Though I quite like the pron-explanation:
The words
peon and
peonage are derived from the
Spanish peón (pe'on).
In its obsolete usage in
Spain itself, the word denoted a person who travelled by foot rather than on a
horse (
caballero). It now means a
chess pawn, or a
trompo (a kind of rotating toy or
top).
In Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, especially those in
Latin America, where the
hacienda system kept labourers from leaving estates,
peón has also a range of meanings related to unskilled or semi-skilled work or
manual labour, whether referring to a low-status
wage earner in a variety of
rural and
urban industries (especially a
day labourer or a
servant); a
peasant; a
bullfighter's assistant, or, historically, someone subject to forms of
unfree labour.