The Farmers' Alliance was an organized agrarian
economic
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
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 farmers of the
South, the National Farmers' Alliance among the white and black farmers of the
Midwest and
High Plains High Plains refers to one of two distinct land regions:
* High Plains (United States), land region of the western Great Plains
*High Plains (Australia)
The High Plains of south-eastern Australia are a sub-region, or more strictly a string of adja ...
, where the
Granger movement had been strong, and the Colored Farmers' National Alliance and Cooperative Union, consisting of the
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
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 supplies ...
on farmers in the period following the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
. 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 across the U.S. was delayed somewhat by the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
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 constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings ( municipal buildings, sc ...
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 (Australia, and Canada). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countrie ...
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, 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 ...
left many unemployed and seeking a new start.
Settlers began to flood into the
Midwest and
Northern Great Plains in response to the railway companies' blandishments.
Populations skyrocketed. The state of
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...
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 state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...
nearly tripled, rising to nearly half a million.
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...
,
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
, 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 N ...
showed parallel population gains.
New counties, villages, and towns sprang up by the hundreds throughout the region and a
speculative bubble
An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be ...
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 (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
, 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
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
-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, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
was virtually destroyed by the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
. Those who had their fortunes invested in
Confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
bonds and currency saw them lost, as did those whose wealth was tied up in the ownership of
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
slaves. 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 Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
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
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.
Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
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 unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich 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 c ...
of merchants and landowners providing essential supplies on credit. A
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 supplies ...
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. Monoculture is widely used in intensive farming and in organic farming: both a 1,000-hectare/acre cornfield and a 10-ha/acre field of organic kale are ...
, 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 from
New York state
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...
.
[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 hedge ...
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
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. George's paper, ''Western Rural,'' gave the new organization public exposure and inspired the establishment of chartered local organizations, beginning in
Filley, Nebraska
Filley is a village in Gage County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 132 at the 2010 census.
History
Filley was platted in 1883 when the railroad was extended to that point. It was named for its founder, Elijah Filley.
The Elijah Fi ...
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 state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, and
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
.
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 grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
and
livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...
prices following the harvest of 1884 reinvigorated the Farmers' Alliance and activity again exploded.
In 1885 a new Alliance group was established for 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 N ...
, where wheat reigned supreme, followed by a state organization for
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
, 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
Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also ...
, the leading
industrial
Industrial may refer to:
Industry
* Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry
* Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems
* Industrial city, a city dominate ...
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
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 (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
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
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...
(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 group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
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 , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
Farmers' Union, a group established in 1880 and transformed into a
secret society 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 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 cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
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](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Southern_counties_with_40_percent_African-American_population_in_2000.png)
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 term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the l ...
of the
Reconstruction era, 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 a specific society have equal rights, liberties, and status, possibly including civil rights, freedom of expression, autonomy, and equal access to certain public goods and ...
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
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land.
Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
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 over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
,
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
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 November ...
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
A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, friendly society, or mutual aid society is a society, an organization or a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief f ...
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
secret society.
[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, United States. The population was 570 at the 2020 census.
History
Lovelady was founded by investors of the Houston & Great Northern Railroad as a railway line was built through a land grant of Cyrus L ...
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, 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 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 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,
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.
Cotton seed has a similar structure to other oi ...
, and
corn, as well as its own
cotton gin. 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
Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also ...
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 with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
as
legal tender
Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...
, 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 monetary system in which the standard 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 early 1920s, and from the l ...
).
The Alliance wanted to change the way Americans worked by pushing for an
eight-hour workday
The eight-hour day movement (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses.
An eight-hour work day has its origins in the 1 ...
. 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 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 cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
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 Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
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
Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also ...
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
*
James Cockrell, member of the
Illinois House of Representatives from
Marion County (1891-1893)
*
Marion Butler
Marion Butler (May 20, 1863June 3, 1938) was an American politician, farmer, and lawyer. He represented North Carolina in the United States Senate for one term, serving between 1895 and 1901. At the time, he was a leader of the North Carolina P ...
, 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
Tabor is a city in Fremont County and extends northward into Mills County in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 928 at the time of the 2020 census.
Geography
Tabor is located at (40.896605, -95.672368).
According to the United States ...
. Edited by
Henry Vincent
Henry Vincent (10 May 1813 – 29 December 1878) was active in the formation of early Working Men's Associations in Britain, a popular Chartist leader, brilliant and gifted public orator, prospective but ultimately unsuccessful Victorian membe ...
.
* ''
Alliance Vindicator'', Texas. Edited by James H. Davis.
* ''
Kansas Farmer'',
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeast Kansas, in the Central U ...
. Edited by
William A. Peffer
William Alfred Peffer (September 10, 1831October 6, 1912) was a United States Senate, United States Senator from Kansas, notable for being the first of six Populist Party (United States), Populists (two of whom, more than any other state, were fr ...
.
* ''
National Alliance'',
Houston, Texas.
—No copies known to have survived.
* ''
National Economist'',
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Edited by
Charles William Macune.
* ''
Progressive Farmer
''Progressive Farmer'' is an agricultural magazine, published 14 times a year by DTN. The magazine is based in Birmingham, Alabama.
History
Founded in Winston, North Carolina, in 1886 by North Carolina native Leonidas Lafayette Polk (1837–18 ...
'',
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southe ...
. Edited by
Leonidas LaFayette Polk
Leonidas Lafayette Polk (April 24, 1837 – June 11, 1892), or L.L. Polk, was an American farmer, journalist and political figure. He was a leader of the Farmers' Alliance and helped found the Populist Party.
Life and career
Polk was born in ...
.
* ''
Southern Mercury'',
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
. Edited by
Harry Tracy.
* ''
Western Rural and Family Farm Paper'',
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. Edited by
Milton George.
See also
*
Agricultural Wheel
*
People's Party
*
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President ...
Footnotes
Further reading
* Donna A. Barnes, ''Farmers in Rebellion: The Rise and Fall of the Southern Farmers Alliance and People's Party in Texas. ''Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1984.
* Marilyn Dell Brady,
Populism and Feminism in a Newspaper by and for Women of the Kansas Farmer’s Alliance, 1891-1894. ''Kansas History'' 7, no. 4 (Winter 1984-85): 280–90.
* Robert P. Brooks, ''The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia, 1865–1912.'' Madison, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 1914.
* N.A. Dunning (ed.)
''Farmers' Alliance History and Agricultural Digest.''Washington, DC: Alliance Publishing Co., 1891.
* Solon Buck
''The Agrarian Crusade: A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics.''New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1920.
* Solon Buck, ''The Granger Movement: A Study of Agricultural Organization, 1870–1880.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913.
* Gerald Gaither, ''Blacks in the Populist Revolt: Ballots and Bigotry in the "New South."'' Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1977.
* W. L. Garvin and J. O. Daws, ''History of the National Farmers Alliance and Co-operative Union of America.'' Jacksboro, TX: J.N. Rogers, 1887.
* Lawrence Goodwyn, ''The Populist Moment: A Short History of Agrarian Revolt in America.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
* William F. Holmes, "The Demise of the Colored Farmers' Alliance," ''Journal of Southern History,'' vol. 41, no. 2 (May, 1975): 187–200.
* Robert Lee Hunt, ''A History of Farmer Movements in the Southwest, 1873–1925.'' College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1935.
* Connie Lester, ''Up from the Mudsills of Hell: The Farmers' Alliance, Populism, And Progressive Agriculture in Tennessee, 1870–1915.'' Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006.
* Robert C. McMath, Jr., ''Populist Vanguard: A History of the Southern Farmers' Alliance.'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
* Howard L. Meredith, "'The Middle Way': The Farmers' Alliance in Indian Territory, 1889–1896," ''Chronicles of Oklahoma,'' vol. 47, no. 4 (Winter 1969-70): 377–387.
* W. Scott Morgan
''History of the Wheel and Alliance and the Impending Revolution.''St. Louis, MO: C.B. Woodward, 1891.
* Herman C. Nixon, "The Cleavage within the Farmers' Alliance Movement," ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review,'' vol. 15, no. 1, (June 1928): 22–33.
* William Warren Rogers, ''The One-Gallused Rebellion: Agrarianism in Alabama, 1865–1896.'' Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1970.
* Theodore Saloutous, ''Farmer Movements in the South, 1865–1933.'' Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1960.
* Michael Schwartz, ''Radical Protest and Social Structure: The Southern Farmers Alliance and Cotton Tenancy, 1880–1890.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
* Roy V. Scott, "Milton George and the Farmers' Alliance Movement," ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review,'' vol. 45, no. 1 (June 1958): 90–109.
* Louis Aubrey Wood with Foster J.K. Griezic, ''A History of Farmers' Movements in Canada: The Origins and Development of Agrarian Protest, 1872–1924.'' Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1975.
Austin, TX: Travis County Farmers' Alliance, 1889.
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
Progressive Era in the United States
Agricultural organizations based in the United States