Indentured Servants During Early Colonial Times

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

For a long time, Jamestown, VA took in many indentured servants—a worker who is under contract of an employer for up to seven years in exchange for transportation and many necessities (clothing, food, drink, and lodging)—in order to fulfill the duties that the owners couldn’t. Though employers made Jamestown seem like a loving and welcoming place, it was just the opposite. These indentured servants were treated equally to slaves, but many were willing to risk their lives in order to gain their own land. Once they obtained land of their own, they could grow their own tobacco and become extremely wealthy.

As Colonial Virginia entered into the 17th century, it was a land marked with opportunity to make a new and also, most importantly, profitable life in the New World. (Cutter Lecture) When the century began, however, it was not the citizens as a whole hoping to make a profit from this new land but rather a small group of greedy landowners profiting off of the work of their indentured servants. (CL) Sure the indentured servants were given a chance to fulfill their contract and one day become free to pursue their own dreams, but the likelihood of this in the beginning was next to none due to harsh living conditions. (CL) According to Richard Frethorne in 1623, "nor is there nothing to be gotten here

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

During the 18th century, indentured servitude had become very common in British North America; this was one way many poor Europeans could come to America for a “better” life. In order to emigrate to the American colonies, they would sign long-term labor contracts, to pay off the debt they picked up when they wanted to come to the American colonies. The primary source, “Gottlieb Mittelberger on the Trade in Indentured Servants” is written by Mittelberger himself in 1750, who was an emigrant that arrived in British North America as an indentured servant. In this source, he explains the negatives of coming to British North America; the ups and downs he faced, for instance: the long and horrible voyage conditions, and the sale of human beings once they had landed.

Before the 1680's, indentured servitude was the primary source of labor in the newly developed colonies. There were

Indentured servants were a limited resource as they would eventually become free. The non-slaves became more intransigent and apt to resist the efforts of the ruling class’s economic and political subjugation upon them. Southern planters began to look toward the African slave trade as a reliable source of controllable labor. The economic power of England was rising and helped to increase the level of slave purchasing and selling. The influx of white indentured servants from England into Virginia drastically decreased which only accelerated the adoption of slavery. African slaves were a more easily controlled and exploited labor pool. “By the 1730s, the number of white indentured servants had dwindled to insignificance” (Nash, 60). When considering the legacy of Bacon’s Rebellion upon the transformation of Virginia, and beyond, this event in history “demonstrated that poor whites and poor blacks could be united in a cause. This was a great fear of the ruling class – what would prevent the poor from uniting to fight them? This fear hastened the transition to racial slavery” (Africans in

The first twenty Africans to arrive in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 were eventually traded by the Dutch for food and supplies. A point worth noting, the first twenty Africans were not identified as legal property(slave). The former Spanish owners had baptized and given each a Christian name. In fact, Africans worked as indentured servants for a specified time because English law disallowed the enslaving of Christians. Africans became landowners and were of equal standing with the poor English Pilgrims. However, by 1640, Virginia court documents started displaying verdicts for a life of servitude. These were verdicts given to runaway indentured servants. African indentured servants to be exact. Between 1661 and 1662, a child’s status in the colonial United States depended on whether the mother was free or a slave.

Indentured servants were very important to the development of the colonies. In the early years, there were labor shortages and indentured servants provided cheap labor. By bringing in people with specialized skills and providing immigration for other who could not afford, indentured servitude helped the colonies expand. The colonies had a lot of land, and indentured servants made up half the population (parliament announced that convicts could escape the hangman by relocating to the colonies.)This led to a quicker progress of initial growth of the colonies. Although this system helped with the growth of the colonies, it was replaced by the 1700’s with slaves. The reason was that slaves served for life instead of servants who served for 4-7 years. This was more profitable than buying servants over and over again. Also, once you owned a slave you owned their children, which was a bonus because you wouldn’t have to buy any more slaves. Overall, slaves replaced servants because they were more profitable to buy and the supplies of these slaves seemed inexhaustible since there population was matching the number of whites at that time and

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 servitude declined over the century, and most of these domestic servants were now either free women or slave women” (Coryell, pg. 104). Those who worked in a servitude role were indentured servants, who had the ability to work a number of service years in order to earn their freedom and they would be given a small plot of land, afterwards, to continue to thrive. Eventually, in order to compensate for the growing American need of lower overall costs to purchase labor workers, longer time in servitude, and to decrease the need to give land lots, the term of indentured servant changed to slave, which limited potential freedoms and humanity. This demand for labor changed the owner and slave relationship. “Owners began providing minimal clothing and food. Owners viewed all of slaves’ labor as their own” (Coryell, pg. 105). By forcing a dependent relationship, owners were able to maintain their

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

One huge part of the slave business was the use of indentured servants. These people were not total slaves. In fact, they were just working to gain citizenship in the states. In the seventeenth century, they were relied on heavily for labor. In fact, they were relied on more than actual slaves. However, about three fifths of the way through the century, plantation owners quit using them. They figured out that people did not want to do

One may ask, how could anyone benefit from being a servant? Even though this may seem like a very logical question, to those involved in this life style, it all made sense. Let?s take a look at it from their point of view. When early settlers were attempting to colonize here in the new land, the first successful colony wasn?t actually established by the English government. In fact, it had been the successful venture of a privately owned business, The Virginia Company of London. This company was actually comprised of investors with seemingly good intentions. Their end goal was to extend

From the outset, the issue of labor in the Chesapeake was a dominant force in the creation of colonial society. The origins of colonial labor rested on the shoulders of indentured servants, often unemployed laborers from England sent to the colony by the Virginia Company. After serving a term of seven years, each servant was then entitled to freedom and the opportunity to work in the colony to best achieve individual benefits and the success offered by the New World. The early generations of these servants turned freemen posed little problem to their former masters as they constituted to small a segment of the population to