Peons

In English peon (/ˈpiːɒn/), from the Spanish [peˈon]) usually refers to a person subject to peonage: any form of unfree labor or wage labor in which a laborer (peon) has little control over employment conditions. In this sense, peon and peonage are, strictly speaking, used accurately only of the colonial period in Latin America and other countries colonized by Spain. However, the word peon has a variety of related, less formal uses.

In English, peon and peonage have meanings related to their Spanish etymology, as well as a variety of other usages. In addition to the meaning of forced laborer, a peon may also be a person with little authority, often assigned unskilled tasks; an underling or any person subjected to capricious or unreasonable oversight. In this sense, peon can be used in either a derogatory or self-effacing context.

However, the term has a historical basis and usage related to much more severe conditions of forced labor.

There are other usages in contemporary cultures:

The origin of peonage goes back to the Spanish conquest of Mexico when conquistadors forced natives to work for Spanish planters and mine operators. Peonage was prevalent in Latin America especially in the countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru. It remains an important part of social life, as among the Urarina of the Peruvian Amazon.

After the American Civil War of 1861–1865, peonage developed in the Southern United States. Poor white farmers and formerly enslaved African Americans known as freedmen who could not afford their own land would farm another person's land, exchanging labor for a share of the crops. This was called sharecropping and initially the benefits were mutual. The land owner would pay for the seeds and tools in exchange for a percentage of the money earned from the crop and a portion of the crop. As time passed, many landowners began to abuse this system. The landowner would force the tenant farmer or sharecropper to buy seeds and tools from the land owner’s store, which often had inflated prices. As sharecroppers were often illiterate, they had to depend on the books and accounting by the landowner and his staff. Other tactics included debiting expenses against the sharecropper's profits after the crop was harvested and "miscalculating" the net profit from the harvest, thereby keeping the sharecropper in perpetual debt to the landowner. Since the tenant farmers could not offset the costs, they were forced into involuntary labor due to the debts they owed the land owner.

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