History Behind the Antipeonage Act

Peon is a Spanish word. It means "foot-soldier" and it designates the chess piece English speakers call the pawn. During the Middle Ages, when there was a war that obliged the local king to raise an army, those wealthy enough to supply their own armor and horses were called knights in England, chevaliers in France, and caballeros in Spain. As the knights were often manor lords, the peasants who were bound to them could be pressed into service as infantrymen, the foot soldiers. During peacetime, these designations stuck. Active knights might go jousting in tournaments. The inactive ones would tend to their manors, but still be called knights or caballeros, and addressed as "Sir" or "Don". In Spain the foot soldiers would go back to the manor and continue to be treated like, well, peons!

The legal definition of peon in Spain was one who is bound by his debts. An unemployed person could voluntarily go to a manor lord and ask to become his peon. The manor lord would loan him a sum of money, perhaps sufficient to support the peon and his family for month or so, with the understanding that he work off the debt. Of course, he always needed more money to support his family, thus he incurred new debt as he worked off the old debt. If the peon took a hike, the manor lord would ask the local sheriff to go fetch him and bring him back. Because he was not legally allowed to refuse service while still owing money, he was not in much of a position to bargain for a raise!

Why would anyone agree to such an arrangement? When you are starving to death and it was the only way to get a job, well, that is what you have to do!

Problem was, even among the poor, there were those who would not go along with the program.

Imagine that!

So they had vagrancy laws. If you had no money and no job, was without "visible means of support", perhaps you made what money you can by less than legitimate means, say gambling, prostitution, or highway robbery, shucks, you were guilty of vagrancy. So were those who abandoned their wives and children without leaving them the means of support. If you have no money and no job, what can you do for your wife and children? The punishment for vagrancy was a stiff fine that of course, a vagrant cannot pay. If he could pay it, he would not be a vagrant.

Wouldn't you know it? The manor lords all seem to know the local judge! Chances are, that judge knows someone who could help the convicted vagrants. A manor lord in need of some extra "employees" would go to the local courthouse and pay the fines. The vagrants would be released to him, they are now bound by the debts resulting from the payment of the fines to work for him until the debts were paid. Which could be a long time because the wage rates matched the cost of living in horrible conditions with barely enough food to survive. Medical benefits consisted of a priest to say the Last Rites.

What a deal!

Spain had this system. So did France, it eventually provoked the people into revolution and liberal use of the guillotine. We can blame the Metric System on peonage as practiced in France. Peonage was inherited from the Roman Empire. The laws of Athens under Draco that were repealed by Solon caused many in the middle class to be enslaved for debt when caught by recessions. This is the real reason Solon was elected. The Old Testament describes peonage in Hebrew law, Leviticus 25:39-41.

Because Spain had this system, it was transplanted to the Spanish colonies in America, starting with Columbus himself, who helped begin the encomienda system. Some texts trace the origin of peonage in Spanish America to the encomienda system. But the basic plan was the European system above described. The plantations of the southern United States were a particularly harsh adaptation of the manor system with chattel slaves of African descent instead of white peons, though originally, there were plenty of white peons brought over from Europe. But while the indentured servitude of poor whites eventually died out, to be replaced with the free labor market in the North and the black slave labor economy in the South, the territories obtained from Mexico in the 1840's brought the peonage system into American law. Most of the people in New Mexico Territory were peons.

Given that black chattel slavery was legal in the nearby Southern States, New Mexican peonage seemed perfectly compatible with United States law.

Then Lincoln was elected President and all Hell broke loose!

New Mexico stayed in the Union primarily because Texas walked out. They didn't like each other. The Republic of Texas claimed all of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. New Mexico disagreed. During the Civil War, Texas invaded and conquered New Mexico. Regiments from California and Colorado then invaded New Mexico, and with some help from the New Mexicans, forced the Texans out. The Civil War ended and the Thirteenth Amendment passed.

As grateful as New Mexico was for liberation from Texan occupation, they continued to practice peonage. That is what Congress reacted to when they passed the Antipeonage Act, original statute recorded at 14 Stat 546. New Mexico was using its peonage system to enforce all kinds of debts and obligations: debts arising from express or implied contracts, awards for attorney's fees, tort judgments, and the duty of a husband to support his wife and children, whether divorced or not.

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