Padrone System Stifled Freedom

A lot of Americans still dream of the American West as a place of freedom and opportunity. But for workers at the turn of the twentieth century, it was never quite that simple.

As author Mark Twain brings Huckleberry Finn's story to a close, we read as Huck "lights out for the territories" to find freedom out West, and imagine him riding into the sunset bouncing gamely from one job to another. But if Twain had continued Huck's story -- and done so honestly -- he would have described run-ins with the agents who exploited the West's volatile labor markets. These agents -- or padrones, as they came to be known -- did not encourage freedom. They stifled it for economic gain.

Utah's most infamous padrone was a Greek man named Leonidas Skliris. Skliris started work for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad shuttling Greek laborers wherever the company needed them. If the work got too dangerous or went underpaid, the workers quit and moved on to the next job. But between 1904 and 1912, Skliris curbed worker mobility by expanding his operations to include multiple industries and blacklisting workers who didn't fall into line. Companies went to Skliris to contract labor. He, in turn, reduced their turnover rate by ensuring that, if you were Greek, and you wanted work, his was the only game in town.

Other Italian and Japanese padrones implemented similar strategies. They made their money by demanding a fee upfront for finding someone work, and then extracting a portion from every paycheck that worker earned. The resulting transnational network of labor relations extended so far as to connect demand for miners in Bingham Canyon, for example, with economic hardships unfolding in Greece, Italy, and Japan.

In 1911, Greek workers appealed to the governor of Utah to free them from the padrone system. They asked Governor Spry, "Where are we? In the free country of Amerika or in a country dominated by a despotic form of government?" Out here on the Western Frontier, they experienced a more ruthless side of the American Dream, where even adventurers like Huck Finn probably sacrificed adventure in favor of survival.