The Role Of Indentured Servants In Early America

431 Words1 Page

America, the land of the free, or which we claim it to be, wasn’t always the way it is now. In many ways each individual is granted their rights and freedom today, but the unfortunate truth is all the leisure’s we have, including freedom, was a nearly a myth in the early Americas or the so called land proclaimed to be “the land of the free”. “All servants imported and brought into the Country. . . who were not Christians in their native Country. . . shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion. . . shall be held to be real estate…” Virginia General Assembly declaration, 1705(Pbs). This statement was part of the harsh reality that early America’s culture, along with a large part of the world, was involved in. The servants who were unfortunate to be brought up and involved in this were rebranded and named as slaves and received inhumane treatment. …show more content…

Basically a servant would work for a certain amount of years desired by a landowner and in exchange would receive a piece of land along with resources such as food. Although one could compare an indentured servant to a slave, due to the harsh lifestyle they had, there were laws that protected some of the rights of the servants. In 1619 the first African came to Jamestown Virginia to work and was treated as an indentured servant along with the rest of the workers, nothing changed due to the presence of African Americans,

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of First Slavery First Hope By David Nicholson

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    Africans were brought to North America as slaves. This took place in Jamestown, Virginia in the early 1600’s.

    Read More

  • Slavery and Servants in 1800s Pennsylvania

    574 Words  | 2 Pages

    By the 18th century, Pennsylvania was becoming home for American Development. Many people that were drawn to Pennsylvania were servants whether, for sometimes 4 years or however long, it took to pay off debt for their travel across the Atlantic. If they weren’t servant, they were slaves who almost had no chance of freedom. Servants had a chance to become free after paying off their debts with work, but not the same for slaves.

    Read More

  • Views on Slavery by Higginbotham, Jr.,Winthrop D. Jordan, and Edmund S. Morgan

    1694 Words  | 4 Pages

    A Leon Higginbotham Jr.’s argument in The Ancestry of Inferiority (1619-1662), is that the people of Virginia had already began to think of black people, be it they were free or indentured servants, as inferior to themselves before slavery was institutionalized. The Colonist’s had already begun to strategize legalities in regards on how black people were to be disciplined. Higginbotham has two reasons why Africans were not afforded the same liberties as that of the white indentured servants in Virginia. The first reason he states is that the majority of white indentured servants came to Virginia on their own free will. Once they had completed their five or seven-year contract with their master, they were free to buy land and begin working for themselves. Unlike the African’s that he claims were brought here against their will or for desperation. The second reasoning is that the English thought that the black represented evil or danger and because African’s skin coloring was black, they must be evil. Higginbotham offers a couple of examples representing just how the English prior to the actual term of slavery being used, were already creating a racial difference in the judicial system. From court cases that he has reviewed, he states one must find what the case is not saying verses what it is. When the English identified people with names the only time skin color was not used in context is when that person was a white person. Another case he made use of is a good example of black inferiority to white superiority in the early 17th century is in the case In Re Graweere, 1641. The court made certain that a particular African father had no value in society when attempting to get his child back. However, because his son was...

    Read More

  • Indentured Servitude and Slavery in the New World

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the 1600’s people began to look for different types of work in the new world. As cash crops, such as tobacco, indigo, and rice, were growing in the South, there became a need for labor. This got the attention of convicts, debtors, and other people looking for new opportunities and money. Indentured servitude was vastly growing during the 17th and 18th centuries. Approximatively 10 million men, women, and children were moved to the new world. Women during this time found themselves being sold to men for these cash crops. A commonly used term during this time for these women was tobacco brides. Almost 7.7 million of the slaves captured and moved to the new world were African Americans. Slaves and indentured servants had it rough for

    Read More

  • Indentured Servants In Colonial Virginia

    550 Words  | 2 Pages

    Physical abuse by plantation owners towards both their servants and slaves was common. One account by Thomas Gates in a General Court of Colonial Virginia document about Elizabeth Abbot, an indentured servant, stated that “she had been sore beaten and her body full of sores and holes very dangerously raunckled and putrified both above her wast and uppon her hips and thighs” (General Court of Colonial Virginia). In fact, such abuse towards servants and slaves was so common that the state of Virginia had to make laws for such cases. Unfortunately, colonial governments did not consider corporal punishment illegal. Thus adding to the brutality endured by persons in captivity and servitude during the colonial era. “Moderate corporal punishment inflicted

    Read More

  • The Book 1776 by David McCullough

    1315 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history, Americans have sought to spread the spirit of equality, which is believed to be the realization of true freedom. Before establishing this freedom, every American had only one question stuck in their head: What is freedom? Our country received it in the year of 1776 from the British through a series of difficulties and wars. African Americans defined it as an escape from slavery, while immigrants defined it as their acceptance into a new society. More yet, women of the women’s suffrage defined their freedom as their recognition into society and for their rights to be equal to that of every other man. These different perceptions of cultures/groups in America tied together to form an American view of freedom. Freedom is something that every American should be willing to do anything in order to maintain. We may have weapons of mass destruction, but when it comes to living in a peaceful, American lifestyle, our freedom is our greatest weapon.

    Read More

  • Defining Freedom in Eric Foner's The Story of American Freedom

    1177 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Eric Foner’s book, The Story of American Freedom, he writes a historical monograph about how liberty came to be. In the book, his argument does not focus on one fixed definition of freedom like others are tempted to do. Unlike others, Foner describes liberty as an ever changing entity; its definition is fluid and does not change in a linear progress. While others portray liberty as a pre-determined concept and gradually getting better, Foner argues the very history of liberty is constantly reshaping the definition of liberty, itself. Essentially, the multiple and conflicting views on liberty has always been a “terrain of conflict” and has changed in time (Foner xv).

    Read More

  • The Role Of Indentured Servants In The 1700s

    1519 Words  | 4 Pages

    The role of an indentured servant in the 1700s was not a glamorous one. They came to the New World knowing that, for a time, they would be slaves for someone they did not know and the risk of disease and death was high, but the opportunity that laid ahead of them after their time of servitude was worth everything to these settlers of the New World. They came to America for the same reasons as all of the other settlers. Religious freedom, land, wealth, and a new start were motives for both settlers and indentured servants but the one thing separating most settlers from the indentured servants was that they could afford their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Indentured servants couldn’t buy their ticket to the New World, but that didn’t stop

    Read More

  • The Market Revolution On American Society

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    Foner, Eric. "Chapter 9." Give Me Liberty!: An American History. Brief Third ed. Vol. One. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. N. pag. Print.

    Read More

  • The Sixties

    1370 Words  | 3 Pages

    Freedom has been discussed and debated for a while now and yet no one can completely agree that it exists. Since the Civil, War America has been conditioned to be divided politically. The conflict over the meaning of freedom continues to exist from the civil war, throughout the sixties and in the present. The Civil War was fought over the question of what freedom means in America. The issue was in the open for all to see: slavery. Human slavery was the shameless face of the idea of freedom. The cultural war in the sixties was once more about the question of what freedom is and what it means to Americans. No slaves. Instead, in the sixties and seventies four main issues dominated the struggle for racial equality: opposition to discriminatory immigration controls; the fight against racist attacks; the struggle for equality in the workplace; and, most explosively, the issue of police brutality. For more than two centuries, Americans demanded successive expansions of freedom; progressive freedom. Americans wanted freedom that grants expansions of voting rights, civil rights, education, public health, scientific knowledge and protections from fear.

    Read More

  • Slavery In Colonial America Essay

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first arrivals of Africans in America were treated similarly to the indentured servants in Europe. Black servants were treated differently from the white servants and by 1740 the slavery system in colonial America was fully developed.

    Read More

  • the development of slavery in America

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    Indentured Servants helped the colonies progress their population. England at the time was over populated, and jobs were hard to find. So many people that could not afford the boat trip over to America offered themselves as to be an indentured servant for a period of time. This contractual term can last from between four to seven years. Many colonists preferred having indentured servants over slaves, cause they also helped ward off Native Americans from attacking settlers. The one big draw back of indentured servant was that they usually did not make it pass the first year of their contract.

    Read More

  • What Was The Cause Of The Chesapeake Tobacco Revolution

    384 Words  | 1 Pages

    The events that led to the enslavement of black people in the Chesapeake tobacco colonies were the catalysts for their beginning as the great majority of laborers in those colonies. These events were affected by the diminishing supply of white indentured servants, preexisting white racial biases, as well as the growing availability of Africans. But the catalyzing event in bringing it about was the rebellion by Nathaniel Bacon in 1676. Bacon was an English aristocrat who had recently moved to Virginia which actually was the cause of his rebellion. In hindsight, the rebellion was really just a disagreement over Indian policy between him and the colony’s royal governor William Berkeley.

    Read More

  • Indentured Servant Essay

    1205 Words  | 3 Pages

    An indentured servant is a person that has had their passage paid for by a master or a ship captain with the exchange of them working until their term of years to serve expires (Murrin, pg. 40). To become an indentured servant my journey would entail of me being kidnapped from Africa and by the Spaniards then forced to either work or serve a master for the rest of my life (Johnson, 2016). Because I am a female, I would have just as much rights as a slave or an indentured servant which is no rights at all (Murrin, 2014). Being a female during this journey brings other risks as well.

    Read More

  • Servitude In The Revolutionary Era

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    The American Revolution, as a hostile to duty development, focused to Americans' right side to control their own property. In the eighteenth century "property" included other people.

    Read More

More about The Role Of Indentured Servants In Early America

Open Document