ABSTRACT
Cultivation by corvée seemed to be one of the first expedients which occurred to the ingenuity of slaveholders to get from their workers the largest share without having to worry about their subsistence. Servitude of the soil has nominally been abolished in several countries, which have adopted the system of cultivation by corvées, but so long as this general system of agriculture is in force, there cannot be any liberty for the peasant. No doubt it gave to the peasantry a kind of property, an interest in life; but it reduced them to see their domestic economy disturbed every moment, by the vexatious demands of a landlord or his stewards. The peasant could not perform the operations of his husbandry at the day fixed upon; the landlord’s work must always be done before his own; the rainy days constantly fell to the share of the weaker party.
