Characteristics Of Indentured Servants

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“Indentured Servitude”
(A means to enter the new country)
An indenture was a legal, written contract binding one party into the service of another for a specified term. The system of Indenture and Indentured servants was introduced in Colonial America to meet the growing demand for cheap, plentiful labor in the colonies. The indentured servants worked for no wage; instead they worked for basic necessities such as food, clothing and a place to live. Even though slaves existed in the English Colonies in the 1600s, innumerable farmers employed Indentured Servants instead. There was a high demand for work as the growth of tobacco; rice (which was easy to prepare and was also a hearty meal that would sustain a workers body for a long day’s work) …show more content…

“Only 40 percent of the indentured servants lived to conclude the terms or their contracts”. It is said in Article 5b. Indentured Servants that, “female servants were often the subject of harassment from their master.” If one of the women were to become pregnant, they would be given more time added on to their service for their master’s. During the early part of the century, a few servants were able to establish their own land as free men. It wasn’t until 16 years later that Bacon’s Rebellion occurred, a time where the planters began to prefer African slaves permanently over the Headright …show more content…

When the majority of people hear of indentured servitude they tend to think of maids, nannies and butlers. According to the book,” Same kind of different as me” slaves worked for over 30 years without pay and didn’t gain anything in the end. However Thomas Ellison’s experience as an indentured servant is quite different. In the century before there was a heavy reliance on white indentured servants the country relied on large-scaled enslavement of blacks from Africa to work the cotton fields and tobacco fields to do the heavy field work. Growing tobacco and working in the cotton fields were abundantly demanding work, as the workers would be in the fields in the hot sun for 14 hours a day. Should the workers not do their job or try to quit, the employers were allowed to use harsh corporal punishment. Flogging was one of the punishments. Flogging is when someone is beaten with a whip or stick as punishment or torture. However, countless indentured servants died of overwork or disease before their term was complete. During this time indentured servitude was being replaced by slavery. In fact the indentured servitude system slowly went out of continuation due to a fair sizing of the cities, Boston, New York and Philadelphia. The lands were gradually cleared of the Indians making it more attractive for settlement. This made it unchallenging for the servants to escape and

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