Crossword clues for peonage
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Peonage \Pe"on*age\, n. The condition of a peon.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1848, American English, from peon + -age.
Wiktionary
n. The state of being a peon; the system of paying back debt through servitude and labour; loosely, any system of involuntary servitude.
WordNet
n. the condition of a peon
the practice of making a debtor work for his creditor until the debt is discharged
Usage examples of "peonage".
Slavery, servitude, and all the other guises of the coercive organization of labor-from coolieism in the pacific and peonage in Latin America to apartheid in South Africa-are all essential elements internal to the processes of capitalist development.
Defined as a condition of enforced servitude by which the servitor is compelled to labor in liquidation of some debt or obligation, either real or pretended, against his will, peonage was found to have been unconstitutionally sanctioned by an Alabama statute, directed at defaulting sharecroppers, which imposed a criminal liability and subjected to imprisonment farm workers or tenants who abandoned their employment, breached their contracts, and exercised their legal right to enter into employment of a similar nature with another person.
On the subject of allowing debt peonage in territories that support it, while disallowing it in those that do not, we will now take a vote.