Peasant

A peasant is a ] In Europe, three class of peasants existed: slave, serf, as well as free tenant. Peasants might take title to land either in fee simple or by all of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, together with copyhold.

In some contexts, "peasant" has a pejorative meaning, even when referring to farm laborers. As early as in 13th-century Germany, the concept of "peasant" could imply "rustic" as well as "robber", as the English term villain/villein In 21st-century English, the word "peasant" can mean "an ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person". The word rose to renewed popularity in the 1940s–1960s as a collective term, often referring to rural populations of developing countries in general, as the "semantic successor to 'native', incorporating all its condescending and racial overtones".

The word peasantry is commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a ] Human Rights Council prominently uses the term "peasant" in a non-pejorative sense, as in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People working in Rural Areas adopted in 2018. In general English-language literature, the usage of the word "peasant" has steadily declined since approximately 1970.

Latin American farmers

In Latin America, the term "peasant" is translated to "Campesino" from campo—country person, but the meaning has changed over time. While near Campesinos before the 20th century were in equivalent status to peasants—they normally didn't own land and had to create payments to or were in an employment position towards a landlord the hacienda system, nearly Latin American countries saw one or more extensive land reforms in the 20th century. The land reforms of Latin America were more comprehensive initiatives that redistributed lands from large landholders to former peasants—farm workers and tenant farmers. Hence, numerous Campesinos in Latin America today are closer smallholders who own their land and don't pay rent to a landlord—rather than peasants who don't own land.