Corvée
Corvée (French: [kɔʁve] ⓘ) is a form of unpaid forced labour that is intermittent in nature, lasting for limited periods of time, typically only a certain number of days' work each year.
The obligation for tenant farmers to perform corvée work for landlords on private landed estates was widespread throughout history before the Industrial Revolution.
The term is most typically used in reference to medieval and early modern Europe, where work was often expected by a feudal landowner of their vassals, or by a monarch of their subjects.
In the later Roman Empire the citizens performed opera publica in lieu of paying taxes; often it consisted of road and bridge work.
Roman landlords could also demand a certain number of days' labour from their tenants, and from freedmen; in the latter case the work was called opera officialis.
In medieval Europe, the tasks that serfs or villeins were required to perform on a yearly basis for their lords were called opera riga.
In times of need, the lord could demand additional work called opera corrogata (Latin: corrogare, lit.
[6] During the times of the Nile River floods, it was used for construction projects such as pyramids, temples, quarries, canals, roads, and other works.
Later, during the Ptolemaic dynasty, Ptolemy V in his Rosetta Stone Decree of 196 BC listed 22 accomplishments to be honored and ten rewards granted to him for the former.
Its official decline is linked to the abolition of serfdom by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and Habsburg ruler, in 1781.
[13] The independent Kingdom of Haiti based at Cap-Haïtien under Henri Christophe imposed a corvée system upon the common citizenry which was used for massive fortifications to protect against French invasion.
After deploying to Haiti in 1915 as an expression of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. Armed Forces enforced a corvée system in the interest of making improvements to infrastructure.
Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor, and following dynasties imposed it for public works like the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, and the system of national roads and highways.
However, as the imposition was exorbitant and punishment for failure draconian, Qin Shi Huang was resented by the people and criticized by many historians.
The Incan system that focused on public works found a comeback during the 1960s government of Fernando Belaúnde Terry as a federal effort, with positive effects on Peruvian infrastructure.
Remnants of the system are still found today in modern Peru, such as the Mink'a (Spanish: faena) communal work that is levied in Quechua communities in the Andes.
An example is the campesino village of Ocra close to Cusco, where each adult is required to perform four days of unpaid labour per month on community projects.
The problems were addressed in a way that was typical of colonialism which, along with the contemporary thinking behind it, is demonstrated in a 1938 work by Sonia E. Howe:[18] There was the introduction of equitable taxation, so vital from the financial point of view; but also of such great political, moral and economic importance.
It was the tangible proof of French authority having come to stay; it was the stimulus required to make an inherently lazy people work.
The General [Gallieni] therefore passed a temporary law, in which taxation and labour were combined, to be modified according to country, the people, and their mentality.
By paying a small sum to some European, who nominally engaged them, thousands bought their freedom from work and taxation by these fictitious contracts, to be free to continue their lazy, unprofitable existence.
The urgency of a sound fiscal system was of tremendous importance to carry out all the schemes for the welfare and development of the island, and this demanded a local budget.
Polo y servicios in the Spanish Philippines refers to 40 days' forced manual labour for men from 16 to 60 years of age; these workers built community structures such as churches.
Exemption from polo was possible via paying the falla (corruption of the Spanish falta, meaning 'absence'), which was a daily fine of one and a half reales.
[23] In Bhutan, the driglam namzha calls for citizens to do work, such as dzong construction, in lieu of part of their tax obligation to the state.
In Rwanda, the centuries-old tradition of umuganda, or community labour, still continues, usually in the form of one Saturday a month when citizens are required to perform work.
