Camp Dependable was a concentration camp operated by the Confederate Freedom Party in Louisiana before and during the Second Great War. It was originally established by Governor Huey Long, a Radical Liberal, to incarcerate those who opposed Long's absolute rule of Louisiana and his attempt to set himself up as a populist dictator in competition with President Jake Featherston.
After Featherston had Long assassinated in 1937, the Freedom Party seized power in Louisiana, with the Freedom Party Guards taking over Camp Dependable and replacing the original inmates with Longists. Jefferson Pinkard was its first Freedom Party commandant.
After some time, the white anti-Featherston inmates were removed from the camp and replaced with captured Negro rebels from all over the Confederacy.
At first, the Negroes were only imprisoned there under harsh, but not necessarily deadly, conditions. However, Attorney General Ferdinand Koenig (at the order of Featherston) ordered Pinkard to start "reducing the camp's population" by taking out groups of prisoners and executing them out of hand.
This was the key moment in starting the Population Reduction against the Confederacy's Black population. Actions accelerated when Blacks of all ages and both genders, whether or not they were suspected of any rebellious activity, were detained en masse. In response, the Confedercy built Camp Determination, and placed Pinkard in charge there. He was succeeded at Dependable by Mercer Scott.
In 1939, former Vice President Willy Knight was imprisoned at Camp Dependable after his ill-fated attempt to assassinate Jake Featherston. He was executed there in 1941.
