Indentured servants why

For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. See also: Apprenticeship. Indentured servants were white Europeans of modest means who for various reasons wanted to go to the British colonies but could not pay the cost of their passage. During the colonial period , a thriving business developed in Europe in which young men and women agreed to work for a specific time in the New World for a master who paid their way across the Atlantic Ocean.

The indenture was the contract they signed and carried with them for the length of their service. A typical servant's contract noted the length usually four to seven years and place of service, the master's name, and the minimal food, clothing, and shelter that he or she was to provide. In the eighteenth century, as the servant population grew although it never became very large in North Carolina , the North Carolina Assembly found it necessary to enact regulatory laws, particularly since the system lent itself to abuse on the part of both servant and master.

According to printer James Davis 's legal guide, published in New Bern in , runaway servants who were caught would serve double time after the expiration of their contracted term. Servants who resisted their masters could "suffer corporal Punishment, at the Discretion of a Justice, not exceeding Twenty One Lashes.

Many died of disease before the end of their contracts, and most who survived were poor. Virginia Gazette, May 19, Search our articles. Blog Home History Hub. Everything you need to know about indentured servitude.

The Findmypast team 27 September Servants were considered legally human. Slaves were not Servitude was based on a contract that would eventually come to an end. Slavery was for forever Servitude status did not pass on to your children. They were born free. Slaves' children were enslaved upon birth and for life In Colonial America and the Caribbean, slavery had a specific legal meaning. Europeans, by definition, were not included in it Slavery is not a contract.

Price Genealogy offers their Immigrant Servants Database for free. It includes over 20, indentured servants who immigrated to America between and Virtual Jamestown has a searchable database, the Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, It covers about 15, people who travelled from Bristol, Middlesex, and London, England to the mid-Atlantic colonies and the West Indies.

Other articles recommended for you Family Records Here's what it was like to take a national census back in History Hub Your go-to guide to jobs in s Britain. In the first black Africans came to Virginia. With no slave laws in place, they were initially treated as indentured servants, and given the same opportunities for freedom dues as whites.

However, slave laws were soon passed — in Massachusetts in and Virginia in —and any small freedoms that might have existed for blacks were taken away. As demands for labor grew, so did the cost of indentured servants. Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants demand for land.

The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude. Irish immigrants were generally the poorest immigrants who came to America, driven by the potato famine and land scarcity in Ireland due to English policies. Irish women immigrated just as much as their male counterparts, uncommon in immigration patterns, and often worked as servants to wealthy Americans.

Slavery and Servitude. Bookmarks Expand. Enslavement Indentured Servants Paid Staff. Book Marks. Indentured Servitude. Paid Staff. Help Preserve Our History. Become a Member.