Pros And Cons Of Indentured Slavery

Improved Essays
Indentured servants were individuals who sold themselves, as a form of labor for a or a certain amount of time. The indentures were often shoemakers, plumbers, clerks, weavers, painters, and all sorts of workers. This started in England, because they wanted more people to go into the new world and start colonies over there so they offered to pay for the trip, and if the indentured servants didn 't like staying over there, England would pay for their trip to come back as well. Most workers in England thought they could gain more money and live a better life in the new world than it England. They hoped to succeed in the new world and be better off than when they were I England, so many became indentured servants. Who could ignore all the pros as well? Indentured servants got a free trip to America, food and shelter. Indentures were also suppose to receive land, tools and clothing once they had completed their service, women …show more content…
A big difference between would be that slaves didn 't get to choose whether they wanted to work for a master or not. Indentured servants were more like a business, a negotiation, between two people. While slavery was forced, and people were taken away from their native land never to return, but indentured servants could return to England if they pleased. Slaves didn 't have no freedom, they were property and the offspring of slaves shared the same fate. Indentured servants didn 't remain servants for the rest of their lives, once the contract was over they were free people. They could easily blend in among the colonies, but slaves could not. Since slaves were now more noticeable because of their skin color most slaves who roamed freely would be persecuted. Although some masters would free their slaves, in a couple of years laws would be made to restrict African slaves for fear of a

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Hopi Tribe Case Study

    • 1544 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Indentured servitude was paid labor while slavery was unegotiable. Slaves had no choice or right of their life or where they ended up. Indentured servants has control over their options and were usually white servants. These servants were under contract and had an obligation in return for some form of compensation. Slaves were known as property and had no rights.…

    • 1544 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Becoming an indentured servant was appealing to many poor Europeans. This is because they were given an opportunity to lead a new life and have a possibility of paving a new way of wealth for themselves and their families. It was also more profitable for tobacco farmers to pay for an indentured servants trip to the New World rather than pay for an African American slaves to be shipped from Africa. This turned the colony of Chesapeake into a heavily European based population. One of the benefits of signing the contract to become an indentured servant was they benefits that they were entitled to.…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The large amount of indentured servants in the seventeenth and eighteenth century was caused by many factors which led to many consequences. The Triangular Trade route had established a global desire for commodities such as sugar. With the increased want for sugar brought about a need for workers on sugar plantations. This need for more workers was “solved,” by hiring indentured servants. The need for more labor, not only sugar plantation labor was the main reasoning for the increase in indentured servitude {Documents, two, five and seven}.…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jamestown Virginia Essay

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Inadvertently, early colonization led to the birth of slavery and formed one of the first major labor systems of one of America’s original colonies: Jamestown, Virginia. The late 1500’s were the start of missionary efforts to travel to the New World. Under the control of Queen Elizabeth I, settlers aspiring to conquer new land and to capitalize on its resources for profit embarked on voyages. The English began their journey in 1607. A crew including John Smith- landed along the Northeast Atlantic coast near James River, where they declared their settlement be named Jamestown, in recognition of their king,…

    • 722 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Indentured servants were typically very poor, and usually couldn 't afford a trip across the atlantic. However, they were able to sign an indenture, in return for a passage to the New World. After working for a few years, they were free to work for themselves. Virginia became the first established colony in 1607. Even though indentured servants were able to escape religious persecution, life in the colonies was grueling, laborious, and often times exhausting.…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The slavery system and indentured servants helped to put the American colonies in a better economic situation in the years leading up to the American revolution. Indentured servitude began in the seventeenth century when many Europeans wanted to start a life in the colonies. In many European nations the colonies were heavily advertised and families were encouraged to move to America. The problem with the Colonies’ new popularity was the expenses: most families could not afford the trip over to America, and if they could, most would not have enough money to then purchase land and support their family. Still, many people still wanted to come…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Much of the early history of the Virginia colonial experiment is the history of a charnel house as disease, Indians, and overwork conspired to kill colonists in appalling numbers. This shocking death-rate conspired to ensure that the lands and opportunities remained open through the first fifty years of the colony 's life. By the latter part of the 17th century change came to Virginia and the opportunities once so plentiful began to disappear, the population, increasing, began to divide the land and the classes more fully and as discontent grew solutions had to be arrived at, eventually resulting in the rise of race-based chattel slavery.…

    • 1433 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    After the end of contract, the servant would get 50 acres of land and tools to get them started in the land. The servants were treated like property, they were given the minimum food, cloth, and healthcare. It wasn’t a normal job with normal pay, you would need to work for those years to get out to get working on your land. The indentured servants labor didn’t last through the 1600s. After the 1660s, slavery of Africans became the labor of the colonists’ tobacco lands.…

    • 1933 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    In general, slavery played a major part in American colonization and became the standard for all colonies and the African American slaves were heavily populated in the Northern and Southern colonies because of the Southern colonies had tobacco plantations and they needed laborers to work their land so, they can make a profit. In short, the Atlantic Slave Trade was established by the Spanish colonists in the Sixteenth century to help solve a need and because they were the most experience sea mariners during that time (Robin, Kelley, Lewis, 2005, p. 7). Therefore, slaves became the cheapest laborers in the colonies and this forced labor continue for centuries and some people of the colonies began to believe that this was the way of life. The…

    • 1778 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the 1600’s, there was a desperate need for a work force in the British North American colonies. Native Americans were dying from European diseases and were even running away to escape slavery. Also, the amount of indentured servants coming to America was decreasing and they became unreliable. This eventually led the colonists to bringing the first slaves to Virginia in 1619 because they realized another source was needed. Soon enough, slavery had a major impact on the social attitudes, racial ideologies, economic factors, and legislative acts because it changed the lives of people in society including slaves as well.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the early colonial times, each person, whether free or enslaved, had their own interpretation of what freedom was depending on their reasons for arrival, perspective based on their culture, and the overall treatment they received from authoritative figures. Although both servants and slaves experienced a lack of freedom, many people assume that indentured servants were freer because they were only required to serve indentured servitude for 7 years, whereas slaves were forced into the harsh treatment of enslavement for life. Seeing that both parties are deprived of their freedom, it showed that the free English landowners justified their harsh treatment toward the slaves and servants by using their freedom to have superiority over them. Generally,…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Involuntary Servants

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The desire for a better new life motivated Europeans to risk their lives and go to the “New World”. Hardships in Britain such as the poor being forced off their lands from the legal process of enclosure forced the lower and middle class to flood to the cities. When they reached the cities, there was diminutive opportunity for a decent livelihood. The extreme hardships in Britain motivated the middle and lower class citizens to risk their lives and make the journey to the “New World” in hopes for a better life. Astonishingly most of those who decided to make the journey knew the odds of survival were not in their favor.…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During this era, most whites owned slaves in fact on some plantations, slaves outnumbered the white owners. Before discussing the relationship between the American Revolution and black freedom, we must internalize the conditions slaves live in and why would slaves fight for freedom with possibly the ultimate sacrifice death. According to the authors of the Declaration of Independence, living under the British rule was like being a slave. However, these rights did not include enslaved Africans.…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The book, “American Slavery: 1619-1877” written by Peter Kolchin and published first in 1993 and then published with revisions in 2003, takes an in depth look at American slavery throughout the country’s early history, from the pre-Revolutionary War period to the post-Civil War period. The first chapter deals with the origins of slavery within the United States. It discusses the introduction of slavery to the nation even before it was officially a nation. The colonies in the United States were agricultural and the cultivation of crops required labor.…

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Indentured servants were very similar to slaves in many ways because of how they lived their day to day lives, treatment, and how owners handled the situation of runaway. Both groups suffered greatly from the harsh treatment their masters would do to them. Although there are some differences between slaves and servants the similarities make them much more alike than different. To understand how these people are similar the path of how they entered into slavery and servitude must be established. Indentured servants were almost all white poor Englishman who could not find work in England but heard of the overwhelming possibilities over in North America, but the problem was that because they were poor they had no way of paying for the voyage…

    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics