I will have to say, that the example of a sweatshop for me, would be the building of the San Marcos Train Station. Mexico’s Yaqui Indians were sold as slaves for merely 25cents ahead. There were hundreds of native people in concentration camps dying of hunger and disease. They were forced to walk 300 kilometers to San Marcos.
They were beaten bloody every morning at role-call, forced to work in the blazing sun from dawn till dusk on little food, locked up every night, and beaten again if they failed to cut and trim at least 2000 henequen leaves per day. The Yaqui people were famed for their strength and being hard working. Women were separated from their family and married off to Chinamen and every child born afterwards at the plantation, was sold or worth $1,000..
Between 1904 and 1909, they had rounded up about 15,000 and were forced along the tortuous route to Yucatan and enslaved. Despite their extraordinary strength, most of them died within the 1st year. The San Marcos Train Station should have a commemorating plaque of the pain and sorrow suffered throughout the building of the train station for them. ( “San Marcos Station, Jalisco, Mexico: Witness to Yaqui Slavery”, saudicaves.com)
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