Bondservants in the T'ai-hu Basin During the Late Ming: A Case of Mistaken Identities

Abstract

This paper attempts to redefine the nature and conditions of bondservants in the late Ming, particularly in the highly productive T'ai-hu basin. It proposes that the great economic and social differences among bondservants obliges us to treat bondservitude as a legal status, not as a class. It discusses the many causes of bondservitude and its highly varied conditions. Agricultural bondservants accounted for no more than one-fifth of the rural population and usually had to pay rent and perform specific manual duties for their master. Bondservant managers are seen to have acquired far more wealth and power than their legal status would suggest and, along with other “brazen servants,” participated in the bondservant uprisings in the T'ai-hu basin during the late Ming and early Ch'ing.