Information about Peon

The words peon and peonage are derived from the Spanish peón (pe'on).

Spanish usage

In its obsolete usage in Spain itself, the word denoted a person who travelled by foot rather than on a horse (caballero). It now means a chess pawn, or a trompo (a kind of top).

In Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, especially those in Latin America, where the hacienda system kept labourers from leaving estates, peón has also a range of meanings related to unskilled or semi-skilled work or manual labour, whether referring to a low-status wage earner in a variety of rural and urban industries (especially a day labourer or a servant); a peasant; a bullfighter's assistant, or, historically, someone subject to forms of unfree labour.

English usage

The English words peon and peonage were derived from the Spanish word, and have a variety of meanings related to the Spanish usages, as well as some other meanings. In the English-speaking world in general, the term peon is used colloquially to mean a person with little authority, often assigned unskilled or drudgerous tasks; an underling. In this sense, peon can be used in either a derogatory or self-effacing context.

It is widely thought that a peon is so named because they are so low in standing as to be urinated upon, hence pee-on. This is a false etymology and has no factual backing.

There are several ways in which the word is used:

• American English: in a historical and legal sense, peon generally only had the meaning of someone working in an unfree labor system (known as peonage). The word often implied debt bondage and/or indentured servitude.

• South Asian English: a peon is usually an office boy, an attendant, or an orderly, a person kept around for odd jobs (and, historically, a policeman or foot soldier). In an unrelated South Asian sense, "peon" may also be an alternative spelling for the poon tree (genus Calophyllum) or its wood, especially when used in boat-building.
• Computing slang: a peon is an "unprivileged user"—a person without special privileges on a computer system. The opposite is a "superuser."
• In the Warcraft universe it's the name of the Orc unit, used to construct buildings and gather resources. This has been somewhat generalized to indicate the "worker unit" in strategy games.
• In the television show Scrubs, "The Worthless Peons" is a band that features regularly on the show.

Peonage

Labor was in great need to support the expanding agriculture, mining, industrial, and public-work jobs that arose from conquerors settling in the Americas. To account for these jobs a system came about where creditors forced debtors to work for them. This system of involuntary servitude was called peonage.

The origin of this form of involuntary servitude goes back to the Spanish conquest of Mexico when conquistadors forced poor Indians to work for Spanish planters and mine operators. Peonage was prevalent in Spanish America especially in the countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru.

Peonage was also common in the South of the United States after the American Civil War. Poor white farmers and African-Americans who could not afford their own land would farm another white man's crops. This was called sharecropping and initially the benefits were mutual. The land owner would pay for the seeds and tools in exchange for a percentage of the money earned from the crop and a portion of the crop. However, as time passed many landowners began to abuse this system. Instead of the benefits remaining beneficial, the landowner would force the tenant farmer to buy seeds and tools from the land owner’s store which had inflated prices. Many of the tenant farmers could not afford these costs so they were forced to involuntary labor due to the debts they owed the land owner.

After the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment was added to the United States Constitution, which prohibited involuntary servitude such as peonage for all but convicted criminals. Congress also passed various laws to protect the constitutional rights of Southern blacks, making those who violated such rights by conspiracy, by trespass, or in disguise, guilty of an offense punishable by ten years in prison and civil disability. Unlawful use of state law to subvert rights under the Federal Constitution was made punishable by fine or a year's imprisonment. But up till 1960 some sharecroppers in Southern states were forced to continue working to pay off old debts or to pay taxes. Southern states allowed this in order to preserve sharecropping. In 1921 Georgia Farmer Jasper Williams and his black overseer Clyde Manning were convicted in the deaths of 11 blacks working as peons in Willians farm. See [1] {Allegedly Williams was only white farmer convicted for killing black peons between 1877 and 1966. [2]}

References

Hodges v. U.S. (1906) 203 U.S. 1

See also

• Feudalism
• Peasant
• Proletariat
• Social class
• Serfdom