Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations and Conventions
Glossary
Introduction
?The Truck System-A Nineteenth-Century Global Phenomenon
?American Historians Discussing the Truck System-Racism
?Dutch Historians Discussing the Truck System-Poverty
?Selecting the Research Cases
?Rational Choice-Approach
?Voice from the Past: Source Material
?Outline
1 Bayous and Bogs-The Geography of Isolation
?The Louisiana Countryside
?Louisiana Rivers, Creeks, Lakes, and Bayous
?Railroads-An Improved Connection to the Outside World
?Dutch Roads and Highways of Water
2 Truck Payments
?Fields of Cotton and Sugarcane
?Permanent and Seasonal Peat Lands
?Truck Payments
??Direct Non-Cash-Something to Eat and a Few Rags to Wear?
??Indirect Non-Cash-The Company Store
??Colorful Tokens and Handwritten Store Notes
??Living off Future Income
?Piles of Greenbacks, Dollars, and Guilders
?Conclusions
3 Abuse? The Effects of the Truck System
?Whiskey, Jenever, and Alcoholics
?High Price, Low Quality
?Usurious Interest Rates
?Debt Peonage
?Conclusions
4 Costs and Benefits-The Employer's Perspective
?Costs-The Opposite of the Truck System
?Economic Forces and Financial Difficulties
??Strapped for Cash
??Miserable Years and Declining Profits
??'The Queerest Looking Creatures'-Labor Supply and Productivity
?'The Misery of this Time' and Truck Payment Methods
?Conclusions
5 Carrots, Cake, and Candy-The Store as a Positive Incentive
?Presents 'Joyfully Accepted'
?Facilitating Commerce
??Self-sufficient Little Worlds of Their Own?
??The Alternative Marketplace -'A Welcome Sight to the Rural Resident'
??Credit Scarcity
?Consumerism and the Physical Artifacts of Modern Life
??'From Something to Eat, to Something to Work, to Something to Wear'
??Shopping in the Peat Employer's Store-'The More We Take, the More We Have'
??Access to Desires
?Conclusions
6 Sticks and Strikes-The Store as a Negative Incentive
?Debating and Denouncing the Truck System
?'No Way to Check the Honesty of the Records'
?Lack of Freedom
?Racist Truck System?
?Conclusions
7 The Power of Racism and Class
?Increasing Terror
?Declining Resistance
?Racism and the Truck System
?No Truck, No Job
?Lowest Class of Society
?Conclusions
Conclusion
?Main Conclusions
?Racism and Poverty
?Beyond Louisiana and the Netherlands: Suggestions for Future Research
Appendices
?Appendix 1. Louisiana Database and Method of Analysis
??Creating the Database
??Method of Analysis
?Appendix 2. Dutch Database and Method of Analysis
?Appendix 3. Harry Baptiste and Samuel Taylor-Oral History Interview 2011
?Appendix 4. Isolation and Infrastructure
Sources
?Unpublished Sources
??Peateries
??Plantation Administrations
?Photographs
?Tokens
?Interviews
?Printed Sources
?Newspapers
?Dutch Newspapers
?Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit
?Government Documents
?Dutch Government Documents
?Second Chamber Reports
?First Chamber Reports
?Maps
?Miscellaneous
?Published sources
?Price Data
?Travel Accounts
?Miscellaneous
Bibliography
?Literature
?Unpublished Studies
Index
