Indentured servitude was paid labor while slavery was unegotiable. Slaves had no choice or right of their life or where they ended up. Indentured servants has control over their options and were usually white servants. These servants were under contract and had an obligation in return for some form of compensation. Slaves were known as property and had no rights.…
In 1619, the first twenty African slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. By 1700, they comprised 10 percent of its population. By 1763, they were about half of the population of the New World. The demand for African slaves increased as the contentment of English indentured servants increased. Their impatient to obtain their promised liberty caused them to join the Bacon’s Rebellion.…
The Building Blocks of Chesapeake “By 1617, the colonists had grown enough tobacco to send the first commercial shipment to England, where it sold for a higher price” (Roark 56). Chesapeake thrived with growing a newly studied crop, tobacco. This crop requires a strenuous amount of man hours to grow, and harvest to make money. This complication requires more than just a few farmers, thus a system of indentured servants was put in place as a solution. The system of bringing indentured servants to Chesapeake for work gave them a new start in their lives.…
The large amount of indentured servants in the seventeenth and eighteenth century was caused by many factors which led to many consequences. The Triangular Trade route had established a global desire for commodities such as sugar. With the increased want for sugar brought about a need for workers on sugar plantations. This need for more workers was “solved,” by hiring indentured servants. The need for more labor, not only sugar plantation labor was the main reasoning for the increase in indentured servitude {Documents, two, five and seven}.…
Slaves in the 1800s were treated not as people, but as property. They would use them to help cultivate cotton in the plantations. The slaves were given enough food to keep them alive and working and shelter that was nothing beyond a shack next to the plantations. There would be slave trades or auctions out in public. They would trade slaves from plantation to plantation just as you would with cattle.…
Analytical Essay 1. You are an indentured servant living in the Virginia colony in 1650. Describe your background, current conditions, and future prospects. I think I would probably be poor and homeless.…
1. INDENTURED SERVANTS: Colonists who exchanged up to seven years of work for the entry to America and a chance at a superior life there. Indentured servants were the essential wellspring of work in America (pg. 61). While in the colony, the indentured servants needed to tend to the place that is known for the estate and plant the crops. Once the contractually bound slave's agreement was fulfilled, they were to get a real estate parcel of their own and appreciate the advantages of owning the area.…
Indentured servants were typically very poor, and usually couldn 't afford a trip across the atlantic. However, they were able to sign an indenture, in return for a passage to the New World. After working for a few years, they were free to work for themselves. Virginia became the first established colony in 1607. Even though indentured servants were able to escape religious persecution, life in the colonies was grueling, laborious, and often times exhausting.…
Indentured servants were used early on in the new world because it was an easy way of populating the new colonies while depopulating Europe. Indentured servitude was no longer used later because the indentured servants could not handle the vigorous work on the colonial plantations; they were also not good at cultivating compared to the African slaves that began to replace them. When someone disagreed with the Puritans they became very accusatory. For example, since competition for land was high in their community they began accusing widows, single men and women, or anyone else easy to pick off to generate more land for themselves.…
Indentured servitude and the slavery system both played a major role in the development of colonial economy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Prior to the French and Indian war, the American colonies mostly ruled themselves and were in a relatively good economic situation. Despite their successfulness with political issues, the colonists desperately needed help with labor as there was so much work that needed to be done to the land. The need for labor was fulfilled in two ways; indentured servants and African slaves. While the to groups were treated differently and received different levels of respect, both worked the land and ultimately helped the colonists economy to boom.…
They were given passage to the new world in exchange for 7 years of strenuous physical work. Unlike indentured servants, slaves could never be free. Neither indentured servants nor slaves could control who purchased their labor. They were often bought and sold several times, and the work was very difficult.…
While racial prejudice played a significant role in the rise of slavery in the British colonies, it was not the sole contributor. A large influence that led to widespread slavery in the colonies was the slow removal of indentured servants. While white indentured servants were relatively efficient for a period of time, the masters of these servants eventually noticed a lack of hard work and desire for freedom within them. This observed change in behavior led to the need to find a new labor force, one that could not claim to have the rights of “Englishmen”. So, as many in the history of the world had done, the colonists turned to the enslavement of Africans.…
Much of the early history of the Virginia colonial experiment is the history of a charnel house as disease, Indians, and overwork conspired to kill colonists in appalling numbers. This shocking death-rate conspired to ensure that the lands and opportunities remained open through the first fifty years of the colony 's life. By the latter part of the 17th century change came to Virginia and the opportunities once so plentiful began to disappear, the population, increasing, began to divide the land and the classes more fully and as discontent grew solutions had to be arrived at, eventually resulting in the rise of race-based chattel slavery.…
After the end of contract, the servant would get 50 acres of land and tools to get them started in the land. The servants were treated like property, they were given the minimum food, cloth, and healthcare. It wasn’t a normal job with normal pay, you would need to work for those years to get out to get working on your land. The indentured servants labor didn’t last through the 1600s. After the 1660s, slavery of Africans became the labor of the colonists’ tobacco lands.…
Indentured servants were very similar to slaves in many ways because of how they lived their day to day lives, treatment, and how owners handled the situation of runaway. Both groups suffered greatly from the harsh treatment their masters would do to them. Although there are some differences between slaves and servants the similarities make them much more alike than different. To understand how these people are similar the path of how they entered into slavery and servitude must be established. Indentured servants were almost all white poor Englishman who could not find work in England but heard of the overwhelming possibilities over in North America, but the problem was that because they were poor they had no way of paying for the voyage…