An indenture was a legal contract between a servant and master enforced by the courts. Men would sign these indentures to come to the new world and work for a master for up to seven years, to pay for their journey over, and then were set free. Also, if they paid a sum of money within a certain timeframe from his or her arrival, they would be set free. Servants were shipped over by the boatload and then advertised for sale when they arrived. They were barely given enough food to survive the trip over, and many died before they even got to the new world. A buyer would sign the indenture and agree to provide all of their necessities until they were set free. The system proved to be much less desirable than first advertised though as many masters exploited their power.
In the late 1500s, an economic depression hit England, and thousands of farmers went out on the streets. They wandered the streets unemployed and mostly became beggars. England saw this as a “surplus population” and needed to rid them from their land. Queen Elizabeth passed laws that could punish them, imprison them in workhouses without pay, or simply exile them. Anybody who was found begging could be whipped, sent to a workhouse, sent out of the city, or be sent out of the country entirely. This created a need for the now homeless and jobless farmers to escape their terrible living conditions.
Indentured servitude began as a fairly successful way of gathering much needed help to come to the new world. One planter could not get wealthy, regardless of his work efforts, unless he had others to work his fields. This fact necessitated the need for an inexpensive source of labor. Many of the unemployed, homeless, poor and exiled men and women were offered a way to get a fresh start this way. These outcasts became commodities for wealthy merchants looking for cheap labor to bring to the new world. They were offered a trip to North America, along with four to seven years of unpaid work for their masters in exchange for the journey. After this they would be let free, given new clothes, tools and fifty acres of land. The system of indentured servitude was the answer to clearing the streets of the many beggars and homeless in England.
Indentured servant - Someone who agreed to work for a number of years in exchange for the cost of a voyage to North America
Even if the ill-treatments did not manifest into physical or verbal abuse, the servants were exposed to crude surroundings. Among many factors included being malnourished, sleep deprivation, and/or overburden with hard manual labor. The indentured servants were treated like property instead of hard-working human beings. They could be bought and sold at any time.
Indentures -- is a labourer under contract of the employer in exchange for an extension to the period of their indenture, which could thereby continue indefinitely (normally it would be for seven years). In other cases, indentured servants were subject to violence at the hands of their employers in the homes or fields in which they worked.
During American colonization, the economy of the south became predominantly dependent on the tobacco plant. As the south continued to develop, they shifted their focus to cotton. Indentured servants as well as African slaves were used for these labor-intensive crops because their labor was decent and cheap (Shi and Tindall 39). Young British men were promised a life of freedom in America if they agreed to an exchange between a free voyage and labor for a fixed number of years. Many willing, able-bodied, and young men signed up with the hopes of establishing a bright future for themselves in America. Unbeknownst to them, indentured servitude was not as easy as it was made out to be. Many servants endured far worse experiences than they had ever imagined. The physical and emotional conditions they faced were horrible, their masters overworked them, and many had to do unprofessional work instead of work that enabled them to use their own personal skills. Young British men felt that because they faced such horrible circumstances, the exchange between a free voyage to America in exchange for servitude was not a proper trade.
Before the 1680's, indentured servitude was the primary source of labor in the newly developed colonies. There were both white and black indentured servants. White servants had even outnumbered black servants three to one. Some black indentured servants were able to complete there time of service, and even had land and servants of their own. After the 1680's, the population of white indentured servants decreased exponentially. There were a number of different reasons why the population of indentured servants had decreased. For whatever reason, indentured servitude was a form of labor that was declining, and the need for labor increased rapidly. #
There are many aspects contributing to the rise of slavery and decline of indentured servitude. The beginning of slavery started when Columbus invaded Hispaniola and enslaved the Arawaks . This was the first time people thought to enslave people against their will for labor. Hard labor and diseases nearly killed off their race, essentially concluding that they were no longer available candidates for labor. Indentured servitude was used as bait to lure people into enslavement and eventually began to fade due to multiple historical events, such as The Bacon Rebellion . African Americans became an easy target because they were less prone to diseases and their bodies were capable of such intense and difficult labor. As slavery began to rise in popularity certain laws were passed through Congress that supported slavery.
In many ways the lives indentured servants led in the colonies was seemingly privileged compared to that of a slaves. An indentured servant was an individual who had exchanged a predetermined number of years in servitude to their new masters (Faragher 2009, p. 55). Some indentured servants worked out the terms of their agreement prior to arrival. While some of the less fortunate servants were sold in a fashion similar to that of a slave (cummings, 1995). The servants who had pre-established contracts were transferred to their new masters after payment was rendered for their passage to the New World (Faragher 2009, p. 55). The term in which the servant was indebted was usually two to seven years (Faragher 2009, p. 55). However, the Masters had the upper hand because they could expand the length of servitude in accordance to bad behaviors, such as running away or becoming pregnant ("Colonial america,").
Slavery and indentured servitude were the primary means of help for the wealthy in America. Either as a slave or as an indentured servant a person was required to work in the fields maintain crops, as a house servant or as the owner of debtor so chooses. The treatment of both was very similar, but the method and means to which they came to America were uniquely different as the following examples will illustrate.
First, prior to 1650, planters shuttled indentured servants from England across the Atlantic in droves after they signed a multi-year contract of servitude in the mother country. Upon arrival, planters complained of apathetic workers, many of whom were sick and psychologically unfit to be in an alien land. Breen feels that the few servants that lived through their indenture often became depressed and grew bitter towards their former employers. As the mortality rates decreased, number of freed servants rose. The dis...
Indentured servitude was the institutional arrangement devised to increase labor mobility from Europe (particularly England) to America, and it was the labor system that preceded American slavery. Its emergence in Virginia in the seventeenth century can be seen as a development expedient to the circumstances surrounding the colony. Indentured servitude was practically the only way in which a poor person could get to the colonies and planters could be supplied with cheap labor. Richard Frethorne's document written in 1623, The Experiences of an Indentured Servant, legalized the master-servant relationship, specified the kind of labor to be performed, the length of time to be served, and the dues owed to the servant at the completion of his term.
The slave trade into the United States began in 1620 with the sale of nineteen Africans to a colony called “Virginia”. These slaves were brought to America on a Dutch ship and were sold as indentured slaves. An Indentured slave is a person who has an agreement to serve for a specific amount of time and will no longer be a servant once that time has passed, they would be “free”. Some indentured slaves were not only Africans but poor or imprisoned whites from England. The price of their freedom did not come free.
Physical abuse by plantation owners towards both their servants and slaves was common. One account by Thomas Gates in a General Court of Colonial Virginia document about Elizabeth Abbot, an indentured servant, stated that “she had been sore beaten and her body full of sores and holes very dangerously raunckled and putrified both above her wast and uppon her hips and thighs” (General Court of Colonial Virginia). In fact, such abuse towards servants and slaves was so common that the state of Virginia had to make laws for such cases. Unfortunately, colonial governments did not consider corporal punishment illegal. Thus adding to the brutality endured by persons in captivity and servitude during the colonial era. “Moderate corporal punishment inflicted
The role of an indentured servant in the 1700s was not a glamorous one. They came to the New World knowing that, for a time, they would be slaves for someone they did not know and the risk of disease and death was high, but the opportunity that laid ahead of them after their time of servitude was worth everything to these settlers of the New World. They came to America for the same reasons as all of the other settlers. Religious freedom, land, wealth, and a new start were motives for both settlers and indentured servants but the one thing separating most settlers from the indentured servants was that they could afford their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Indentured servants couldn’t buy their ticket to the New World, but that didn’t stop
Indentured Servants helped the colonies progress their population. England at the time was over populated, and jobs were hard to find. So many people that could not afford the boat trip over to America offered themselves as to be an indentured servant for a period of time. This contractual term can last from between four to seven years. Many colonists preferred having indentured servants over slaves, cause they also helped ward off Native Americans from attacking settlers. The one big draw back of indentured servant was that they usually did not make it pass the first year of their contract.
When America was first founded the colonists believed that they could do one of two things. They could either ask for entire families and groups of people to come over from England to start family farms and businesses to help the colony prosper. The other option was to take advantage of the lower class people and promise them land and freedom for a couple of years of servitude (Charles Johnson et al, Africans in America 34). Obviously the second option was used and this was the start of indentured servitude in colonial America. The indentured servants that came from England were given plenty of accommodations in exchange for their servitude. They were also promised that after their time of service was complete that they would receive crops, land, and clothing to start their new found lives in America. Men, children, and even most criminals, rushed to the ports hoping to be able to find work in America and soon start their new life. However, a large quantity of them either died on the voyage over, died from diseases, or died from the intensity of their work, before their servitude was complete (Johnson et al, Africans, 34). America finally began to show signs of prosperity due to the crop, tobacco. The only problem now was that the majorit...