The Book ' American Slavery 1619-1877 ' By Peter Kolchin

In 1705 there were not many indentures servants anymore. The British colonies started hiring slaves due to the fact that they were owned for life and they didn’t have to be let go due to their contracts expiring. Slaves also had less rights than indentured servants due to the changes in the slave laws.

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

Indentured servants were used in early colonial times as a means of passage to the new world. The cash crops of the early settlers were exhaustingly labor intensive. In fact, U.S. History (2015) indicated that “the growth of tobacco, rice, and indigo and the plantation economy created a tremendous need for labor in Southern English America” (p. 1). The technology did not exist at the time for machinery that clears the ground and works the land as it does today. The work had to be done by hand; from clearing and prepping the fields to harvesting the crops, it was all manual labor for which the new land did not have ample supply of.

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 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

Most indentured servants did not outlive their contracts so their masters did not have to pay their servants any sort of freedom due – clothing, tools, or money. However, towards the middle of the seventeenth century, more and more indentured servants were outliving their contracts, so their masters had to start paying them their freedom dues. Costing masters and plantation owners more money and creating more competition in the new world for tobacco sales and exports. Most of the time they were robbed of their freedom dues because their plantation owner did not want to pay for it nor have the income to pay for the increasing amount of freedom dues that were needed.

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

These people became known as voluntary indentured servants. However, not all servants were voluntary. Once they arrived in America, they became their master’s property and had to do what the master said. If they did not do what they were told, they were punished. If they tried to run away, they were punished. They were not allowed to do anything outside of their instructions without their master’s permission. These servants were kept in poor conditions. In my opinion, they were not feed, clothed, or sheltered properly. Because of this lack of care, many servants or slaves died. Some indentured servants or slaves did work off their debts and became free. In fact, seven former indentured servants served on the Virginia legislature in 1629. As slaves became more and more popular across America, more and more slaves were forced to work for the rest of their lives. Slaves were even sold between masters because of the money they could bring in. By the 1660s, lifelong slavery was legalized. By this time, slaves were used mostly in the fields to grow crops like tobacco in Virginia and rice in South Carolina. The slave population in each colony continually grew. However, there were more slaves in the

Indentured servants first arrived in America in the decade right after the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607.The foundation of indentured servitude developed from a need for cheap labor. The earliest settlers soon realized that they had acres of land to care for, but no one to care for it. With passage to the Colonies expensive for all but the wealthy, the Virginia Company developed the system of indentured servitude to lure in and attract workers. Indentured servants became vital to the colonial economy. Without them they would’ve experienced a downfall in their economic system.

Slavery became an established activity in America by 1600’s. The slaves were mostly to provide free and cheap labor. Apart from America, slavery was practiced in other parts of the world throughout history, and in fact it can be traced back to the time of the ancient civilization. With industrial revolution especially with the rise of sugar plantations, the slaves were used to grow sugar in the periods from 1100. This intensified between 1400 and 1500 when Portugal and Spain ventured into sugar growing in the eastern Atlantic regions. The growth of the plantations required labor, hence African slaves were bought from Africa, to provide labor.

During the colonization era, most of the laborers came from Great Britain as indentured servants. An indentured servant is a person that signed a contract to pay for their passage to America by working. They usually worked on a farm since the colonies were based on agriculture. These servants were young laborers that intended on becoming permanent residents of the Chesapeake Bay settlements. Some servant owners treated them the same way they treated their family members, whether it was good or bad. Sometimes, convicted criminals were transported to the colonies as indentured servants instead of being imprisoned. Indentured servants weren’t considered slaves. However, when they came to Virginia they were required to work four to seven years to pay for the cost of their transportation. Some found that the major problem with indentured servants was most of them left after several years after they became skilled. It was estimated that over half of all of the white immigrants came as indentured servants. The number of indentured servants was the highest in the South.

“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

Some of the indentured servants were Native Americans who were allowed to be indentured servants in exchange for converting their religion to christianity. Indentured Servitude was partly successful due to the headright system. The headright system allowed those who came to the New World, land. Now that many people who had emigrated to the colonies had land they wanted to make goods to sell. Most of the time this land was converted or used for farms.

The film “Slavery and The Making Of America” covered the beginning of American slavery in the British colonies until the end of slavery in the southern states and post-civil war reconstruction. This film shows viewers remarkable stories of individual slaves, providing new perspectives on how unjust the slaves experiences were, and besides all the trouble they were facing still having to survive and shape their own lives. The British colonies in North America had an abundance of land and a scarcity of labor ended up producing money crops with the forced labor of African slaves, literally being treated as if they were machines for production.

A historian once wrote that the rise of liberty and equality in America was accompanied by slavery. There is truth in that statement to great effect. The rise of America in general was accompanied by slavery and the settlers learned early on that slavery would be an effective way to build a country and create free labor. There was a definite accompaniment of slavery with the rising of liberty and equality in America.