Indentured

Indentured Servants 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

Indentured Servitude in Colonial America 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

started to buy indentured servants, who were cheaper than slaves since they only serve for a certain time period. Indentured servants signed contracts to work to travel to America and to acquire promised freedom dues. The freedom dues could include land, clothes, money, or food. Servants would generally serve for four to seven years; children would serve for a longer time. Many signed the contracts without being fully aware of the actual conditions of labor and living. Indentured servants were treated

two kinds of labor came to the colonies from Europe and Africa: indentured servants and slaves respectively. Once on land, slaves were the bottom of the food chain and indentured servants slightly higher. “As a Pennsylvania judge explained in 1793, indentured servants occupied a middle rank between slaves and free men” (Tindall, Shi 116). In terms of the work and their way of life in the colonies however, slaves and indentured servants while still under contract had a few similarities.

The decline of indentured servitude and the rise of chattel slavery were caused by economic factors of the English settlers in the late 17th century. Colonists continually tried to allure laborers to the colony. The head right system was to give the indentured servant a method of becoming independent after a number of years of service. Colonists chiefly relied on Indentured Servitude, in order to facilitate their need for labor. The decreasing population combined with a need for a labor force

specifically, Virginia, in order to work as indentured servants. Their goal was to gain a profit through the process of agriculture. Primarily, the indentured servants would cultivate tobacco, as the slaves that were already submitted to this task were not enough. Thousands of men and women took up this challenge, but many of them were incapable to proceed in such harsh working conditions. Frethorne originally came to Virginia to work as an indentured servant because he was seeking to trade his labor

Indentured Servitude An indenture was a legal, written contract binding one party into the service of another for a specified term.(1) The system of Indenture and Indentured servants was introduced in Colonial America to meet the growing demand for cheap, plentiful labor in the colonies. The indentured servants worked for no wage; instead they worked for basic necessities such as food, clothing and a place to live. (2) Even though slaves existed in the English Colonies in the 1600s, many farmers

were transported to thirteen mainland’s and island nations in the Caribbean. The British brought them in to work the plantations as indentured workers, primarily the sugar cane farms. Work in these farms is extremely intense. In 1838, Guyana was the first island to received indentured workers. There were also efforts to bring Portuguese, Chinese and other as indentured workers but it was unsuccessful. The Indians saved the sugar industry from total economic failure by working these fields. They

food; the supply and demand is there. I realize the humanitarians, myself included want to help these people whole heartedly, but it is better to teach a man to fish than to bring him fish daily. I would propose feeding these people in exchange for indentured servitude. All of their needs would be provided

power that they had with their former servants. The servants were angered by this and the group became increasingly large and rebellious. Fear of a rebellion was apparent by the 1660’s and indentured servitude had lost all the appeal that it once had. After more than one hundred years, the system of indentured servitude had finally failed. The planter elites used various unfair methods to try and maintain the system, most of them only adding fuel to the anger that the servants felt towards their