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History Beyond The Textbook
Indentured Servitude
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History Beyond The Textbook
Introduction
Indentured servants, or bonded laborers,
played a large role in the creation of the
British colonies in America.
Most of these laborers made their way to
the southern colonies, where they were
worked cultivating tobacco and other
cash crops.
After serving their term of service, these
settlers would venture west in search of
new land to farm. They would form the
foundation of early American society.
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History Beyond The Textbook
Origins
Indenture Marks
The term indentured servant derives
its name from the indenture, or mark
on two copies of the contract the
master and the servant signed.
To prevent one of the parties from
trying to alter the contract, the two
copies of the contract were laid on
top of one other, and identical marks
were made.
If anyone questioned the contract, the
two pieces of paper would be placed
on top of one other to try match the
marks.
This contract has been
marked, but not yet
indentured.
This contract has
been indentured.
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Supply and Demand
History Beyond The Textbook
In the early part of the 1600s, there were
many unemployed people in England
and other European countries.
At the same time the Virginia Company
was beginning to make money raising
and selling tobacco. However, because
of the shortage of laborers to plant and
harvest the crop, settlers were unable to
meet the European demand for tobacco.
Company agents advertised a new life in
America in exchange for a few years of
bonded labor.
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History Beyond The Textbook
The Deal
An indentured servant contract was
simple. The servant would agree to a
term of service (usually four years for
skilled workers and seven years for
unskilled workers) in exchange for
passage to America, food, shelter, and
clothing. At the end of the contractual
period, the servant was entitled to
freedom dues.
The freedom dues usually consisted of
clothing, two hoes, three barrels of corn,
and fifty acres of land. To unemployed
and hopeless Europeans, the opportunity
to own land and learn a skill were
irresistible.
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History Beyond The Textbook
The Journey
The journey to America took about two months
and was a very difficult, especially for poor
settlers traveling to the colonies.
Servants received rations of food every two
weeks. If the servant were to finish his food
before the next distribution of rations, he faced
starvation.
Many passengers died from diseases and illness
that swept through the ships carrying settlers to
the colonies.
Servants made the journey in
the steerage or hold of the ship
where there were cramped
conditions and little privacy.
Upon arrival in the colonies, the master of
company agent would pay the ship’s captain for
the indentured servant’s passage.
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History Beyond The Textbook
Who Were Indentured Servants?
People of all ages and races came to America as indentured servants. However,
most were young men between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.
Some of the first indentured servants in Jamestown arrived about 1619 on a Dutch
ship carrying African slaves captured from a Portuguese ship. While some of the
Africans were sold as slaves, about half were sold as indentured servants.
It is estimated that during the 1600s more than 300,000 settlers arrived in the
colonies as indentured servants. In fact, seventy-five percent of the settlers in
Virginia during the seventeenth century had come as servants.
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History Beyond The Textbook
Treatment
The treatment of indentured servants depended on their
masters. A servant was considered the master’s property.
The most common punishment time added to the
indenture. Servants were also flogged, or whipped
(usually twelve times).
Servants were forbidden to marry or to have children
during their indenture and were unable to trade or sell to
freemen. Indentured servants could not travel without
written permission from their masters.
Minors were often cheated and forced to work more than
the usual seven-year maximum.
Young boys were often
given the task of whipping
those who broke the rules.
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History Beyond The Textbook
Enforced Servitude and Redemptioners
Bonded laborers came to the colonies in a variety of
ways. Many were brought against their wills.
A person who committed a crime in England could be
sentenced to a term of servitude in America. This led to
tens of thousands of criminals immigrating to the
colonies, many of them became the first settlers of
Georgia.
A person also could become an indentured servant
through redemption. Redemptioners often included
families from Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland. They
would sell their labor when they arrived in in the
colonies. Many of these people settled in Pennsylvania
and the western regions of Maryland and Virginia.
This is a diary entry regarding
Samuel Mau, a redemptioner
from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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History Beyond The Textbook
Racism
and Servitude
By the middle of the 1600s, colonial governments
began to treat white servants differently than
servants of African descent.
A 1640 court case was the first to establish that
only Africans could be held in slavery for life.
In 1691 a law was passed in Virginia (and later in
other colonies) that stated a child born to a black
woman automatically became the property of her
master. This would come to be known as
generational slavery.
Laws also were passed that forbid intermarriage
between races and other laws that allowed for much
harsher treatment of black servants.
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History Beyond The Textbook
Slavery Replaces Indentured Servitude
While the practice of indentured servitude
would continue well into the nineteenth
century, slavery was beginning to replace it by
the end of the 1600s. One factor that led to the
demise of indentured servitude occurred in
1676 when many indentured servants joined
poor farmers and rallied behind Nathaniel
Bacon who led a rebellion against wealthy
planters. A second uprising in Maryland a year
later would mark a sharp decline in the number
of indentured servants brought from Europe.
Instead, Southern planters and merchants in the
North turned to the African slave trade as a
source of cheap, lifelong labor.
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