The Limits of the Contract: Indentured labor on the Periphery of Capitalism (19th-20th centuries)

Abstract

In the colonial world, forms of indentured labor emerged strongly, blending in a gray zone between the poles of slavery and free wage labor. In many ways, colonial indentured labor systems resembled the slavery they supposedly replaced and were depositaries of ambiguities responsible for making the dichotomy free work/non-free work analytically questionable. Another aspect to highlight is the strong relationship between forms of forced labor and migratory movements, which provides a background for understanding the migrations of Chinese, Indian, African workers, among others, under the regime of indentured labor. The purpose of this article is to explore the contradiction between the existence of the indentured labor as an instrument of coercion and the liberal idea of ​​the contract as a free agreement between two parties, identifying the limits of liberalism in the 19th century regarding the question of racialized colonial labor and its legacy for the next century.