Ryan Bugler Mr.

Beaver US History A3 2-22-13

Dating back as far as the Spanish conquest of Mexico, peonage has been around for hundreds of years. Peonage is the state of being a peon. A peon is defined as someone who is in substantial debt and becomes bound in servitude to their creditor until the debt is paid off. Although peonage is most commonly related to early America and European countries, it is still around today. When someone becomes too involved in debt, they sometimes begin to work for the loaner to pay off their debt. Things have changed since then though. Since the adoption of the 13th amendment, ratified on December 1865, debtors are no longer forced into slavery or involuntary servitude except as a punishment for a crime as judged by a court. A large problem after the civil war was peonage of freed african americans and poor white farmers. Especially when it came to sharecropping. Sharecropping is when poor white men or freedmen could not afford their own farm. So, as an alternative, they would go to established farmers and farm on their land. The land owners would purchase the seed and tools and in turn the loanees would give the owner half of the crops and profits. Eventually, the poor white farmers and black freedmen would become peons. The land owners would take advantage of this relationship and make them pay for both their tools and seeds from their own store where prices were inflated and unfair. Eventually, congress started cracking down on this and adjusted the Laws and guidelines. This is just one example of Peonage in our countrys history.

Peonage

Work Cited

Buhle, Mari Jo , Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas. "About Sharecropping." Welcome to English

Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb.

2013. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets

Del Gallo, Rinaldo . "Annotation 2: Peonage." Antipeonage Act. N.p., 25 Feb. 2007. Web. 22

Feb. 2013. <www.fathersunite.org/antipeonage_act.html