When African slaves were freed, they were replaced, on plantations from Barbados to Mauritius, with contract laborers again: though now ones recruited mainly in India or China. Chinese contract laborers built the North American railroad system, and Indian “coolies” built the South African mines. The peasants of Russia and Poland, who had been free landholders in the Middle Ages, were only made serfs at the dawn of capitalism, when their lords began to sell grain on the world market to feed the new industrial cities to the west.98 Colonial regimes in Africa and Southeast Asia regularly demanded
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Important note! The author makes many claims here, some of which I question the validity of. Wasn't the Russian Empire just beginning to become a major agricultural exporter around the time serfdom was abolished? How exactly did the British reduce Indians to be debt peons (other than the "coolies" which became indentured servants)?
