Based on thorough documentary research in archives and newspapers, Workers in Bondage begins with the origins of servitude during the convict era in Queensland before its separation from New South Wales in 1859. The study then focuses in on Queensland’s Pacific Islander labor force, examining the reconstruction of the Queensland sugar industry after the withdrawal of Islander labor and describing the realities of white labor and the early trade union struggles in the sugar industry. Underlying the text is an analysis of labor manipulation by capitalism in a new colony during a time of transition from slavery to indenture in the British Empire. This is a comprehensive and insightful academic examination of the little known history of the enslavement of Pacific Island workers in Australian convict-era industries, as well as a wider study of race relations in a frontier society.

In this book, Kenworthy offers a powerful message to workers about how to transform their conditions from bondage to brotherhood. He calls on workers to unite, offering practical insights into how they can organize and fight for their rights. Furthermore, Kenworthy details the history of the labor movement and how workers have struggled to improve their conditions. As a call to action, this book remains an important contribution to the study of labor and social movements in the 20th century. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

For the first time, this book provides the global history of labor in Central Eurasia, Russia, Europe, and the Indian Ocean between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. It contests common views on free and unfree labor, and compares the latter to many Western countries where wage conditions resembled those of domestic servants. This gave rise to extreme forms of dependency in the colonies, not only under slavery, but also afterwards in form of indentured labor in the Indian Ocean and obligatory labor in Africa. Stanziani shows that unfree labor and forms of economic coercion were perfectly compatible with market development and capitalism, proven by the consistent economic growth that took place all over Eurasia between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. This growth was labor intensive: commercial expansion, transformations in agriculture, and the first industrial revolution required more labor, not less. Finally, Stanziani demonstrates that this world did not collapse after the French Revolution or the British industrial revolution, as is commonly assumed, but instead between 1870 and 1914, with the second industrial revolution and the rise of the welfare state.

Essays on historical aspects, economic implications, sociological aspects and legal aspects of bonded labour and forced labour in India - examines the nature of slavery in ancient and medieval India, as well as under colonialism; includes case studies of bondage of agricultural workers and weaving skilled worker, rural workers employed in brick kilns, tribal peoples, migrant workers, and rural women forced into prostitution; comments on related legislation and obstacles to the abolition of debt bondage. Bibliography, references, statistical tables.