Contract Labor and Debt Bondage

LIFE AND LABOR IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD HIST 1301 | History Contract Labor and Debt Bondage Although the industrialised world saw the end of slavery and serfdom in the nineteenth century, there were still ways to provide a long-term or permanent labour force for both industrial and agricultural output. Debt bondage and contract labour are two examples of such systems. Even now, some people sign contracts committing them to work for a fee in order to engage in contract labour. A type of contract labour known as indentured servitude involves individuals making a commitment to work for a predetermined amount of time in exchange for a predetermined payment. While their contract is in effect, indentured servants are not considered slaves, but they are subject to complete control by their employers and are not permitted to quit their employment. In a debt bondage arrangement, the debtor works for the creditor (or arranges for someone else to work on their behalf) until the loan is paid back with labour. Similar to slavery, indentured servitude and debt bondage were prevalent in the latter part of the nineteenth century. However, indentured servitude and debt bondage are not permanent, unlike slavery. During the colonial era, indentured servitude was a prevalent practice in the United States and served as a pathway for numerous European immigrants to reach North America. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the practice had mostly disappeared from the United States, while it persisted in a few isolated locations. Plantation owners in Hawaii grew their crops, particularly sugarcane, using contract labour from Portugal, China, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. In addition, a large number of Chinese immigrants arrived in the US as contract workers. They didn't have an employment contract with their employer. Rather than pay for their travel to the United States, they had volunteered to labour for one of their own countrymen. The Six Companies, a Chinese-owned enterprise established to convey Chinese immigrants to North America, transported a large number of Chinese labourers overseas. Prior to being permitted to return home, the workers were required to settle their debt with the corporation. After slavery was outlawed, different types of contract labour were also used in other regions of the world. Australia relied on indentured labourers from Pacific island nations including Samoa, Tuvalu, the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), and the Solomon Islands throughout the 1800s. Chinese and Indian labourers were also in high demand due to a thriving commerce, which allowed them to work throughout Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and European possessions in Africa. These workers received meagre compensation, excessive workloads, harsh punishment, and just enough food to keep them going. Numerous developed nations decided to stop trading after learning about their mistreatment. Two of the principal destinations for Asian labourers were banned by Britain from being transported by British ships: Peru and Cuba. Portugal, imitating Britain, outlawed the trade in Macao, a Portuguese province in Asia, in 1874. Through this trade, a large number of Chinese labourers were transported to other parts of the world. During the late nineteenth century, debt bondage was also a popular form of labour in several regions of the world. When Japan's economy collapsed in the 1880s, many people there were insolvent and went hungry, and parents "rented" their kids—especially their daughters—to factories. The girls received food and housing, while their parents received the money they made. Additionally, daughters may be rented out to brothels; obedient daughters may choose to forgo the suffering for their parents. Debt bondage was a prevalent practice among southern farmers in the United States to retain an African American labour force and impoverished White labourers at their disposal. Many Asian labourers who relocated to South America were also caught by it, even after their contracts had ended. It was almost hard to escape debt bondage in certain locations. Tenant farmers and sharecroppers who farmed other people's land relied on the harvest to support them. They used credit to buy food and other supplies from a nearby store, generally owned by the landlord, in the months leading up to harvest. They frequently had to utilise the landlord's equipment and buy seed. They paid off their loans when they sold their crops after the harvest. The cost of the items and the interest the shop owner charged were frequently so exorbitant that the workers' earnings from the harvest were inadequate to pay off their obligations; the amount that remained unpaid was then added to the amount borrowed against the following crop. Workers were sometimes paid in scrip, which was an alternative form of payment that could only be used at the employer's store. As a result of being unable to purchase elsewhere, labourers were forced to incur debt. The young women in Japanese brothels were not paid in scrip; instead, the cost of all the services given to them, such as food and clothes, was documented. The women were also not allowed to leave until they had paid back the entire amount that had been traded for them as well as the initial amount that had been swapped for them.