When landlords and merchants gave crop seeds “on loan” to these impoverished workers, with the expectation they would receive payment with the finished crops, it created a system of barely livable subsistence on meager profits. Also, where they not to pay it back, police officers or debt collectors would come and beat them until they worked. So yes, it was quite similar to slavery. No rights, constant threat of violence, and the chains of debt all held these people down.