. cottonseed, Cotton seed has a similar structure to ...

, and

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

, as well as its own

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

. Such facilities allowed debt-laden farmers, who often had little cash to pay third-party mills, to bring their goods to markets at a lower cost.

The national agenda

The limited effects of the local policies of the Alliance did little to address the overall problem of deflation and depressed agricultural prices. By 1886, tensions had begun to form in the movement between the political activists, who promoted a national political agenda, and the political conservatives, who favored no change in national policy but a "strictly business" plan of local economic action. In Texas, the split reached a climax in August 1886 at the statewide convention in Cleburne. The political activists successfully lobbied for passage of a set of political demands that included support of the

and the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886. Other demands include changes in governmental land policy, and railroad regulation. The demands also included a demand for use of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment in court for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything ...

, on the grounds that this would alleviate the contraction in the money supply that led to falling prices and scarcity of credit (see

gold standard A gold standard is a backed currency, monetary system in which the standard economics, economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the ...

). The Alliance wanted to change the way Americans worked by pushing for an eight-hour workday. It did away with national banks so private, local banks could be formed. The Alliance wanted an income tax, the freedom to coin its own money and the freedom to borrow money from the government to buy land. The Alliance also tried to do away with foreign competitors who owned land in America. It wanted to directly elect federal judges and senators. The Alliance gained powerful political strength and controlled elections in states in the South and the West. In the South, the agenda centered on demands of government control of transportation and communication, in order to break the power of corporate monopolies. From 1890 it also included a demand for a national "Sub-Treasury Plan" calling for the establishment of a network of government-owned warehouses for the storage of non-perishable agricultural commodities, operated at minimal cost to participating farmers.Bruce Palmer and Charles W. Macune, Jr.
"Charles William Macune,"
Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. Farmers would then be permitted to draw low interest loans of up to 80% of the value of warehoused goods, payable in U.S. Treasury notes, under the plan. The failure of the Democratic Party to endorse this initiative was instrumental in causing the Farmers' Alliance to become directly involved in partisan politics through an organization largely of its own making, the People's Party. The Southern Alliance also demanded reforms of currency, land ownership, and income tax policies. Meanwhile, the Northern Alliance stressed the demand for free coinage of large amounts of silver. Political activists in the movement also made attempts to unite the two Alliance organizations, along with the Knights of Labor and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, into a common movement. The efforts and unification proved futile, however.

Transition to the Populist movement

As an economic movement, the Alliance had a very limited and short term success.

Cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

brokers who had previously negotiated with individual farmers for ten bales at a time now needed to strike deals with the Alliance men for 1,000 bale sales. This solidarity was usually short-lived, however, and could not withstand the retaliation from the commodities brokers and railroads, who responded by boycotting the Alliance and eventually broke the power of the movement. The Alliance had never fielded its own political candidates. It preferred to work through the established Republican Party in the Midwest and Democratic Party in the South — although these often proved fickle in supporting the agenda of the Alliance. The Alliance failed as an economic movement, but it is regarded by historians as engendering a "movement culture" among the rural poor. This failure prompted an evolution of the Alliance into a political movement to field its own candidates in national elections. In 1889–1890, the Alliance was reborn as the People's Party (commonly known as the "Populists"), and included both Alliance men and

members from the industrialized Northeast. The Populists, who fielded national candidates in the 1892 election, essentially repeated all the demands of the Alliance in its platform.

Elected officials

* Ezra T. Champlin, member of the

Minnesota House of Representatives The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the U.S. state of Minnesota's Minnesota Legislature, legislature. It operates in conjunction with the Minnesota Senate, the state's upper chamber, to write and pass legislation, whic ...

and its 20th Speaker. * James Cockrell, member of the

Illinois House of Representatives The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 representativ ...

from Marion County (1891–1893) * Marion Butler, U.S. Senator from North Carolina (1895–1901) * Hosea H. Moore, member of the Illinois House of Representatives from Wayne County (1891–1893) * John Rankin Rogers, Governor of Washington (1897–1901) * Herman Taubeneck, member of the Illinois House of Representatives from Clark County (1891–1893)

Selected Alliance newspapers

* '' American Nonconformist'', Tabor, Iowa. Edited by Henry Vincent. * '' Alliance Vindicator'', Texas. Edited by James H. Davis. * '' Kansas Farmer'',

Topeka, Kansas Topeka ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeastern Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2020 cen ...

. Edited by William A. Peffer. * '' National Alliance'',

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

. —No copies known to have survived. * '' National Economist'',

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Edited by Charles William Macune. * '' Progressive Farmer'',

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

. Edited by Leonidas LaFayette Polk. * '' Southern Mercury'',

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

. Edited by Harry Tracy. * '' Western Rural and Family Farm Paper'',

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Edited by Milton George.

Footnotes

External links

* Donna A. Barnes
"Farmers' Alliance,"
Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. * Gilbert C. Fite
"Farmers' Alliance,"
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society. *Matthew Hild
"Farmers' Alliance,"
New Georgia Encyclopedia. * William F. Holmes
"Colored Farmers' Alliance,"
Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association. * Adrienne Petty

Guest lecture, Columbia University, December 1998.
The People's Advocate
newspaper of the Farmer's Alliance and Industrial Union in Washington State, from

The Labor Press Project The Labor Press Project: Pacific Northwest Labor and Radical Newspapers is a multimedia website housing thousands of digitized articles and editions from the late 19th century to the present. Newspapers and newsletters from unions, early sociali ...

Economic history of the United States Defunct American political movements 1877 establishments in the United States Farmers' organizations Left-wing populism in the United States Progressive Era in the United States Agricultural organizations based in the United States