Indentured Servants In Colonial America

The southern colonies were establishing an agricultural economy based on the sale of tobacco and rice. Throughout the 1600’s, plantation owners relied on indentured servants and slaves to provide manual labor to harvest their crops. Plantation owners benefitted from the forced drudgery of both slaves and indentured servants. In spite of America’s claim to equality for all men, many people were living without basic freedoms guarantied to all people by the constitution. Many people, some who came by their own will, and some by force, were bought and sold like merchandise; their hard, repressive, lives had just begun. Slaves were captured and brought into the southern colonies directly from Africa. Nearly all of the ships that brought slaves from Africa were owned by British merchants. Similarly, indentured servants were also brought to the Southern colonies on British merchant ships. …show more content…
They were given passage to the new world in exchange for 7 years of strenuous physical work. Unlike indentured servants, slaves could never be free. Neither indentured servants nor slaves could control who purchased their labor. They were often bought and sold several times, and the work was very difficult. Regardless of how they arrived, both indentured servants and slaves worked together in groups, of about twenty to twenty five. They were responsible to someone who supervised their work. Overseers were hired to directly supervise the work of slaves. Slaves endured long hours of back-breaking work, often for fifteen hours a day. Overseers often inflicted physical punishment on the slaves if they appeared to be working to less then their full potential. Although the physical punishment was difficult to endure, even more cruel, was the emotional trauma that they endured when their families were