The Role Of Indentured Servants In Early America

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America, the land of the free, or which we claim it to be, wasn’t always the way it is now. In many ways each individual is granted their rights and freedom today, but the unfortunate truth is all the leisure’s we have, including freedom, was a nearly a myth in the early Americas or the so called land proclaimed to be “the land of the free”. “All servants imported and brought into the Country. . . who were not Christians in their native Country. . . shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion. . . shall be held to be real estate…” Virginia General Assembly declaration, 1705(Pbs). This statement was part of the harsh reality that early America’s culture, along with a large part of the world, was involved in. The servants who were unfortunate to be brought up and involved in this were rebranded and named as slaves and received inhumane treatment. …show more content…

Basically a servant would work for a certain amount of years desired by a landowner and in exchange would receive a piece of land along with resources such as food. Although one could compare an indentured servant to a slave, due to the harsh lifestyle they had, there were laws that protected some of the rights of the servants. In 1619 the first African came to Jamestown Virginia to work and was treated as an indentured servant along with the rest of the workers, nothing changed due to the presence of African Americans,

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