The convict lease system formed the most glaring example of the persistence of servile labor in a free labor country, but it was, workers contended, not the only example. What counted as coerced labor and what to do about it became central political questions in the Gilded Age and directly linked to immigration. The accusation that the Chinese were coolies—servile labor brought in by employers to drive down the wages of free labor—had been prevalent in the West since the California Gold Rush. The Chinese were indebted, usually to the Six Companies that arranged their passage and often found
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