What is "corvees"

Usage examples of "corvees".

The edicts relative to the corvees & free circulation of grain, were first presented to the parliament and registered.

Hawaiian labor corvees built elaborate irrigation systems for taro fields yielding up to 24 tons per acre, the highest crop yields in all of Polynesia.

In Polynesian Hawaii the same bureaucrats (termed konohiki) extracted tribute and oversaw irrigation and organized labor corvees for the chief, whereas state societies have separate tax collectors, water district managers, and draft boards.

What of the corvees by which they command forced labour, of the ban de vendage, which gives them the first vintage, the banvin which enables them to control to their own advantage the sale of wine?

A Latin king could oppress the Greeks, squeeze them, humiliate them, tax them to poverty, dragoon them into his corvées or his armies.