Indentured servant

When looking at the history of labour in various Caribbean islands there is a noticeable shift from the use of white indentured servants to the use of African slaves. The reasons for using indentured servants, the changes that occurred in relation to indentured servants and the Sugar Revolution all contributed to the shift in the type of labour used in the Caribbean between the sixteenth and nineteenth century. When examining all of these elements, along with smaller factors, it becomes clear as…

Indentured Servitude and Slavery Indentured servitude and slavery are both different yet similar in many ways. Indentured servitude is a labor system where a person works for an employer for a certain number of years as payment to get transportation to the New World. Indentured servants first arrived in America a decade after the settlement of Jamestown in 1690 by the Virginia Company. Slavery is a legal system where a person can be treated as property. Several Dutch ships brought Africans to…

Indentured servitude was the common recourse to a labour shortage in the colonies, and was characterized by institutional support and harsh punishments (Watson 394-397). Though servants had legal recourse in the event of overly harsh treatment, lasting punishments for their masters were uncommon, and courts overwhelmingly worked to keep workers…

labor. Thus began indentured servitude, creating opportunity for both the master and servant. The servant paid for their cost of travel with service labor for a contracted amount of time. After the contract had been fulfilled the servant was then free. As a free man they gained the legal right to their own land. With more land owners and a lack of labor, the situation only became more bleak. With the need for more labor that void was soon filled with the growth of slavery. The servant was…

About 80 percent of the immigrants to the Chesapeake during the seventeenth century came as indentured servants. The majority of indentured servants were white immigrants from England. Irish Nell was enslaved because she decided to marry a Black slave known as “Negro Charles”. With this marriage, Lord Baltimore warned her that her and her children would be slaves as well. Nell insisted that she much “rather have Charles than have your lordship”. The testimonies from the witnesses gave me the…

Indentured Servitude In the decade following the settlement in Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607, indentured servants began to arrive in America. With the end of the Thirty Year War, Europe’s economy was left in shambles, and many skilled and unskilled laborers were left without work. This couldn’t have come at a better time for the new colonies as early settlers soon realized help was needed to care for the immense amount of land they had acquired. However, through the course of…

Richard Frethorne, the author of An Indentured Servant 's Letter Home. Richard was a young male, who wrote his letter exclusively to his loving father and mother in 1623. Richard was an indentured servant that lived in Virginia, who originally came from England. In his letter, Richard Frethorne mentions all the hardships and struggles of living in a Virginia colony. Which included a lack of sufficient food, “A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve for four men which is most pitiful”…

Slavery and Indentured Servitude There are two different types of servants, slaves and indentured servants. Indentured servants were people who wanted to come to America from someone paying their way in exchange for their labor. Slaves were people who were forced to work for masters because they did not have enough power to stop the people from selling or trading them. Many people were affected by indentured servitude and slavery. By comparing the two you can understand the differences and…

Indentured Servants and Slaves Many times throughout history the concepts of servitude and slavery are found. In the seventeenth century, indentured servants and slaves proved to be the muscle behind Colonial America and it’s progression. At this time in history, many Europeans, English specifically, were travelling to the New World to start life anew. What these people found when they arrive is that they needed a labor force. The need for labor is what contributed to the development of…

Native Americans and Africans were used to benefit the colonists that arrived to the New World. Treatments towards the Natives and Africans were inhuman and cruel. Slavery had existed long before the 1490s, but Indians being used as slaves was rare. The arrival of the Europeans had caused Africans kidnapped from their home and Natives had their homeland snatched from them. Both civilizations rights did not exist anymore. Native Americans and Africans were not treated equally by the new settlers…