...Jessica Hitzges October 10, 2012 Indentured Servitude In the 1600s, indentured servants were the most popular form of help in the “New World”. Normally indentured servants consisted of groups of criminals, unemployed, and homeless people who were exiled from England and forced to come over to America as slaves. Over half of Virginia consisted of indentured servants who had numerous tasks, but mainly were required to help farm land and grow tobacco. These servants would sign seven year contracts to serve their masters, then they were set free after their debt was paid. Many never received the land and freedom they were promised. Many of the servants died before their seven years was up. The servants were anxious to come to America, but they had no idea what living conditions would be like. Many servants were treated worse than in England. This forced the servants to begin to steal. The servants were wrong for stealing, but servants were often manipulated into doing so. When you are desperate enough, you will do almost anything to save yourself. In The Confession, it is stated that the nature of the servants resembled that of a barbarian. They were starved and desperate, so they were manipulated into stealing. Thomas Hartley and other indentured servants were involved in the crimes, and the crimes were allegedly led by Mr. John Fisher. Mr. Fisher was more intelligent than the other servants, so they were easily influenced. The servants were caught stealing food, killing animals...
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...Comparison of Indentured Servitude to Slavery in Early America Slavery and indentured servitude were similar in many ways, but also had many differences. In slavery, a person was forced to work their whole life. Indentured servitude was when a person or family worked for another, as a slave would, but for only a certain amount of years. After that, they were promised a plot of their own land. Both had harsh conditions on the way over to the New World as well as when they arrived. Indentured servants were young European men and women and even families who signed a contract that they agree to work for a certain amount of years in return for transportation, food, clothing, water, and shelter. The adults typically worked for four to seven years but the children worked for many more years, usually in plantations. If a woman got pregnant while she was an indentured servant, she and her child would also have to work for many more years to make up for lost time. Indentured servants could be sold like slaves. The Virginia Company of London paid to transport servants across the Atlantic, but the established law of the headright system in 1618 gave settlers who paid their own way 50 acres of land once their contract of labor was up. As a result, the...
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...The impact Bacon’s Rebellion had on indentured servitude and African slavery begaing When the settlers came to the New World they came looking for gold and riches, they soon discovered that there was not much gold in this new land but did discovered that the soil here was extremely fertile and could grow a lot of different kinds of crops. With this new source of revenue in the southern colonies these cash crops required a lot of labor and manpower to grow, maintain and harvest the crops, because the land owners were wealthy aristocrats and political leaders they came up with an idea called indentured servitude because they didn’t have the time or the means to do the labor. when the newly freed indentured servants, who had been granted land...
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...In some type of ways, African slaves and indentured servants were similar to one another. They may have seemed like there in the same status but as time has changed, both these groups have changed drastically and have their differences. Indentured servants had more hope along their future. As for slaves they didn’t have as much freedom or hopes. Slavery and indentured servitude main purpose is the means of helping the wealthy in America. Indentured servants are “an individual usually male but occasionally female who contracted to serve a master for a period of four to seven years in return for payment of the servant’s passage to America. Indentured servitude was the primary labor system in the Chesapeake colonies for the most of the seventeenth century” (The American Journey, 43). The servants were being driven around door to door for inspection. Each one was a strong, skilled young men. The sick and the old were a little...
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...died in all other American wars combined. It brought unity between the north and the south, and had far-reaching effects on the direction the young nation was taking. The south was placed under military rule and was divide into military districts, reconstruction, the plan to rebuild America, began, and industrialism began as a result of the increase in wartime production and the development of new technologies. The greatest impact of the Civil War, however, was that slavery had been effectively abolished, although not official until the 13th amendment. The first African Americans that arrived in Jamestown in 1619 were neither slaves nor free. They were indentured servants who became free when their time was complete, usually ranging from 5, 7, or 10 years. This was short lived and slavery gradually replaced indentured servitude as primary means for plantation labor in the South. Virginia was the first British colony to legally establish slavery in 1661, followed by Maryland and the Carolinas, Georgia was the only Southern colony that fought against slavery, until seventeen years after its formation, and it too accepted it. Northern colonies also had its slaves, but the basis of its economy did not promote the need for them, unlike the South, which focused primarily on agriculture and managing plantations. Because of this, the slave population in the North remained small, and the slaves were frequently granted their...
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...slavery (Tindal & Shi 2012). Due to the Southern colonies climate advantage it enabled them to grow exotic staples which demanded the need for more labor. Indentured servants, person promised to work for a fixed number of years in return for land or freedom, were either voluntary or forced to serve for a master. Indentured servants were used as a solution to the agricultural labor problem within the colonies. Their rights were limited and engaging in trade was prohibited which enabled slavery to later be enforced. Changes and problems aided to indentured servants’ beginning and decline within colonies. Colonies faces unintended consequences of using indentured servants such as weather conditions or...
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...The Differences between Indentured Servants and Slaves Jabrehia Smith May 15, 2014 HIS/110 Professor Frank Bird Introduction Prior to the Civil War, slaves and indentured servants were human chattel that were sold and considered personal property. One system consisted of laws to protect certain rights for laborers, while another system provided no protection from the law to protect laborer’s rights because they were simply considered a piece of property. This brief essay explains the differences between an indentured servant and a slave. In addition, readers will learn when and why masters began to choose slaves over indentured servants. Indentured Servants In 1607, the Virginia Company of London landed and settled in Jamestown. Early settlers realized they had an abundant amount of land to care for; however, there was no one to tend to the land. The Virginia Company developed a system known as the indentured servitude that would attract workers needed for cheap labor and a decade later, the first indentured servants arrived in America ("History Detectives Special Investigations", 2011). The indentured servitude system benefited both the masters and the servants. Masters were awarded 50 acres of land for every laborer brought across the Atlantic as well as the services of the laborers and servants worked under what was typically a five to seven years contract in exchange for freedom dues, lodging, room, board, and passage ("U.S. History Pre- Columbian...
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...Unmarried women who became pregnant received even more punishment. This included all of them working for additional years, and some children were taken from them and sold for a few pounds of tobacco. Indentured servants did not have all of the customary rights that English laborers did. They were mostly kept under control by brute force, rather than legal action. Servants in Virginia could not hold their masters liable for any mistreatment or failing to follow their contract. At the end of a servant’s contract, the masters often failed to supply their agreement. Once the majority of indentured servants began to survive their contract and demand the land that they were promised, its appeal to planters was lost. The planters refused to share any wealth and 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 masters. Many laws were put into place in Maryland and Virginia that added more years to the written amount. There were also other steps put into place that found ways to deny the servants their agreed fifty acres. This was completely...
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...Question 1 you are an indentured servant in Virginia colony 1650, describe your background, current conditions, and future prospects As an indentured servant in Virginia colony 1650. I am a man originally from England. There are not many women living here in Virginia at this time. I left England due to all of the religious and political turmoil that was happening there I felt that it would be better for me to start over someplace different. A second chance, I could have a good life open a business, have a family. I was wrong, life is horrible. I and many of the others I know are beaten with whips or canes for the slightest cause. We servants are forbidden from marrying or from having sexual relationships while being indentured, because bearing a child would diminish the woman’ s work capability. This does not prevent many masters from raping their female servants. Many families were separated a member of one such family wrote the members of their family back home "Whoever is well off in Europe better remain there. Here is misery and distress, same as everywhere, and for certain persons and conditions incomparably more than in Europe." (Zinn, Persons…Conditions)...
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...The black slaves fulfilled the demand for labor in the South by the British Colonists since they had an agriculturally based economy. They grew cotton on vast tracks of land that was very labor intensive for planting and picking. What were the major differences between African slaves and indentured servants the early colonies? We see that there was little difference between the slave and the indentured servant. Indentured servants came from England. They had no chance at owning land in England and were very poor. The only way they could get to the colonies was to come as indentured servants. They passage was paid for and they worked for a "master" for a specified amount of time then they were freed. In fact, black slaves and indentured servants were treated virtually the same and worked in the fields together. But after 1680, the mainland colonists depended more on the slave trade because there was less indentured servants. More land was freed...
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...Unfree labor was an important presence in colonial America. Because native birth rates in the colonies were low, laborers for the plantations had to come from elsewhere. Indentured servants from Europe were the first unfree laborers introduced to the colonies. After Bacon’s rebellion, planters sought another form of unfree labor, slavery. Indentured servants and slaves were the backbone of colonial America’s economy. Indentured servitude was fundamental to the development of the economy of early colonial America. The practice was introduced to the colonies by the Virginia Company to solve the labor shortage issue on the tobacco plantations, and because of the high cost of slaves and England’s surplus of displaced workers and farmers, indentured servants were preferable. By 1700, approximately three quarters of the population in the Chesapeake colonies were indentured servants. This was the first time the English colonies had implemented unfree labor on a large scale showing the region’s reliance on it. After Bacon’s Rebellion, planters sought to replace their malcontent servants for slaves....
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...Corden, were thirteen years old. They were required to work and be paid accordingly as indentured servants until they turned twenty years old. The third boy, Thomas Smothers, was six years old and was assigned to work until he turned twenty years old as well. He had a stipulation in his contract that said that he would receive two cows at the end of his term and if his boss and wife died before the end of the term, he would be discharged and still receive the two cows. I thought this document would help to answer the question “What were the typical terms within an indentured servant’s contract after their immigration to the American colony?” I will examine the document to attempt to answer this question. Since this document was a very common form of securing labor for young immigrants, this document can be used to make generalizations about all immigrants who were indentured servants during this time period. After examining the document, the terms and conditions for which servants were bound by law to serve a proprietor were fairly simple. The contract for all three boys stated that they were bound to work until they were adults at the age of twenty. For Marcus Linshey and Patrick Corden, their contract was simple in the fact that they would be given clothes and tools at the end of their term. I assume that these simple terms and conditions were common for boys who were contracted as indentured servants. As for Thomas Smothers, his contract was more complicated since he was to...
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...Slaves and Indentured Servants (91) During the 17th and 18th centuries throughout the English colonies, indentured servants and slaves made up the main workforce for land-owning colonists. For a long period of time, both indentured servants and slaves seemed to stand on the same status and were treated about the same. However, as time progressed, changes in the colonies also brought changes between these two different groups. The path to the Revolution brought about new ideologies concerning freedom and liberty, causing colonists to question their own ideas of freedom and liberty, as well as the idea of what freedom and liberty should mean to slaves and indentured servants. Indentured servants and slaves were similar in many ways in both their lifestyles, the way they were treated themselves, and the way their children were treated; however, their differences become very evident when discussing their progression into slavery or servitude, and their progression to freedom. Throughout the majority of time during the 17th and 18th century, indentured servants and slaves were considered to be of the same rank and were treated fairly the same. For a while, most colonists adhered to English common law, which did not acknowledge chattel slavery or the ownership of a human being as property. While indentured servants had to bind themselves in writing to their owner for about three to seven years, many of the early African slaves worked for their masters for life, although they were...
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...To What Extent Did Indian Indentured Labour Help To Relieve The Post-Emancipation Labour Problems In Trinidad? Compiled by Mark Rougier TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction................................................................................................................................(1) Defining the terms Indian indentured labour; and post-emancipation…………………….(1) The Labour Problems.................................................................................................................(2) Failure in the Systematic Convention Explanation…………………………………………..(2) Labour Shortage......................................................................................................................... (3) Cash Flow.................................................................................................................................... (4) The Communication Problem................................................................................................. ..(5) The Indian Arrival……………………………………………………………………………..(5) The extent to which Indian indentured labour help to relieve the post-emancipation labour problems in Trinidad......................................................................................................... ……(6) Laying The Basis ForProfitability......................................................................................... .(7) The Effects Wages had on relieving the labour problems………………………………… (8) ...
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...In 1492 a new frontier was discover by a European explorer. This vacant and plentiful land contained endless amounts of hope for numerous Europeans who wished to flee their homes. Wanting to discover freedom for themselves and their families, immigrants came to North America to find individuality and embrace the many liberties they had hoped to secure. Unfortunately, not every person received what he or she had expected from the “land of the free”. These primary sources tell us that freedom in 18th century North America varied due to external and inherent factors such as vocational status, gender, and geographical location. Being a laborer during the 18th century rubs up with the modern conception of forced labor; incomparable to say the least. Today, a person can choose their optimal career and receive workforce training and payment for their contributions. We have come a long way since 1718 where young men, such as William Mathews, would agree to a seven-year long apprenticeship to eventually becoming a craftsman. The contract between Mathews and his master, Thomas Windover, outlines a number of guidelines that were set in place to ensure each party would maintain their responsabilities to each other. Some rules are understandable as they uphold respect for the master such as “During all of this term, the said apprentice shall faithfully serve his said master, shall faithfully keeps his secrets, gladly obey his lawful commands everywhere” (55). Even today children are expected...
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