peon

thumb|Foreman and country peon by Prilidiano Pueyrredón (1823 - 1870)

Peonage is any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control over employment or economic conditions. A Peon (English , from the Spanish peón ) is anyone subject to peonage. Peon and peonage existed both the colonial period and post-colonial period of Latin America, as well as the period after the end of slavery in the United States, when "Black Codes" were passed to retain African-American freedmen as labor through other means.