Indentured Servitude: From Contract to Freedom With Europe set in a state of turmoil following the Thirty Year’s War thousands of impoverished laborers found themselves without work and without land to harvest. New laws and conspiracy in the church had left a bitter taste among the populace and the stories of the successful settlement of Jamestown, America had been making their way across the Atlantic. It was the demand for labor that colonialist in Jamestown sought that would start the wave of indentured servants to travel to America. Throughout this journey for new life they would face disease, master cruelty, the loss and gain of rights, and brutal Native American attacks. None of these challenges so influential though as the strict involvement
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66) and were considered “free in all respects…entituled to the Liberties, and Priviledges of the Country, as any other of the Inhabitants or Natives are” (Yazawa et al. 66). Unfortunately many newly freed servants found they could not afford the tools they needed to harvest their land into a profitable investment and under corrupt leadership found they were suddenly without the right to vote, this lead may to re-sell themselves into contracted labor. Those that were able to reserve property found themselves settled westward bordering Native American territory, where they fell victim to relentless attacks. Free laborers demanded the government take action in seizing the highly desired land and when government fell silent settlers took matters into their own hands by massacring neighboring Indian tribes. In return the Native Americans pillaged remote plantations and killed over 300 whites (Henretta, Edwards, Self. p. 50). After Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676, in which he and the fed up frontiersmen burned Jamestown to the ground, government restored free landless men the right to vote and evicted numerous Indian tribes from the region. These actions turned the favorable labor source to slavery instead of indentured servitude and fulfilled the entitlement of land at the end of
66) and were considered “free in all respects…entituled to the Liberties, and Priviledges of the Country, as any other of the Inhabitants or Natives are” (Yazawa et al. 66). Unfortunately many newly freed servants found they could not afford the tools they needed to harvest their land into a profitable investment and under corrupt leadership found they were suddenly without the right to vote, this lead may to re-sell themselves into contracted labor. Those that were able to reserve property found themselves settled westward bordering Native American territory, where they fell victim to relentless attacks. Free laborers demanded the government take action in seizing the highly desired land and when government fell silent settlers took matters into their own hands by massacring neighboring Indian tribes. In return the Native Americans pillaged remote plantations and killed over 300 whites (Henretta, Edwards, Self. p. 50). After Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676, in which he and the fed up frontiersmen burned Jamestown to the ground, government restored free landless men the right to vote and evicted numerous Indian tribes from the region. These actions turned the favorable labor source to slavery instead of indentured servitude and fulfilled the entitlement of land at the end of