In January 1922, Martin Tabert died in a Putnam Lumber Company convict lease camp in Dixie County, Florida, after being tortured and physically abused. “Whipping Boss” T. W. Higginbotham was directly responsible for Tabert’s murder and the murder of many others, but the sheriff, the judge, the doctor, and many more moneyed interests connected to Florida’s convict leasing program are complicit in serial murder.
Tabert’s parents in Munich, North Dakota, received a notice from the Putnam Lumber Company of Martin Tabert’s death from “fever and other complications,” telling them he had been properly buried. Sometime between December 15 and 21, 1921, Martin Tabert had wired his family to ask them to wire him $50 to pay a fine for riding a train without a ticket. But before the check arrived on the desk of Sheriff Jones, Martin was gone.
Sheriff Jim Bob Jones of Leon County was just doing his job when he arrested Tabert on Dec. 15, 1921, for riding a train without a ticket and no money to pay. County Judge B. R. Willis was just doing his job when he fined Tabert $25 for vagrancy, and since he could not pay, ordered him to serve 90 days in jail. Sheriff Jones immediately “leased” Tabert to the Putnam Lumber Company at Clara. When the Taberts received Martin’s request, his father sent a $75 check, which landed on Sheriff Jones’s desk. On December 21, just six days after Martin’s arrest, Jones returned the check with the message, “Returned by request of Sheriff, Party Gone.” Tabert’s family thought he had somehow secured his own release and hoped he would be home by Christmas.
After Tabert’s grieving parents received the death notice, Morris Nelson, the Tabert family’s lawyer, requested more information. The lumber company referred them to Sheriff Jones, who told Nelson since he was unable to use the money to cover the fine, as it was sent in Martin Tabert’s name, he had returned it. That might have been the end of the story.
Fortunately, in July of 2022 another prisoner wrote to the Taberts’ postmaster in Munich and asked if they wanted to know what had happened to Martin. This began a months-long correspondence that led them to State Attorney Gudmundur Grimson, who helped bring the case before the courts. Other eyewitnesses came forward, and the Taberts learned that Sheriff Jones received a $20 kickback from Putnam Lumber Company for every convict leased. Jones publicly denied getting kickbacks but later in court testified it was true. Eyewitnesses reported that Tabert had fallen ill working in the swamps, and one day when he failed to respond vigorously enough to “Whipping Boss” Higginbotham, the boss had whipped him almost to death. Other prisoners managed to help Tabert into the sleeping shack but didn’t dare call for a doctor. Tabert died a few days later.
The Taberts continued their investigation, soliciting help from others. National press coverage elicited letters pouring in from those who had experienced the brutality of convict leasing. As in other states, Florida’s murderous convict lease system was conceived and carried out as a cunning response to the end of the free labor of black enslavement. The vast majority of its victims were men of color, as its masterminds intended. But Talbert was a white farm boy, and his case demonstrates exactly why extractors must be careful whom they abuse if they want to continue their exploitation of humans. Florida’s convict lease system was designed to ensure the continuance of free labor from the formerly enslaved, but operatives became careless in their desire for more bodies, and the national outrage that ended convict leasing fifty some years after its inception would not have occurred had Tabert been black.
Sheriff Jones and Judge Willis were removed from office. Walter Higginbotham faced first-degree murder charges and was tried in Lake City (a change of venue to ensure a fair trial) and on July 8, 1923, sentenced to 20 years in prison. But in May 1925 the Florida Supreme Court overturned the verdict on the technicality of the change of venue. He was awarded a new trial in Dixie County where the jury found him not guilty in spite of dozens of eyewitnesses to Higginbotham’s brutality to Martin Tabert.
The Tabert family received $20,000 from Putnam Lumber for the death of their son. His body was never recovered.
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Holt, A. H. (2005). Men, Women and Children in the Stockade: How the People, the Press, and the Elected Officials of Florida Built a Prison System. Retrieved from http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_migr_etd-3801