PEONAGE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Peonage

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Peonage

noun

The condition of a peon.

The practice of making a debtor work for his creditor until the debt is discharged.

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Etymology of 'Peonage'

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"Peonage" Quotes from Famous Books

... of his people, the people of Matto Grosso. The poorer people of the back country everywhere suffer because of the harsh and improper laws of debt. In practice these laws have resulted in establishing a system of peonage, such as has grown up here and there in our own nation. A radical change is needed in this matter; and the colonel is fighting for the change. In school matters the colonel has precisely the ideas of our wisest and most advanced ...

— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... that if that plan should be accepted by the country no material change would follow, for the reason, chiefly, that the abolition of slavery would have been abolition only in name. While physical slavery would have been abolished, yet a sort of feudal or peonage system would have been established in its place, the effect of which would have been practically the same as the system which had been abolished. The former slaves would have been held in a state of servitude ...

— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

Words linked to "Peonage" : practice, pattern, subjection, subjugation