In ancient Rome, a farmer or peasant who worked on someone else's land and was bound to that land (similar to a serf).
From Latin colonus, derived from colere meaning to cultivate or inhabit. Related to the English word colony, which originally meant a settlement of colonists.
Roman colonus were stuck in an early feudal system centuries before Medieval feudalism—they had more rights than slaves but couldn't leave the land, creating an entire underclass tied to agriculture!
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