Project Gutenberg 2010-02-17 Public domain in the USA. 131 Hershaw, Lafayette M. 1863 1945 16007104 Peonage American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 15 Produced by Suzanne Shell, Stephanie Eason, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. "Peonage" by Lafayette M. Hershaw is a historical account written in the early 20th century. This book explores the systemic issues surrounding labor practices and racial discrimination in the United States, particularly focusing on the laws and societal norms that have perpetuated a condition of forced labor among African Americans since the abolition of slavery. Hershaw sheds light on how peonage—essentially compelled labor under the guise of contract law—has been maintained through legislation, effectively evading the protections promised by the Thirteenth Amendment. In this treatise, Hershaw meticulously examines the evolution of labor laws in the former slave-holding states, illustrating how they have been manipulated to impose new forms of servitude on Black workers. He discusses various legal frameworks that allow for the co-option of labor, such as vagrancy laws and restrictions on labor contracts, which often trap individuals in cycles of debt and exploitation. The author argues that these laws serve not just to control, but to dehumanize African Americans by stripping them of their rights and reducing their status to that of peons bound to their employers by coercive legislation, revealing a grim continuity of racial oppression in American society. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 44.6 (College-level). Difficult to read. en Peonage -- United States E151 Text Category: History - American Category: Law & Criminology Category: Politics 52095 2025-07-13T03:52:25.924539 text/html 48340 2021-01-06T04:39:01 text/html 117240 2025-07-13T03:52:29.404545 application/epub+zip 115702 2025-07-13T03:52:27.444548 application/epub+zip 84483 2025-07-13T03:52:26.464560 application/epub+zip 176152 2025-07-13T03:52:30.933545 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 168004 2025-07-13T03:52:28.835540 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 117268 2022-09-14T11:14:16.110883 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 45787 2025-07-13T03:52:25.576544 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 45726 2021-01-06T04:39:01 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 19028 2025-07-13T03:52:31.067526 application/rdf+xml 10166 2025-07-13T03:52:26.947550 image/jpeg 2645 2025-07-13T03:52:26.704551 image/jpeg 48367 2021-01-06T04:39:01 application/octet-stream application/zip 16671 2021-01-06T04:39:01 application/octet-stream application/zip 113144 2025-07-13T03:52:25.932544 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog