Indentured Servants In Colonial America

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.

Soon this need for cheap labor was replaced with a need for even cheaper labor. Slavery filled this need, but when Africans arrived to America in 1619, the colonists initially treated them as indentured servants. It was not until 1641 that the first slave codes were passed in the colony of Massachusetts and 20 years later in Virginia, marking the

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

Indentured servants where men and women who signed a contract to work for a certain number of years, usually between four and seven, in exchange for transportation to the colonies. The Chesapeake Bay colonies, Virginia and Maryland, where especially condition to use indentured servants. During this essay I will explain why the Chesapeake Bay colonies were in such need of the servants and why eventually they turned to slavery to fill the void left by the indentured servants.

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

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 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

One thing he distinctly remembered was the way civil leaders ignored his complaints against his master regarding the contract he signed in England. Moraley recalled, “The condition of bought servants is very hard, notwithstanding their indentures were made in England, wherein it is expressly stipulated, that they shall have, at their arrival, all the necessaries specified in those indentures, to be given ‘em by their future masters, such as clothes, meat, and drink; yet upon complaint made to a Magistrate against the master for nonperformance, the master is generally heard before the servant” (Mayer and Shi 75). Because the contract was signed in England, many American civil leaders felt it unnecessary to enforce or regulate the laws associated with indentured servants. As a result, many owners were able to get away with disobeying the contract that required them to provide the basic necessities for their servants. Servants had to live without these vital necessities and consequently, many servants attempted to escape the horrible conditions. However, they were usually found, returned to their masters, and punished with a longer term (Mayer and Shi

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,

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.

In exchange for their labor, they were granted free passage to the new land and was subject to work for as long as the contract stated. They were responsible for growing, harvesting and curing tobacco and other crops. However, life in Virginia as an indentured servant can be described as a struggle to survive. In Virginia, first-hand accounts of an indentured servant state that, “for we came but twenty for the merchants, and they are half dead just; and we look every hour when two more should go. Yet there came some four other men yet to live with us, of which there is but one alive” (First Hand Accounts of Virginia 1575-1705:1). As food was scarce and sickness swept through the plantations, very few survived these conditions and many pleaded for food. A letter from an indentured servant of which demonstrates the scarcity of food urged their mother and father to “get a gathering or entreat some good folks to lay out some little sum of money in meal and cheese and butter and beef” (First Hand Accounts of Virginia

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

In the American colonies, Virginians switched from indentured servants to slaves for their labor needs for many reasons. A major reason was the shift in the relative supply of indentured servants and slaves. While the colonial demand for labor was increasing, a sharp decrease occurred in the number of English migrants arriving in America under indenture. Slaves were permanent property and female slaves passed their status on to their children. Slaves also seemed to be a better investment than indentured servants. Slaves also offered masters a reduced level of successful flight.

The rapid growth in the American colonies during the 16th to 18th century shaped labor conditions due to increasing economic prospects, labor shortages, and social conflicts. Due to the increase export of tobacco and indigo, these cash crops lead to an economic growth within the New England colonies. With a higher demand for these crops calls for many servants and slaves to work the fields. Labor shortages in the colonies lead to slaves and the need for indentured servitude. Other problems lead to social uprisings such as Bacon’s Rebellion and the Chesapeake Revolution. The rapid economic growth contributed to the poor conditions of slaves and indentured servants in the American colonies which lead to a variety of social and economic