Peonage, also called debt peonage, is any form of wage labor, financial exploitation or coercive economic practice or policy in which a laborer, called a peon, has little control over their own employment or economic conditions. Peonage existed in both the colonial and post-colonial periods of Latin America, and also in the United States after the end of slavery, when Black Codes were passed to keep African American freedmen bound to labor through other means. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Connections
Associated With
Debt peonage and serfdom are both institutions of bound agricultural labor tying a worker to a landowner, debt peonage through a nominally repayable financial obligation and serfdom through hereditary status.
Debt peonage has been documented, including by international bodies, as a practice closely bordering slavery, in which debt is used to compel labor under conditions the debtor cannot practically escape.
Sources
Peonage (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, Lead section
Peonage is any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control over employment or economic conditions.
View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.