The indenture system depended on having no easy exit

Evidence

By allowing workers to choose twelve days in prison in lieu of repaying their advances or working the full duration of their contracts, Valck had (inadvertently?) undercut an unspoken principle of the indenture system that provided no easy way out or quick exit from the onerous contracts and debt peonage that kept workers on the estates. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1092

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘On Sacrifice’: coercive systems operate through unspoken principles that a lenient reading of law can subtly destabilize, like the implicit logic of labor-draining indenture.