Indentured servants were individuals who bargained away their labor for a period of four to seven years in exchange for passage to the New World.
In the 17th century, indentured servants made up the mass of English immigrants to the Chesapeake colonies and were central to the development of the tobacco economy. Large numbers of indentured servants could also be found in the English West Indian colonies, but they were replaced by enslaved African laborers by the end of the century as cash-crop agriculture particularly sugar and plantation slavery gradually minimized the overall demographic and economic importance of indentured servitude as a labor system.
Regardless, indentured servitude continued to be an important institution in the Atlantic world through the 19th century. Debates persist about the general characteristics of early indentured servants, but they were certainly primarily younger English men in search of new opportunities for wealth and advancement that were unavailable to them at home.
Some people achieved this goal, but many more either died before their contract expired or were unable to rise above a relatively moderate status in the colonies. In the 17th century, most indentured servants were of English origin and migrated to the Chesapeake and West Indies. Of the , emigrants to the Chesapeake during this era, roughly 90, arrived as bound laborers. Another 50, to 75, white indentured servants went to the islands, although these numbers included many Irish servants, political prisoners, and convict laborers.
Indentured servitude did eventually become much more diverse, particularly during the 18th century when increasing numbers of German redemptioners arrived and an increasing percentage of people chose to locate themselves in nonplantation zones, especially Pennsylvania.
Perhaps , non-English migrants arrived as servants during the late colonial period. After the American Revolution, however, the system virtually disappeared in the United States. In the West Indies, however, indentured servitude revived in many places after the abolition of slavery in the s and s. During the 19th century, large numbers of Indian and Chinese migrant laborers were bound into servitude to perform tasks once the responsibility of enslaved Africans.
Scholars disagree about whether or not this new system was simply a new form of slavery. Regardless, as late as the first decades of the 20th century, unfree laborers—effectively the descendants of the mass of indentured servants who first appeared nearly four hundred years earlier—could still be found toiling in subjugation in the old plantation zones of North America and the Caribbean.
Indentured servitude is often equally well treated in scholarly articles as it is in book-length studies. Salinger and Tomlins are good examples of brief essays that provide readers with a good introduction to the topic. The essays that appear in Emmer and Menard are exceptionally useful and provide an overview of the key issues and debates.
Galenson is still the authoritative monograph on the subject and is important for its economic perspective. At any given time there were enslaved Africans working next to free Blacks and European immigrants at Cliveden. The enslaved in urban areas were used as domestic servants, trained as artisans, and even employed. Indentured servants were not paid wages but they were generally housed, clothed, and fed. Nevertheless, indentured servants, along with normal servants, were often subject to physical abuse.
Indentured servitude was enormously common in colonial America. Most redemptioners came from Britain or Germany and were imported to Philadelphia. The majority were young, under twenty, and died before their contracts were up due to the rough conditions of travel and colonial life.
During the 18th century, indentured contracts became less necessary as the costs of immigration to America went down and African slave labor became increasingly attractive to the large landowners of the prospering colonies. Domestic servants generally worked long hours, seven days a week, for relatively modest wages. Their work was physically demanding. Under indentured servitude, the contract stipulated that the worker was borrowing money for transportation and would repay the lender by performing a certain kind of labor for a set period.
During its heyday, the indentured servitude system allowed landowners to provide only food and shelter for indentured servants, as opposed to wages. Some landowners offered their servants basic medical care, but typically labor contracts did not provide for this. Some indentured servants served as cooks, gardeners, housekeepers, field workers, or general laborers; others learned specific trades such as blacksmithing, plastering, and bricklaying, which they could choose to turn into careers later.
Most workers who became indentured servants were males, generally in their late teens and early twenties, but thousands of women also entered into these agreements and often worked off their debts as household employees or domestic servants. Although some indentured servants completed their contracts and received land, livestock, tools, and other necessities to set out on their own, many others did not live to pay off their contracts because they perished from diseases or work-related accidents; some also ran away before completing their terms of service.
In general, indentured servants enjoyed little personal freedom. Some contracts allowed landowners to extend the work period for servants who were accused of behavior that was deemed improper. If a servant ran away or became pregnant, for example, a master was legally entitled to lengthen the worker's term of service. An indenture is a legal and binding agreement, contract, or document between two or more parties.
In the case of indentured servants, these contracts contained "indented" marks along the sides of the document. When the document was finalized, two copies were made.
One copy was placed over the other and the edges of the pages were defaced or marked with indented characters. The servants of this era often were uneducated and could be cheated by unscrupulous masters who might forge new contracts with terms more favorable to themselves. So, this way of marking the two original copies helped to ensure a lasting means of authenticating the contract.
In finance, indenture appears when discussing bond agreements, certain real estate deeds , and some aspects of bankruptcies. Between bond issuers and bondholders, an indenture is a legal and binding contract that spells out the important features of a bond, such as its maturity date, the timing of interest payments, method of calculating interest, and any callable or convertible features, among others.
Immigrants entered indentured servitude contracts of their own free will, as opposed to slaves, who did not have a choice in the matter.
Treatment of indentured servants differed greatly from one master to another. Some masters considered their indentured servants as personal property and made these individuals work difficult jobs before their contracts expired. Virginia Humanities acknowledges the Monacan Nation , the original people of the land and waters of our home in Charlottesville, Virginia. We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia.
Skip to content. Contributor: Brendan Wolfe. Origins Servitude had a long history in England, dating back to medieval serfdom. Land and Labor Merchants of Virginia. Tobacco Tamper. A Virginia Indian in a headdress holds a bow in one hand and tobacco leaves in the other. William Buckland Palladian Room.
The formal, Palladian-style room in Gunston Hall features rococo woodwork. June The English Parliament passes the Ordinance of Labourers, declaring that all men and women under the age of sixty who do not practice a craft must serve anyone requiring their labor.
January 12, The English Parliament passes the Statute of Artificers, which compiles and revises years' worth of law regarding indentured servitude. It is still in effect when Jamestown is founded in He is awarded the next open appointment as prebendary of Bristol Cathedral, which he will take up in November 18, The Virginia Company of London issues its "Instructions to George Yeardley," which include the establishment of the General Assembly and the headright system.
These instructions come to be known as the Great Charter. August 4, The General Assembly passes a law requiring all servants to register with the secretary of state upon arrival in Virginia. September 7, Robert Coopy of North Nibley, Gloucester, England, age unknown, signs a three-year indenture to work as a servant for the proprietors of the Berkeley Hundred plantation in Virginia. During the same time, shipping costs decrease.
John Pott. July 18, The Virginia Company of London declares its intention to pay to ship new settlers to Virginia, including tenants, apprentices, young women, and indentured servants.
March 30, In a petition addressed to the governor and General Court, the indentured servant Jane Dickenson pleads for her release from Dr. A former prisoner of Virginia Indians, Dickenson claims that Pott's treatment of her is worse. October 10, The General Court hears testimony concerning the deaths of two indentured servants, Elizabeth Abbott and Elias Hinton, at the hands of their masters, John and Alice Proctor.
January 31, The General Court hears testimony in the case of an indentured servant, William Mutch, who allegedly was attacked by his master after he demanded his so-called freedom dues, or the payment servants customarily receive upon completion of their contracts. The large majority of these newcomers are men. March The Dutchman David Pieterson DeVries visits Virginia and makes note of the high mortality rate among newcomers and the poor treatment of indentured servants.
March The General Assembly passes laws regulating the time served by servants without indentures, requiring servants to carry certificates, prohibiting masters from hiring servants without proper papers, and punishing servants who become pregnant. July 31, The Lower Norfolk County Court considers two depositions that attest to the mistreatment, by Deborah Fernehaugh, of her indentured servant Charetie Dallen.
March The General Assembly passes laws revising the required time of service for servants without indentures; granting servants the right to take complaints to court; and adding time to indentures, in the case of pregnancy and secret marriages, to male and female servants both. Many scholars believe the author to be Richard Allestree. March The General Assembly passes laws requiring "suffitient" diet and clothing for servants making their transatlantic voyage, prohibiting "cruell" treatment once they arrive in Virginia, and requiring large fines to be paid to the local parish by the master of any servant who becomes pregnant.
December The General Assembly passes two laws stipulating that the children of servants who become pregnant should be handed over to the church, and that, upon their freedom, the mothers should serve the parish for two years as reimbursement. March 14, Lott Richards, a merchant from Bristol, England, sells "one Sarvant boy by name William [F]reeman being about eleven yeares old and haveing noe indenture" to John Barnes for a term of eight years.
June 16, The General Court orders the black indentured servant Phillip Gowen to be freed, finding that his master cheated him. February In "An act lymiting masters dealing with their servants," the General Assembly directs masters not to make bargains with their indentured servants in an attempt to trick them into extended terms of service. Slaves account for only 25 to 40 percent of the non-elites' workforce.
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