Essay on Comparing Indentured Servants and Slaves

In the 1500 English poor laws allowed people to make children indentured servants until they became adults and were able to live alone and be free. This event ended up coming to the united states and they decided to put those kids in foster care. Even though indentured servants were looked down upon they thought it was better than putting them in almshouses where kids were abused unhygienic and didn't learn trade or any basic knowledge that they will need for when they become adults

A plantation economy, an economy founded on an agricultural mass production like tobacco, sustained the source of income of the Chesapeake regions, consisting Virginia, Maryland, and northern North Carolina. The early settlers soon realized the urgent need for labor in the New World. Due to the fact that many potential immigrants could not afford an expensive trip across the Atlantic, the Virginia Company developed the system of indentured servitude to attract common laborers. Since tobacco required intensive hand labor all year round, indentured servants have become vital to the colonial economy. "Virginia Servant and Slave Laws" represent the elaborate efforts of masters' to profit from indentured servants and slaves against runaway and

Often, people became indentured slaves due to hardships that were inevitable during their time. Two examples of such people are John Harrower and Richard Frethorne. While John Harrower lived a somewhat respectable and comfortable life as and indentured servant, Richard Frethorne had a much more difficult time. One reason for this may be because of their time differences; Jon Harrower is from the late 1700s, while Richard Frethorne is from the mid 1600s. Between John Harrower and Richard Frethorne , there are several similarities and contrasting differences which classify them both as indentured slaves living very different lives. Both men experienced similar hardships, different home lives and

The two ideas have several similarities, but they also have differences. Indentured servants during the 1600 and 1700s were Europeans, whereas slaves were from Africa. The indentured servants willingly signed contracts to work for colonists in return for basic living needs like food, shelter, clothes, etc. Needless to say, the type of treatment given to the indentured servants depended on the colonists they were working for. Slaves, on the other hand, were taken away from their African homeland and put on ships to America unwillingly. When the slaves got here, usually the work was harsh, and the colonists were not forced to provide anything to their slaves.

This made indentured servitude, America’s first labor system, appealing to immigrants because it gave them a chance to improve their lives. Indentured servants consisted of mostly young men and some women who signed a contract to work a specific length of time for an employer, also called the master. The length of servitude intially ranged between three to seven years. Servants gained passage to America, food, clothing, and shelter.. Upon completion of their contract, servants were to receive their freedom dues. These dues included land, barrels of corn, and a few articles of clothing. Many also received extra dues such as a horse or cow and specific tools for trade depending on their gender. In return, an employer had laborers to tend their fields and more land was awarded to them for each servant he brought over from England. The purchase of indentured servants was almost three times cheaper than the purchase of African slaves that started coming to Virginia from the Caribbean. The indentured system seemed to beneficial for both the laborer as well as the employer,

With the end of slavery came the rise of indentured servants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When slaves were freed, they were no longer willing to put in the hours they were previously forced to work. The colonies depended on plantations and also needed a new source of labor. This led to mistreatment of indentured laborers.

Indentured servants and slaves were treated in broadly similar ways. They were both brought to the New World in horrible conditions with many dying along the way. They were both subject to physical

William Gunnell, Jr. travelled with his parents from their home in Great Britain to Virginia sometime before his tenth birthday in 1715. In Virginia, they became indentured servants for a man named Richard Lee. Following his master’s death, William’s indenture was inherited by Richard’s son. William worked for the Lee family for six years as a clerk, running errands and keeping the books. At the age of sixteen, William’s contract ended, and he became a free man (“Indentured Servants,” n.d., para. 4). This is one of the better examples of indentured servitude in the colonies, since most servants did not live to see the end of their contracts. In the colonies, indentured servitude acted as a kind of contract-based slavery in which free people were turned into property for a term of four to seven years, on average. Their owners paid for their food, clothing, and shelter on arrival in the colonies until the servants had completed their contract, upon which they were paid “freedom dues” which could be anything from tools, land, or even guns (“Indentured Servants,” n.d., para. 1).

Indentured servants initially arrived in America within the decade following the settlement of jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607.The idea of bound indentured was born of a requirement for affordable labor. The earliest settlers before long complete that they\'d scores of land to worry for, however nobody to worry for it. With passage to the Colonies valuable for most the rich, the Virginia Company developed the system of bound bondage to draw in employees. bound servants became very important to the colonial economy.The temporal order of the Virginia colony was ideal. The Thirty Year\'s War had left Europe\'s economy depressed, and plenty of competent and unskilled laborers were while not work. a

Indentured servants served as temporary laborers to the farmers and plantation owners in the colonies. Servants were required to work until a certain age, while slaves were bought and sold to work without an ending date. According to “An Act Concerning Servants And Slaves” [ “An Act Concerning Servants And Slaves,”Unites States History

Labor in the British colonies in America consisted of African slaves who were typically permanently enslaved as well as white indentured servants who worked for a specific amount of time and according to conditions outlined in a legal document, as well as several combinations of the two categories. Both the indentured servants and the slaves were essential to the growth of the colonial economy and society as a whole because of their work. The rapid growth of the farming economy led to a significant need for laborers which led to a chain of events resulting in slavery. By investigating the contractual rights indentured servants had, the living conditions they experienced, and the way indentured servants acted as a precursor for slave labor,

indentured servitude included a loss of freedom to make a beginning in America, and since the colonial period historians

Despite being held at the bottom of the social pyramid for throughout colonial times, the labor of the colonies would prove to be far from useless. While vast, open land was turned into numerous plantations in the colonies by rich planters, the plantations could not purely be run by their owners, creating a great need for labor. This lack of labor would eventually be solved through the use of African slaves, but after the first shipment of slaves to Jamestown in 1619, few were purchased due to high prices for an extended amount of time. The planters, however, would be able to fulfill their need for labor through English indentured servants. Through the use of indentured servants, basically free labor was provided to land owners, while

“Fundamentally, indentured servitude was an institutional arrangement that was devised to increase labor mobility” (Altman and Horn, To Make America, 8)

Slavery is different from indentured servitude because in slavery the victim is viewed as property instead of as a worker. Another way is because indentured servants can become free after they work off their part of the “deal”, whereas in slavery the