Emancipation kept freed people bound to their plantations under paid labor regimes

Evidence

But, as Polverel had, he demanded that they show themselves worthy of this gift of freedom by “forever rejecting indolence and banditry.” They were required to remain on their plantations, where they would be paid for their work. Domestics would be paid yearly salaries, while plantation workers as a group were granted one-third of the goods produced on the plantation each year. … Though required to stay on their plantations for at least a year, the ex-slaves could be moved for reasons of “incompatibility of character”—a judgment presumably to made by the manager or property owner—or at the request of the other workers on the plantation. After a year they could request a transfer to another plantation. But except for service in the army—an option open only to men— there was no provision for those who wanted to leave the plantations, to go into the mountains to settle their own land, or to depart for the cities. Any men who were not either soldiers or property owners and any women found “errant” would be imprisoned. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 566

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the economic-resistance and ‘one-third share’ bargaining themes familiar from analyses of how nominal freedom is structured by production imperatives.
• QUESTION: How enforceable was the ‘no wandering’ rule as war dragged freed soldiers and cultivators across the colony? Likely produced the very population mobility administrators feared.