Peter O’Neal was born around 1813. He attended the Georgia Educational Convention in Macon in May of 1867 along with many of his fellow future Assemblymen. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in his mid 50s representing Baldwin County, home to Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia. In his time in the Assembly, he championed a bill to abolish the penitentiary system and another ensuring payment of wages due to agricultural laborers, most of whom were newly freed Black Georgians.

O’Neal continued to be a champion of labor rights for agricultural workers in the state beyond his time in the Assembly. In May 1887, a then elderly O’Neal hosted Hiram Hoover, a white Texan labor organizer, at his home in Milledgeville. Hoover gave two speeches to hundreds of Black agriculture workers, encouraging listeners to strike for a wage of $1.50, triple their customary compensation, and that they should organize. He issued a charter for his integrated union, Cooperative Workingmen, in Milledgeville and charged dues of 55 cents per person.

The local newspaper (and others throughout the country) picked up the story reporting Hiram Hoover was inciting violence among Black laborers and urging them to demand higher wages and “if what they demanded was not given then to use the torch to the white man’s house.” Whites retaliated against O’Neal, F.F. Boddie (a minister in the African Methodist Church) and Hoover. Hoover was shot while giving a speech at the black Methodist church on the outskirts of Milledgeville by several robed masked men who escaped on horseback and were never arrested. Hoover survived, but according to the June 2, 1887, Kansas Great Bend Register, the right side of his face was badly injured, and he lost an eye. No doctor in the vicinity would treat him.

On May 28, 1887, O’Neal and his family were preparing to move to Macon when a fire was set on their home. Mrs. O’Neal barely escaped.

At the time of the 1870 Census, O’Neal owned 300 in real estate and 100 in personal property. He was 57 and married to Mildred O’Neal, also 57, and they had two children living with them: Peter O’Neal, then 20, and Joel O’Neal, 17. His occupation is listed as “Rep. In Legislature.”