The pay was in kind—dried meat, manioc flour, lumps of unrefined sugar, aguardiente—until the rubber worker paid off his debts, a miracle that rarely occurred. Employers had an agreement among themselves not to give jobs to workers who were in debt to other employers. Debts piled on debts. To the cost of transport from the Northeast were added the debts for work tools, machetes, knives, and eating bowls; and since the worker consumed food—and above all liquor, never a scarce commodity in the rubber forests—the longer he worked the higher his accumulated debt.
Slave debt
