All Work, No Pay

The corvée system was a model of unpaid forced labour that was practised before the Industrial Revolution. Unlike indentured servitude, which involved signing a contract for a set number of years, corvée labour was an expectation, viewed as an obligation to the ruling class. Most commonly associated with medieval Europe, it also functioned in ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, the Incan Empire, and pre-modern Japan.

This form of labour also existed in eighteenth-century Canada. As Richard H. Tomczak explains in Workers of War and Empire from New France to British North America, 1688–1783, the corvée system “was introduced by the French to Canada but was later exploited by the British.” A lecturer in history at Stony Brook University, in New York State, Tomczak adds that “both French and British officials imagined utilizing corvée labour to provide the raw output of energy necessary for colonization in the woodlands of North America.” His fascinating look at a...