Corvée (French:[kɔʁve]ⓘ) is a form of unpaidforced labour that is intermittent in nature, lasting for limited periods of time, typically only a certain number of days' work each year.Statute labour is a corvée imposed by astate for the purposes ofpublic works.[1] As such it represents a form of levy (taxation). Unlike other forms of levy, such as atithe, a corvée does not require the population to have land, crops or cash.
The obligation for tenant farmers to perform corvée work for landlords on privatelanded estates was widespread throughout history before theIndustrial Revolution. The term is most typically used in reference tomedieval andearly modern Europe, where work was often expected by afeudal landowner of their vassals, or by a monarch of their subjects.
The application of the term is not limited to feudal Europe; corvée has also existed inmodern andancient Egypt,ancient Sumer,[2]ancient Rome,China,Japan, theIncan civilization,Haiti underHenry I and underAmerican occupation (1915–1934), andPortugal's African colonies until the mid-1960s. Forms of statute labour officially existed until the early 20th century inCanada[3][4] and theUnited States.
The wordcorvée has its origins in Rome, and reachedEnglish viaFrench. In thelater Roman Empire the citizens performedopera 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 fromfreedmen; in the latter case the work was calledopera officialis. In medieval Europe, the tasks thatserfs orvilleins were required to perform on a yearly basis for their lords were calledopera riga. Plowing and harvesting were principal activities to which this applied. In times of need, the lord could demand additional work calledopera corrogata (Latin:corrogare,lit. 'to requisition'). This term evolved intocoroatae, thencorveiae, and finallycorvée, and the meaning broadened to encompass both the regular and exceptional tasks. The word survives in modern usage, meaning any kind of inevitable or disagreeable chore.[5]
From theEgyptian Old Kingdom (c. 2613 BC, the4th Dynasty) onward, corvée contributed to government projects.[6] During the times of theNile River floods, it was used for construction projects such aspyramids, temples, quarries, canals, roads, and other works.
The 1350 BCAmarna letters, mostly addressed to thepharaoh ofAncient Egypt, have one short letter on the topic of corvée. Of the 382 Amarna letters, there is an undamaged letter fromBiridiya ofMegiddo entitled "Furnishing corvée workers".
Later, during thePtolemaic dynasty,Ptolemy V in hisRosetta Stone Decree of 196 BC listed 22 accomplishments to be honored and ten rewards granted to him for the former. One of the shorter accomplishments, near the middle of the list, is:
He (pharaoh) decreed:—Behold, not is permitted to be pressed men of the sailors.[7]
The statement implies it was a common practice.
Until the late 19th century, many of theEgyptian Public Works, including theSuez Canal,[8] were built using corvée. Legally, the practice ended in Egypt after 1882, when theBritish Empire took control of the country and opposed forced labour on principle, but its abolition was postponed until Egypt had paid off its foreign debts. During the 19th century corvée had expanded into a national program. It was favoured for short-term projects such as building irrigation works and dams. However,Nile Delta landowners replaced it with cheap temporary labour recruited fromUpper Egypt. As a result, it was used only in scattered locales, and even then there waspeasant resistance. It began to disappear as Egypt modernized after 1860, and had fully vanished by the 1890s.[9]
Medieval agricultural corvée was not entirely unpaid. By custom the workers could expect small payments, often in the form of food and drink consumed on the spot. Corvée sometimes included military conscription, and the term is also occasionally used in a slightly divergent sense to mean forced requisition of military supplies; this most often took the form ofcartage, a lord's right to demand wagons for military transport.
Because agricultural corvée tended to be demanded by the lord at the same time that the peasants needed to tend their own plots – e.g. at planting and harvest – it was an object of serious resentment. By the 16th century its use in agricultural settings was on the decline and it became increasingly replaced by paid labour. It nevertheless persisted in many areas of Europe until theFrench Revolution and beyond.[10]
Corvée, specificallysocage, was essential to the feudal system of theHabsburg monarchy and laterAustrian Empire, and most German states that belonged to theHoly Roman Empire. Farmers and peasants were obliged to do hard agricultural work for their nobility, typically six months of the year. When a cash economy became established, the duty was gradually replaced by the duty to pay taxes.
After theThirty Years' War, the demand for corvée grew too high and the system became dysfunctional. Its official decline is linked to the abolition ofserfdom byJoseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and Habsburg ruler, in 1781. It continued to exist however, and was only abolished during therevolutions of 1848, along with the legal inequality between the nobility and common people.
Bohemia (or theCzech lands) was a part of the Holy Roman Empire as well as the Habsburg monarchy, and corvée was calledrobota inCzech. InRussian and otherSlavic languagesrobota denotes any kind of work, but in Czech it specifically refers to unpaid unfree work, corvée or serf labour, or drudgery. The Czech word was imported to part of Germany where corvée was known asRobath, and into Hungarian asrobot. The wordrobota was later used by Czech writerKarel Čapek, who after a recommendation by his brotherJosef Čapek introduced the wordrobot for (originally anthropomorphic) machines that do unpaid work for their owners in his 1920 playR.U.R.
In France corvée existed until 4 August 1789, shortly after the beginning of the French Revolution, when it wasabolished along with a number of other feudal privileges of the French landlords. At that time it was usually directed mainly towards improving the roads. It was greatly resented, and contributed to the widespread discontent that preceded the revolution. Counterrevolution revived corvée in France in 1824, 1836, and 1871, under the nameprestation. Every able-bodied man had to give three days' labour or its money equivalent in order to vote. It also continued to exist under theseigneurial system in what had beenNew France, inBritish North America.
In 1866, during theFrench occupation of Mexico, theFrench Army under MarshalFrançois Achille Bazaine set up a corvée system to provide labour for public works instead of a system of fines.[11]
In Romania, corvée was calledclacă.Karl Marx described the corvée system of theDanubian Principalities as apre-capitalist form of compulsory over-work. The labour the peasants needed for their own maintenance was distinctly separate from the work they supplied to the landowner (theboyar, orboier inRomanian) assurplus labour. The 14 days of labour due to the landowner – as prescribed by the corvée code in theRegulamentul Organic – actually amounted to 42 days, because the working day was considered the time required for the production of an average daily product, "and that average daily product is determined in so crafty a way that noCyclops would be done with it in 24 hours."[12] The corvée code was supposed to abolish serfdom, but did not achieve anything toward this goal.[citation needed]
Aland reform took place in 1864, after the Danubian Principalities unified and formed theUnited Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which abolished corvée and turned the peasants into free proprietors. The former owners were promised compensation, which was to be paid from a fund the peasants had to contribute to for 15 years. Besides the annual fee, the peasants also had to pay for the newly owned land, although at a price below market value. These debts made many peasants return to a life of semi-serfdom.
In theRussian Tsardom and theRussian Empire there were a number of permanent corvées calledtyaglyye povinnosti [ru] (Russian:тяглые повинности,lit. 'tax duties'), which included carriage corvée (подводная повинность,podvodnaya povinnost'), coachman corvée (ямская повинность,yamskaya povinnost'), and lodging corvée (постоялая повинность,postoyalaya povinnost'), among others.
In the context of Russian history, the termcorvée is also sometimes used to translate the termsbarshchina (барщина) orboyarshchina (боярщина), which refer to the obligatory work that theRussian serfs performed for thepomeshchik (Russianlanded nobility) on their land. While no official government regulation on the duration ofbarshchina labour existed, a 1797 ukase byPaul I of Russia described abarshchina ofthree days a week as normal and sufficient for the landowner's needs.
In theBlack Earth Region, 70% to 77% of the serfs performedbarshchina and the rest paid levies (obrok).[13]
The independentKingdom of Haiti based atCap-Haïtien underHenri Christophe imposed a corvée system upon the common citizenry which was used for massive fortifications to protect against French invasion. Plantation owners could pay the government and have labourers work for them instead. This enabled the Kingdom of Haiti to maintain a stronger economic structure than theRepublic of Haiti based inPort-au-Prince in the South underAlexandre Pétion which had a system of agrarian reform distributing land to the labourers.
Afterdeploying to Haiti in 1915 as an expression of theRoosevelt Corollary to theMonroe Doctrine, theU.S. Armed Forces enforced a corvée system in the interest of making improvements to infrastructure.[14]
Imperial China had a system of conscripting labour from the public, equated to theWestern corvée system by many historians.Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor, and following dynasties imposed it for public works like theGreat Wall, theGrand 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. Corvée labour was effectively abolished following theMing dynasty.[15]
TheInca Empire levied tribute labour through a system calledMit'a which was perceived as a public service to the empire. At its height of efficiency, some subsistence farmers could be called to as many as 300 days ofmit'a per year. The Spanish colonial rulers co-opted this system after theSpanish conquest of Peru to use natives as a source offorced labour onencomiendas and insilver mines. The Incan system that focused on public works found a comeback during the 1960s government ofFernando 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 theMink'a (Spanish:faena) communal work that is levied inQuechua communities in theAndes. An example is thecampesino village ofOcra close toCusco, where each adult is required to perform four days of unpaid labour per month on community projects.
Corvée-style labour (viṣṭi inSanskrit) existed in ancient India and lasted until the early 20th century.[16] The practice is mentioned in theMahabharata, where forced labourers are said to accompany the army.Manusmriti says that mechanics and artisans should be made to work for the king one day a month; other writers advocated for one day of work everyfortnight (in all Indian lunar calendars, every month is divided into two fortnights, corresponding to the waxing and the waning moons). For poorer citizens, forced labour was seen as a way to pay their taxes since they could not pay ordinary taxes. Citizens, especially skilled workers, were sometimes made to both pay ordinary taxes and work for the state. If called to work, citizens could pay in cash or kind to discharge their obligations in some cases. In theMaurya and post-Maurya time period, forced labour had become a regular source of income for the state. Written evidence shows rulers granting lands and villages with and without the right to forced labour from workers of those lands.
A corvée-style system calledsoyōchō (租庸調) was found in pre-modern Japan. During the 1930s, it was common practice to import corvée labourers from both China andKorea to work in coal mines.[17] This practice continued until the end ofWorld War II.
France annexedMadagascar as acolony in the late 19th century. Governor-GeneralJoseph Gallieni implemented a hybrid corvée andpoll tax system, partly for revenue, partly for labour resources as the French had just abolished slavery there, and partly to move away from asubsistence economy. The latter involved paying small amounts for the forced labour. This was one attempt by the colonial administration at a solution to the economic tensions that arose undercolonialism. The problems were addressed in a way that was typical of colonialism which, along with thecontemporary thinking behind it, is demonstrated in a 1938 work bySonia 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. Once they had learned to earn they would begin to spend, whereby commerce and industry would develop.
The corvée in its old form could not be continued, yet workmen were required both by the colonists, and by the Government for its vast schemes of public works. 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. Thus, for instance, every male among theHovas, from the age of sixteen to sixty, had either to pay twenty-five francs a year, or give fifty days of labour of nine hours a day, for which he was to be paid twentycentimes, a sum sufficient to feed him. Exempted from taxation and labour were soldiers, militia, Government clerks, and any Hova who knew French, also all who had entered into a contract of labour with a colonist. Unfortunately, this latter clause lent itself to tremendous abuses. 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. To this abuse an end had to be made.
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. The goal to be kept in view was to make the colony, as soon as possible, self-supporting. This end the Governor-General succeeded in achieving within a few years.
The system of forced labour otherwise known aspolo y servicios evolved within the framework of theencomienda system, introduced into the South American colonies by the Spanish government.Polo y servicios in theSpanish 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 frompolo was possible via paying thefalla (corruption of theSpanishfalta, meaning 'absence'), which was a daily fine of one and a halfreales. In 1884, the required amount of labour was reduced to 15 days. The system was patterned after therepartimento system for forced labour inSpanish America.[19]
In Portuguese Africa (e.g.Mozambique), theNative Labour Regulations of 1899 stated that all able bodied men must work for six months of every year, and that "[t]hey have full liberty to choose the means through which to comply with this regulation, but if they do not comply in some way, the public authorities will force them to comply."[20]
Africans engaged insubsistence agriculture on their own small plots were considered unemployed. The forced labour was sometimes paid, but in cases of rule violations it was sometimes not – as punishment. The state benefited from the use of the labour for farming and infrastructure, by high income taxes on those who found work with private employers, and by selling corvée labour toSouth Africa. This system, calledchibalo, was not abolished in Mozambique until 1962, and continued in some forms until theCarnation Revolution in 1974.
Corvée was used in several states and provinces in North America especially for road maintenance, and this practice persisted to some degree in the United States and Canada. Its popularity with local governments gradually waned after theAmerican Revolution with the increasing development of the monetary economy. After theAmerican Civil War, someSouthern states, with money in short supply, commuted taxing their inhabitants with obligations in the form of labour for public works, or let them pay a fee or tax to avoid it. The system proved unsuccessful because of the poor quality of work. In 1894, theVirginia Supreme Court ruled that corvée violated the state constitution,[21] and in 1913Alabama became one of the last states to abolish it.[22]
The government ofMyanmar is well known for its use of the corvée and has defended the practice in its official newspapers.[23]
InBhutan, thedriglam namzha calls for citizens to do work, such asdzong construction, in lieu of part of their tax obligation to the state.
InRwanda, the centuries-old tradition ofumuganda, or community labour, still continues, usually in the form of one Saturday a month when citizens are required to perform work.
Vietnam maintained corvée for females (ages 18–35) and males (ages 18–45) of 10 days yearly for public works at the discretion of the authorities. This was termed labour duty (Vietnamese:nghĩa vụ lao động).[24] However, in 2006, theStanding Committee of the National Assembly voided the decree, effectively abolishing corvée in Vietnam.[25]
TheBritish overseas territory of thePitcairn Islands, which has a population of about 50 and noincome orsales tax, has a system of public work whereby all able-bodied people are required to perform, when called upon, jobs such as road maintenance and repairs to public buildings.[26]
Since the mid-late 19th century, most countries have restricted corvée labour toconscription (military orcivilian service), orprison labour.
