History Behind the Antipeonage Act
We WON Court of Appeals No. 58250-0!! Reported at 142 Wash. App. 291, 174 P. 3d 1198. Further details at the bottom of Writ of Prohibition Against Contempt Prosecution web page!
Some Practical Advice for Support Contemnors in the State of Washington.
A Way to Walk a Mile in a Noncustodial Parent's Moccasins.
Please check out the litigation listed toward the bottom of the web page Knight v. State Writ of Prohibition Against Contempt Prosecution where I was forced to file a Motion to Modify Commissioner's Decision citing Antipeonage Act because the State of Washington imposed a court order that is a direct violation of the Antipeonage Act, requiring me to maintain at least 30 hours of work per week or make 3 job contacts. Therefore, I display my Brief of Appellant because this is an issue of extreme public importance for which the public should be aware.
My latest Reply Brief of Appellant provides the answers to California's Moss v. Superior Court, the Ninth Circuit's Ballek, and Hawaii's new Child Support Enforcement Agency v. Doe, No. 24457, (Hawaii, December 27, 2005) 109 Hawaii 240, 125 P. 3d. 461, each an obscenity against the Rule of Law.
For their sponsorship of Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox Sucker's www.paykids.com his Paykids Foundation, boycott the listed sponsors, including Art Van Furniture, Meijer Stores, Michigan State Medical Society (warning, the MSMS website does not like to let you out when you click the back button), SBC Communications, and Michigan Health and Hospital Association and tell them why you are boycotting them! Go to the Michigan Enemies of Freedom Page and read letters by Stan Rains and Terry Lear for more information as to why, and read Domino's Pizza, Inc.'s letter to me in response to my concerns about PayKid's use of Domino's Pizza gift certificates as a prize in their loathsome Billboard contest, which was CANCELLED!!
Not to be outdone, we are announcing our own billboard contest!
C Level Enterprises is to be commended for their courage, unlike Borders, in distributing father Kevin Thompson's book, "Exposing the Corruption in the Massachusetts Family Courts" in the face of Judge Mary McCauley Manzi's court order prohibiting its distribution. More on this at the Massachusetts Enemies of Freedom webpage. FathersUnite.org has a link to this page.
Restraining order overturned on appeal. Book is now available at Lulu.
We now have the Antipeonage Act Website Forum, please click the "Enter my Forum" banner!
Peon is a Spanish word. It means "foot-soldier" and it designates the chess piece English speakers call the pawn. During the Middle Ages, when there was a war that obliged the local king to raise an army, those wealthy enough to supply their own armor and horses were called knights in England, chevaliers in France, and caballeros in Spain. As the knights were often manor lords, the peasants who were bound to them could be pressed into service as infantrymen, the foot soldiers. During peacetime, these designations stuck. Active knights might go jousting in tournaments. The inactive ones would tend to their manors, but still be called knights or caballeros, and addressed as "Sir" or "Don". In Spain the foot soldiers would go back to the manor and continue to be treated like, well, peons!
The legal definition of peon in Spain was one who is bound by his debts. An unemployed person could voluntarily go to a manor lord and ask to become his peon. The manor lord would loan him a sum of money, perhaps sufficient to support the peon and his family for month or so, with the understanding that he work off the debt. Of course, he always needed more money to support his family, thus he incurred new debt as he worked off the old debt. If the peon took a hike, the manor lord would ask the local sheriff to go fetch him and bring him back. Because he was not legally allowed to refuse service while still owing money, he was not in much of a position to bargain for a raise!
Why would anyone agree to such an arrangement? When you are starving to death and it was the only way to get a job, well, that is what you have to do!
Problem was, even among the poor, there were those who would not go along with the program.
Imagine that!
So they had vagrancy laws. If you had no money and no job, was without "visible means of support", perhaps you made what money you can by less than legitimate means, say gambling, prostitution, or highway robbery, shucks, you were guilty of vagrancy. So were those who abandoned their wives and children without leaving them the means of support. If you have no money and no job, what can you do for your wife and children? The punishment for vagrancy was a stiff fine that of course, a vagrant cannot pay. If he could pay it, he would not be a vagrant.
Wouldn't you know it? The manor lords all seem to know the local judge! Chances are, that judge knows someone who could help the convicted vagrants. A manor lord in need of some extra "employees" would go to the local courthouse and pay the fines. The vagrants would be released to him, they are now bound by the debts resulting from the payment of the fines to work for him until the debts were paid. Which could be a long time because the wage rates matched the cost of living in horrible conditions with barely enough food to survive. Medical benefits consisted of a priest to say the Last Rites.
What a deal!
Spain had this system. So did France, it eventually provoked the people into revolution and liberal use of the guillotine. We can blame the Metric System on peonage as practiced in France. Peonage was inherited from the Roman Empire. The laws of Athens under Draco that were repealed by Solon caused many in the middle class to be enslaved for debt when caught by recessions. This is the real reason Solon was elected. The Old Testament describes peonage in Hebrew law, Leviticus 25:39-41.
Because Spain had this system, it was transplanted to the Spanish colonies in America, starting with Columbus himself, who helped begin the encomienda system. Some texts trace the origin of peonage in Spanish America to the encomienda system. But the basic plan was the European system above described. The plantations of the southern United States were a particularly harsh adaptation of the manor system with chattel slaves of African descent instead of white peons, though originally, there were plenty of white peons brought over from Europe. But while the indentured servitude of poor whites eventually died out, to be replaced with the free labor market in the North and the black slave labor economy in the South, the territories obtained from Mexico in the 1840's brought the peonage system into American law. Most of the people in New Mexico Territory were peons.
New Mexican peonage was governed by the Territory's Master and Servant Act. If you were unemployed and not trying to enter into a peonage contract, the local sheriff would arrest you and the court would charge you and convict you of vagrancy under the Territory's Vagrancy Act. You get fined and then someone in need of servants would come around to pay your fine creating the debt for which you have to work off. Jaremillo v. Romero, (1857) 1 N.M. (Gildersleeve) 190 describes how New Mexican peonage worked.
Given that black chattel slavery was legal in the nearby Southern States, New Mexican peonage seemed perfectly compatible with United States law.
Then Lincoln was elected President and all Hell broke loose!
New Mexico stayed in the Union primarily because Texas walked out. They didn't like each other. The Republic of Texas claimed all of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. New Mexico disagreed. During the Civil War, Texas invaded and conquered New Mexico. Regiments from California and Colorado then invaded New Mexico, and with some help from the New Mexicans, forced the Texans out. The Civil War ended and the Thirteenth Amendment passed.
As grateful as New Mexico was for liberation from Texan occupation, they continued to practice peonage. That is what Congress reacted to when they passed the Antipeonage Act, original statute recorded at 14 Stat 546. New Mexico was using its peonage system to enforce all kinds of debts and obligations: debts arising from express or implied contracts, awards for attorney's fees, tort judgments, and the duty of a husband to support his wife and children, whether divorced or not.
If the back button does not take you there, click Home to go to the Index page of this Antipeonage Act Website, click Enemies for the main Enemies page, click Letters for the Letters page, and click Allies for the Allies page. Or you can use the Antipeonage Act Site Map.