peonage

Some 50 million people are in debt peonage to student loan companies.

Rather, the poorer and more vulnerable you are, the more you are exploited, thrust into a hellish debt peonage from which there is no escape.

New Jersey's William Houston, a mathematics professor and abolitionist who served as a captain in Washington's army, concurred — although he was more concerned with not wanting to encourage laws that maintained slavery and debt peonage.

The peonage system lasted across the South for seven decades until World War II, yet many Americans have never heard of it.

Smith was immediately taken into Adult Protective Services, and Edwards was charged with second-degree assault and “attempt to establish peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude or human trafficking.”