Indenture

An indenture is a legal contract reflecting a debt or purchase obligation, specifically

referring to two types of practices: in historical usage, an indentured servant status, and
in modern usage, an instrument used for commercial debt or real estate transaction.

Indentured servant

Indenture contract signed with an X by Henry Meyer in 1738

Indentured servitude was a form of debt bondage, established in the early years of the
American colonies and elsewhere. It was most used as a way for poor teenagers in Britain
and the German states to get free passage to the American colonies. They would work for
a fixed number of years, then be free to work on their own. The employer purchased the
indenture from the sea captain who brought the youths over; he did so because he
needed labor. Most worked as farmers or helpers for farm wives, while some were
apprenticed to craftsmen. Both sides were legally obligated to meet the terms, which were
enforced by local American courts. Runaways were sought out and returned. A majority of
the white immigrants to the American colonies in the 18th century were indentured. Living
conditions were similar to children of the employer, but the death rate was higher because
of exposure to new diseases.

However, indentured servants were also exploited as cheap labour and could be severely
maltreated. For example, the seventeenth-century French buccaneer Alexander
Exquemelin reported malnourishment and deadly beatings by the servants' masters and
generally harsher treatment and labour than that of their slaves on the island of
Hispaniola.[1] The reason being that working the servants excessively spared the masters'
slaves, which where held as perpetual property as opposed to the temporary services of
servants.

Farmers, planters, merchants, and shopkeepers in the American colonies found it very
difficult to hire free workers, primarily because it was so easy for potential workers to set
up their own farms.[2] Consequently, a common solution was to transport a young worker
from Britain or German states], who would work for several years to pay off the debt of
their travel costs. During the indenture period the servants were not paid cash wages, but
were provided with food, accommodation, clothing and training. The indenture document
specified how many years the servant would be required to work, after which they would
be free. Terms of indenture ranged from one to seven years with typical terms of four or
five years.[3] In southern New England, a variant form of indentured servitude, which
controlled the labor of Native Americans through an exploitative debt-peonage system,
developed in the late 17th century and continued through to the period of the American
Revolution.

Not all European servants were sent willingly. Several instances of kidnapping for
transportation to the Americas are recorded and this falls more clearly into the category of
"white slave". While these white slaves were often indentured in the same way as their
willing counterparts it is an important distinction to make. An illustrative example of such a
kidnap story is that of Peter Williamson (1730-1799). As historian Richard Hofstadter
pointed out, "Although efforts were made to regulate or check their activities, and they
diminished in importance in the eighteenth century, it, remains true that a certain small
part of the white colonial population of America was brought by force, and a much larger
portion came in response to deceit and misrepresentation on the part of the spirits
[recruiting agents]."[4]

Most white immigrants arrived in Colonial America as indentured servants, usually as

young men and women from Britain or Germany, under the age of 21. Typically, the
father of a teenager would sign the legal papers, and work out an arrangement with a
ship captain, who would not charge the father any money. [5] The captain would transport
the indentured servants to the American colonies, and sell their legal papers to someone
who needed workers. At the end of the indenture, the young person was given a new suit
of clothes and was free to leave. Many immediately set out to begin their own farms,
while others used their newly acquired skills to pursue a trade. [6][7][8]

In the 17th century, nearly two-thirds of settlers to the New World from the British Isles
came as indentured servants. Given the high death rate, many servants did not live to the
end of their terms.[3] In the 18th and early 19th century, numerous Europeans traveled to
the colonies as redemptioners, a form of indenture.[9]

It has been estimated that the redemptioners comprised almost 80% of the total British
and continental emigration to America prior to the Revolution. [10] Indentured servants were
a separate category from bound apprentices. The latter were American-born children,
usually orphans or from an impoverished family who could not care for them. They were
under the control of courts and were bound out to work as an apprentice until a certain
age. Two famous bound apprentices were Benjamin Franklin who illegally fled his
apprenticeship to his brother, and Andrew Johnson, who later became President of the
United States.[11]

George Washington used indentured servants;[12] in April 1775, he offered a reward for the
return of two runaway white servants.[13]

Development

Indentured servitude in the Americas was first developed by the Virginia Company in the
early seventeenth century as a method for transporting labor to its newfound British
colonies.
Before the rise of indentured servitude, a large demand for labor existed in the colonies to
help build settlements, farm crops and serve as tradesmen, but laborers in Europe could
not afford transatlantic crossing, which could cost roughly half a worker’s annual wage. [14]

In the 18th century, wages in Great Britain were low because of a surplus of labor. The
average was about 50 shillings (£2.50) a year for a plowman, and 40 shillings (£2) a year
for an ordinary unskilled worker. Ships' captains negotiated prices for transporting and
feeding a passenger on the seven- or eight-week journey across the ocean, averaging
about £5 to £7, the equivalent of four or five years of work back in England. [15][16]

European capital market institutions could not lend to the workers, as there was no
effective way to enforce a loan from across the Atlantic, rendering labor immobile via the
Atlantic due to a capital market imperfection.[14]

To address this imperfection, the Virginia Company would allow laborers to borrow against
their future earnings at the Company for a fixed number of years in order to raise enough
capital to pay for their voyage. Evidence shows this practice was in use by 1609, only two
years after the founding of the Company’s original Jamestown settlement.[17] However, this
practice created a financial risk for the Company. If workers died or refused to work, the
investment would be lost.[17]

By 1620, the Company switched to selling contracts of “one hundred servants to be

disposed amongst the old Planters” as soon as the servants reached the colonies. [18] This
minimized risk on the company’s investment to the 2–3 months of transatlantic voyage. As
the system gained in popularity, individual farmers and tradesmen would eventually begin
investing in indentured servants as well.[19]

Still, demand for indentured labor remained relatively low until the adoption of staple
crops, such as sugarcane in the West Indies or tobacco in the American South.[20] With
economies largely based on these crops, the West Indies and American South would see
the vast majority of indentured labor.[21]

Author and historian Richard Hofstadter has written:

The most unenviable situation was that of servants on Southern plantations, living
alongside - but never with - Negro slaves, both groups doing much the same work, often
under the supervision of a relentless overseer. ... Even as late as 1770 William Eddis, the
English surveyor of customs at Annapolis, thought that the Maryland Negroes were better
off than "the Europeans, over whom the rigid planter exercises an inflexible severity." The
Negroes, Eddis thought, were a lifelong property so were treated with a certain care, but
the whites were "strained to the utmost to perform their allotted labor." [22]

Over time the market for indentured servitude developed, with length of contracts
showing close correlations to indicators of health and productivity. Tall, strong, healthy,
literate or skilled servants would often serve shorter terms than less productive or more
sickly servants.[23][24] Similarly, harsh destinations such as the West Indies would offer
shorter contracts compared to the more hospitable colonies. [20]

Between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants to the colonies between the 1630s
and American Revolution had come under indentures.[25] The vast majority of indentured
servants immigrated to the American South, where cash crops necessitated labor-intensive
farming. Northern colonies, with far less farming and more industrialization, saw
significantly less indentured immigration. [26] For example, 96.28 percent of English
emigrants to Virginia and Maryland during 1773-6 were indentured servants. During the
same time period, only 1.85 percent of English emigrants to New England were
indentured.[27]

Legal documents

An indenture was a legal contract enforced by the courts. One indenture reads as follows:
[28]

This INDENTURE Witnesseth that James Best a Laborer doth Voluntarily put himself
Servant to Captain Stephen Jones Master of the Snow Sally to serve the said Stephen
Jones and his Assigns, for and during the full Space, Time and Term of three Years from
the first Day of the said James’ arrival in Philadelphia in AMERICA, during which Time or
Term the said Master or his Assigns shall and will find and supply the said James with
sufficient Meat, Drink, Apparel, Lodging and all other necessaries befitting such a Servant,
and at the end and expiration of said Term, the said James to be made Free, and receive
according to the Custom of the Country. Provided nevertheless, and these Presents are on
this Condition, that if the said James shall pay the said Stephen Jones or his Assigns 15
Pounds British in twenty one Days after his arrival he shall be Free, and the above
Indenture and every Clause therein, absolutely Void and of no Effect. In Witness whereof
the said Parties have hereunto interchangeably put their Hands and Seals the 6th Day of
July in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Three in the
Presence of the Right Worshipful Mayor of the City of London. (signatures)

When the ship arrived, the captain would often advertise in a newspaper that indentured
servants were for sale:[29]

Just imported, on board the Snow Sally, Captain Stephen Jones, Master, from England, A
number of healthy, stout English and Welsh Servants and Redemptioners, and a few
Palatines [Germans], amongst whom are the following tradesmen, viz. Blacksmiths,
watch-makers, coppersmiths, taylors, shoemakers, ship-carpenters and caulkers, weavers,
cabinet-makers, ship-joiners, nailers, engravers, copperplate printers, plasterers,
bricklayers, sawyers and painters. Also schoolmasters, clerks and book-keepers, farmers
and labourers, and some lively smart boys, fit for various other employments, whose times
are to be disposed of. Enquire of the Captain on board the vessel, off Walnut-street
wharff, or of MEASE and CALDWELL.

When a buyer was found, the sale would be recorded at the city court. The Philadelphia
Mayor’s Court Indenture Book, page 742, for September 18, 1773 has the following entry:
[30]

James Best, who was under Indenture of Redemption to Captain Stephen Jones now
cancelled in consideration of £ 15, paid for his Passage from London bound a servant to
David Rittenhouse of the City of Philadelphia & assigns three years to be found all
necessaries.

Restrictions

Indentures could not marry without the permission of their owner, were subject to
physical punishment (like many young ordinary servants), and saw their obligation to labor
enforced by the courts. To ensure uninterrupted work by the female servants, the law
lengthened the term of their indenture if they became pregnant. But unlike slaves,
servants were guaranteed to be eventually released from bondage. At the end of their
term they received a payment known as "freedom dues" and become free members of
society.[31] One could buy and sell indentured servants' contracts, and the right to their
labor would change hands, but not the person as a piece of property.

Both male and female laborers could be subject to violence, occasionally even resulting in
death. Richard Hofstadter notes that, as slaves arrived in greater numbers after 1700,
white laborers in Virginia became a "privileged stratum, assigned to lighter work and more
skilled tasks".[22] He also notes that "Runaways were regularly advertised in the
newspapers, rewards were offered, and both sheriffs and the general public were enlisted
to secure their return. ... The standard penalty in the North, not always rigorously
enforced, was extra service of twice the time the master had lost, though whipping was
also common."[22]

Redemptionist profile

Indentured servitude was a method of increasing the number of colonists, especially in the
English and later British colonies. Voluntary migration and convict labor only provided so
many people, and since the journey across the Atlantic was dangerous, other means of
encouraging settlement were necessary. Contract-laborers became an important group of
people and so numerous that the United States Constitution counted them specifically in
appointing representatives:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which
may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be
determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to
Service for a Term of Years....[32]

Displaced from their land and unable to find work in the cities, many of these people
signed contracts of indenture and took passage to the Americas. In Massachusetts,
religious instruction in the Puritan way of life was often part of the condition of indenture,
and people tended to live in towns.

The labor-intensive cash crop of tobacco was farmed in the American South by indentured
laborers in the 17th and 18th centuries. [33] Indentured servitude was not the same as the
apprenticeship system by which skilled trades were taught, but similarities do exist
between the two, since both require a set period of work. The majority of Virginians were
Anglican, not Puritan, and while religion did play a large role in everyday lives, the culture
was more commercially based. In the Chesapeake and North Carolina, tobacco constituted
a major percentage of the total agricultural output. (In the Deep South (mainly Georgia
and South Carolina), cotton and rice plantations dominated.) In the lower Atlantic colonies
where tobacco was the main cash crop, the majority of labor that indentured servants
performed was related to field work. In this situation, social isolation could increase the
possibilities for both direct and indirect abuse, as could lengthy, demanding labor in the
tobacco fields.

The system was still widely practiced in the 1780s, picking up immediately after a hiatus
during the American Revolution. Fernand Braudel (The Perspective of the World 1984, pp
405f) instances a 1783 report on "the import trade from Ireland" and its large profits to a
ship owner or a captain, who:
"puts his conditions to the emigrants in Dublin or some other Irish port. Those who can
pay for their passage—usually about 100 or 80 [livres tournois]—arrive in America free to
take any engagement that suits them. Those who cannot pay are carried at the expense
of the shipowner, who in order to recoup his money, advertises on arrival that he has
imported artisans, laborers and domestic servants and that he has agreed with them on
his own account to hire their services for a period normally of three, four, or five years for
men and women and 6 or 7 years for children."

In modern terms, the shipowner was acting as an contractor, hiring out his laborers. Such
circumstances affected the treatment a captain gave his valuable human cargo. After
indentures were forbidden, the passage had to be prepaid, giving rise to the inhumane
conditions of Irish 'coffin ships' in the second half of the 19th century.[34]

Southern New England Native Americans and Indenture

In southern New England and parts of Long Island,people starting in the late 17th
century, Indians were increasingly pulled into an exploitative debt-peonage system
designed to control and assimilate Indian people into the dominant culture as well as
channel their labor into the market-based Atlantic economy. [35] Following King Philip's War
(1675-1676) most Indians in the region were resigned to reservations or lived in
increasingly marginal enclaves on the edges of colonial towns. Due to restricted access to
resources, land loss, and changes to the environment caused by European settlement,
many Indians, especially coastal groups, could no longer practice traditional subsistence
activities and therefore became increasingly dependent on European trade goods--cloth,
tools, guns, alcohol, and increasingly, food. Merchants trading these items to Indians often
inflated the cost and, based on a predatory lending scheme, advanced them credit for
these purchases, knowing full well most Indians would not be able to repay the debts.
Eventually when debts mounted, Indians were hauled into court by their creditors. When
they could not pay either their lands, or more commonly their labor, was seized to settle
the debt. Indian debtors were then indentured to their creditors for terms ranging from a
few months to sometimes years. Rare cases exist when Indians were indentured for a
decade or more and a few were enslaved for life (this was quite rare however). [36] Many
Indians experienced repeated indentures over the course of their lifetimes, amounting to a
phenomenon of 'serial indenture' or debt peonage--multiple short indentures alternating
with brief periods of 'freedom.' The 'time' Indian servants owed could be sold or willed to
heirs if a creditor died. There was an active trade in Indian servant labor in the first half of
the 18th century. Children were also indentured to pay their parents debts, often from
aged six to eighteen (for girls) or twenty-one (for boys). [citation needed]

Assessing how many Indians experienced indenture is difficult as exact Indian populations
during the colonial period are unknown. However, Historian John Sainsbury was able to
document that by the mid-18th century about a third of all Indians in Rhode Island were
indentured servants living and working in white households. Also, the Massachusetts state
archives contains numerous petitions, written from the 1730s to 1760s from Indian tribes
in their jurisdiction complaining about abuses in the indenture system and predatory
lending by whites. Statutes were eventually passed attempting to regulate practices.
Colonial military records do provide some data on Indian indenture as well. Enlistment
records from 1704 to 1726 show that almost two-thirds of Indians who joined the army
were indentured at the time of their enlistment. Records from 1748 to 1760 show a
decline in this rate, but still show almost a third of Native American recruits being bound
to white masters at the time of their enlistment. One Connecticut regiment raised in 1746
during King George's War (containing 980 men total) contained 139 Indian men. Almost
half of them had signed their wages over to white creditors before being deployed. [37]

While many Indians, men, women and children, became servants in New England
households, the labor of many adult men was funneled into the whaling industry on Long
Island, Rhode Island, Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, as
well as the coast of eastern Connecticut. These whaling indentures were somewhat
distinct from normal indenture contracts, and stipulated that Indians serve not as servants
in white households but instead as crew members on a certain number of whaling voyages
or 'seasons' of whaling (typically November through April). Throughout most of the
colonial period indentured or heavily indebted Indian whalers were the primary labor force
in the early whaling industry. They remained an important source of labor into the
Revolutionary and early national era, but as their numbers dwindled and the industry
expanded exponentially, they make up an increasingly smaller portion of the labor force.
[38]

Text of Whaling Indenture Contract of Isaac Pepenie (Wampanoag

Indian) to James Lovell Jr. 1729.:
“Witnesseth that Isaac Pepenie Indian of Falmouth, Barnstable labourer, hath . . .
of his own free will. . . Bound and obliged himself to Serve James Lovell Junr . . . a
Sea faring man, on Diverse Whale Voiages in the several seasons . . . the date of
these presents: viz. this winter season in . . . Barnstable, and the next Spring at
Nantucket, and former season following in the sloops or vessels that . . . [Lovell]
desire[s], all which respective voyages . . . and any and all materials for the
performing of sd. Voyages . . . he the said Isaac Pepenie to have one eighth and
diet according to costom . . . as shall be needful with his master for the sum of
fifteen pounds which he the said James Lovell doth hereby agree to pay for him, . .
. then the sd. Pepenie doth by these [agreements] oblige himself to attend [the]
Whale Voiages at the order and direction of said James Lovell, his administrators or
assigns in manner aforesaid . . . this first day of October in the Eleventh year of
His Majesty's Reign ano dom 1729.
Isaac Papenie
Barnstable.
We the subscribers two of his Majestys Justices of the Peace for said County being
present at the execution of the premesis do allow and approbate the same as just
and reasonable. Danl. Parker, Joseph Lothrop”[39]

Decline

Indentured servitude appeared in the Americas in the 1620s and remained in use as late
as 1917.[40] The causes behind its decline are a contentious domain in economic history.

The end of debtors' prisons may have created a limited commitment pitfall in which
indentured servants could agree to contracts with ship captains and then refuse to sell
themselves once they arrived in the colonies. Increased lobbying from immigrant aid
societies led to increased regulation of the indentured labor market, further increasing the
difficulty of enforcing contracts. With less ability to enforce the contracts, demand for
indentured servants may have fallen. However, most debtor prisons were still in service
when indentured servitude disappeared and many regulations on indentured servitude
were put in place well before the disappearance. [41]
A rise in European per-capita income compared to passage fare during the nineteenth
century may also explain the disappearance of indentured servitude. While passage from
England to the colonies in 1668 would cost roughly 51 percent of English per-capita
income, that ratio would decrease to between 20 and 30 percent by 1841. [42] This increase
in relative income may have been further supplemented by a demonstrated increase in
savings among European laborers, meaning European emigrants would have the capital
on hand to pay for their own passage. With no need for transit capital, fewer laborers
would have become indentured, and the supply of indentured servants would have
decreased.[43][44]

Labor substitutions may have led employers away from indentured servants and towards
slaves or paid employees. In many places, African slaves became cheaper for unskilled
and then eventually skilled labor, and most farmhand positions previously filled by
indentured servants were ultimately filled by slaves. [45] Wage laborers may have been
more productive, since employers were more willing to terminate waged employment. In
comparison, firing an indentured servant would mean a loss on the original capital
investment spent purchasing the servant’s contract. [46] Either substitution would lead to a
decrease in demand for indentured servitude.

Indentured servitude's decline for white servants was also largely a result of changing
attitudes that accrued over the 18th century and culminated in the early 19th century.
Over the 18th century, the penal sanctions that were used against all workers were slowly
going away from colonial codes, leaving indentured servants the only adult white labor
subject to penal sanctions (with the notable exception of seaman, whose contracts could
be criminally enforced up to the 20th century). These penal sanctions for indentured
laborers continued in the United States until the 1830s, and by this point treatment of
European laborers under contract became the same as the treatment of wage laborers
(however, this change in treatment didn't apply to workers of color). This change in
treatment can be attributed to a number of factors, such as the growing identification of
white indented labor with slavery at a time when slavery was coming under attack in the
Northern states, the growing radicalism of workers influenced with the rhetoric of the
American Revolution, and the expansion of suffrage in many states which empowered
workers politically. Penal sanctions, previously considered perfectly in line with free labor,
became in the 19th century a way to transform ordinary labor into "contracts of
slavery."[47]

Labor market dynamics

Given the rapid expansion of colonial export industries in the 17th and 18th Century,
natural population growth and immigration were unable to meet the increasing demand
for workers. As a result, the cost of indentured servants rose substantially. In the
Chesapeake Bay, for example, the cost of indentures rose as much as 60% in the 1680s.
[48]
The increase in the price of indentures did not however act as an incentive for
European workers to emigrate for they were not affected by the price at which they were
sold in American ports. As a result, the companies that generated indentures disrupted the
price signaling effect and thus the supply of immigrants did not expand sufficiently to
meet demand. Some actors in the market attempted to generate incentives for workers by
shortening the length of indenture contracts based on the productivity of the prospective
emigrant.[49] Some American firms also opted to incentivize workers by paying small wages
or by negotiating early expiration of indentures. [50] The rising cost of indentured labor and
its inelastic supply pushed American producers towards other forms of labor. Slaves were
substantially cheaper and the supply of them was more abundant for it was not
constrained by the slaves’ willingness to emigrate. Additionally, slave traders were directly
incentivized by the price mechanism to expand “production” (in the form of raiding
expeditions), so supply was relatively elastic. Slavery thus was better able to satisfy labor
demands in colonies requiring large quantities of unskilled workers (for example plantation
colonies in the Caribbean). Indentures however prevailed in colonies that required skilled
workers (in which the cost of training a slave was higher than the price differential
between a slave and an indentured servant). Alison Smith and Abbott E Smith’s analysis of
London port records shows how destination of indentured emigrants shifted from the West
Indies towards New England as early as 1660s, [51] supporting the theory that indentured
servitude might have declined in some regions because of labor market dynamics.

Affordability of Emigration

The rise in the affordability of emigration reduced emigrants’ need for external financing in
the form of indentures. David Galenson’s analysis on affordability shows that the cost of
emigration from Britain to the United States over the course of the 18th Century dropped
from 50% of per capita income to less than 10%. This is attributable to higher levels of
real income in Europe (a result of economic growth in the 18th Century) and to a sharp
decline in transportation costs.[52] Innovation had a strong impact on the ease and cost of
passenger transportation, reducing the need of indentures. The railroad made non-port
cities a much cheaper destination for emigrants. The steamboat was not necessarily
cheaper than older sailing technologies, but it made transatlantic travel much easier and
comfortable, an attractive factor for high-income classes (that could easily afford
emigration without indentures).[53] The British Navy’s efforts against piracy also reduced
transportation costs. Safer seas implied smaller crews (for there was no need to man
weapons on board) and also reduced insurance costs (ships were at lower risk of being
captured). The composition of emigrants also shifted from single males towards entire
families. Single males usually left their homes with little if any savings. Instead, families
generally liquidated assets in Europe to finance their venture. [54][55]

Impact of American Revolution

The American Revolution severely limited immigration to the United States. Economic
historians differ however on the long-term impact of the Revolution. Sharon Salinger
argues that the economic crisis that followed the war made long-term labor contracts
unattractive. His analysis of Philadelphia’s population shows how the percentage of bound
citizens fell from 17% to 6.4% over the course of the war. [56] William Miller posits a more
moderate theory, stating “the Revolution (…) wrought disturbances upon white servitude.
But these were temporary rather than lasting”. [57] David Galenson supports this theory by
proposing that British indentures never recovered, but Europeans from other nationalities
replaced them.[58]

Legal deterrence

Several acts passed by the American and the British government fostered the decline of
indentures. The English Passenger Vessels Act of 1803, which regulated travel conditions
aboard ships, attempted to make transportation more expensive as to stop emigration.
The American abolishment of imprisonment of debtors by federal law (passed in 1833)
made prosecution of runaway servants more difficult, increasing the risk of indenture
contract purchases.
Robert J. Steinfeld traces the legal history of the permissibility of indentures of this nature
in the 19th century, most of which occurred in the old Northwest Territory, centring
around the interpretation of what "involuntary servitude" consisted of in the 1787
Northwest Ordinance, which declared "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in the territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the Party
shall have been duly convicted." The permissibility (or not) of penal sanctions in labor
became an issue of "fundamental law," in which it was questioned whether those
sanctions or specific performance enforcements turned indentured servitude into
"involuntary servitude." At the time when the Northwest Ordinance was constructed, white
adult servants were still being imported into the United States, and thus, historically, it
seems likely that the Ordinance's framers considered indenture to be a form of "voluntary"
servitude.[47]

Caribbean

A half million Europeans went as indentured servants to the Caribbean (primarily the south
Caribbean, Trinidad, French Guiana, and Surinam) before 1840.[59][60] Most were young
men, with dreams of owning their land or striking it rich quick would essentially sell years
of their labor in exchange for passage to the islands. However, forceful indenture also
provided part of the servants: contemporaries report that youngsters were sometimes
tricked into servitude in order to be exploited in the colonies. [61] The landowners on the
islands would pay for a servant’s passage and then provide them with food, clothes,
shelter and instruction during the agreed upon term. The servant would then be required
to work in the landowner’s (master) field for a term of bondage (usually four to seven
years). During this term of bondage the servant had a status similar to a son of the
master. For example they were not allowed to marry without the master’s permission.
They could own personal property. They could also complain to a local magistrate about
mistreatment that exceeded community norms. However, his contract could be sold or
given away by his master. After the servant’s term was complete he became independent
and was paid “freedom dues”. These payments could take the form of land which would
give the servant the opportunity to become an independent farmer or a free laborer. As
free men with little money they became a political force that stood in opposition to the
rich planters.[62]

Indentured servitude was a common part of the social landscape in England and Ireland
during the 17th century. During the 17th century, many Irish were also taken to Barbados.
[clarification needed]
In 1643, there were 37,200 whites[clarification needed] in Barbados (86% of the
population). During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms many Scottish and Irish prisoners
[63]

of war were sold as indentured labors to the colonies. [64] There were also reports of
kidnappings of youngsters to work as servants.

After 1660, fewer indentured servants came from Europe to the Caribbean. Newly freed
servant farmers, given 25-50 acres of land, were unable to make a living because
profitable sugar plantations needed to cover hundreds of acres. However, profit could still
be made through the tobacco trade, which was what these small 25 acre farms did to live
comfortably. The landowners’ reputation as cruel masters became a deterrence to the
potential indentured servant. In the 17th century, the islands became known as death
traps, as between 33 to 50 percent of indentured servants died before they were freed,
many from Yellow fever, malaria and other diseases.[65]

When slavery ended in the British Empire in 1833, plantation owners turned to indentured
servitude for inexpensive labor. These servants arrived from across the globe; the majority
came from India where many Indians departed as indentured laborers to work in colonies
requiring manual labor. As a result, today Indo-Caribbeans form a majority in Guyana, a
plurality in Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, and a substantial minority in Jamaica,
Grenada, Barbados, and other Caribbean islands.[66][67]

Australia and the Pacific

Main article: Blackbirding

Convicts transported to the Australian colonies before the 1840s often found themselves
hired out in a form of indentured labor. [68] Indentured servants also emigrated to New
South Wales.[69]

During the 1860s planters in Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the Samoa Islands, in
need of laborers, encouraged a trade in long-term indentured labor called "blackbirding".
At the height of the labor trade, more than one-half the adult male population of several
of the islands worked abroad.[citation needed]

Over a period of 40 years, from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, labor for
the sugar-cane fields of Queensland, Australia included an element of coercive recruitment
and indentured servitude of the 62,000 South Sea Islanders. The workers came mainly
from Melanesia - mainly from the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu - with a small number
from Polynesian and Micronesian areas such as Samoa, the Gilbert Islands (subsequently
known as Kiribati) and the Ellice Islands (subsequently known as Tuvalu). They became
collectively known as "Kanakas".[citation needed]

It remains unknown how many Islanders the trade controversially kidnapped (or
blackbirded). Whether the system legally recruited Islanders, persuaded, deceived,
coerced or forced them to leave their homes and travel by ship to Queensland remains
difficult to determine. Official documents and accounts from the period often conflict with
the oral tradition passed down to the descendants of workers. Stories of blatantly violent
kidnapping tend to relate to the first 10–15 years of the trade. [citation needed]

Australia deported many of these Islanders to their places of origin in the period 1906-
1908 under the provisions of the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901.[70]

Australia's own colonies of Papua and New Guinea (joined after the Second World War to
form Papua New Guinea) were the last jurisdictions in the world to use indentured
servitude.[citation needed]

Africa

A significant number of construction projects, principally British, in East Africa and South
Africa, required vast quantities of labor, exceeding the availability or willingness of local
tribesmen. Coolies from India were imported, frequently under indenture, for such
projects as the Uganda Railway, as farm labor, and as miners. They and their descendants
formed a significant portion of the population and economy of Kenya and Uganda,
although not without engendering resentment from others. Idi Amin's expulsion of the
"Asians" from Uganda in 1972 was an expulsion of Indo-Africans.[71]

Indian Ocean
The islands of the Indian Ocean, especially Mauritius, with extensive sugar cane
plantations sought a cheaper workforce than emancipated workers negotiating for higher
wages. Mauritius was the country of coolitude, [72] the 'Great Experiment' of widespread
recourse to indentured labor having started there. Mauritius acted as a hub or plaque
tournante for this indentured population of coolies, receiving and onward dispatching
hundreds of thousands of coolies to Africa and the Indies through the Aapravasi ghat.

Legal status

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly in 1948) declares in Article 4 "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude;
slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms". [73] However, only national
legislation can establish its unlawfulness. In the United States, the Victims of Trafficking
and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) of 2000 extended servitude to cover peonage as well
as Involuntary Servitude.[74]

Notes

1. Jump up ^ Alexandre Olivier Ecquemelin, The History of Buccaneers in America (1853 edition), p. 46.
2. Jump up ^ Fred Shannon, Economic History of the People of the United States (1934) pp 73-79

a b
3. ^ Jump up to: White Servitude, by Richard Hofstadter

4. Jump up ^ Richard Hofstadter (1971). America at 1750: A Social Portrait. Knopf Doubleday. p. 36.

5. Jump up ^ William Moraley and Susan E. Klepp, The infortunate: the voyage and adventures of
William Moraley an indentured servant, Google Books, page xx

6. Jump up ^ James Curtis Ballagh, White Servitude In The Colony Of Virginia: A Study Of The System Of
Indentured Labor In The American Colonies (1895)

7. Jump up ^ Frank R. Diffenderffer, The German Immigration into Pennsylvania Through the Port of
Philadelphia, 1700-1775, (1979); this book describes the indenturing process in detail for immigrants from
numerous European countries.

8. Jump up ^ Moraley, William; Klepp, Susan E. and Smith, Billy Gordon (2005). "The infortunate: the
voyage and adventures of William Moraley, an indentured servant". Biography & Autobiography, 2nd ed.
(Pennsylvania State University Press). ISBN 0-271-02676-6.

9. Jump up ^ "Price & Associates: Immigrant Servants Database". Immigrantservants.com. Retrieved

2009-07-04.

10. Jump up ^ See Richard B. Morris, "Emergence of American Labor." U.S. Department of Labor, August
30, 2005.

11. Jump up ^ Ruth Wallis Herndon and John E. Murray, eds., Children Bound to Labor: The Pauper
Apprentice System in Early America (2009)

12. Jump up ^ "George Washington: Farmer", by Paul Leland Haworth.

13. Jump up ^ "The forgotten history of Britain's white slaves". The Daily Telegraph. May 3, 2007.

a b
14. ^ Jump up to: Galenson 1984: 3

15. Jump up ^ Shannon, Economic History of the People of the United States (1934) pp. 75-76

16. Jump up ^ Kerby A. Miller et al,, eds. (2003). Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan: Letters and
Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675-1815 . Oxford U.P. p. 75.
a b
17. ^ Jump up to: Galenson 1984: 4

18. Jump up ^ Galenson 1984: 6

19. Jump up ^ Galenson 1984: 8

 a b
20. ^ Jump up to: Galenson March 1981: 40

21. Jump up ^ Galenson March 1981: 39

a b c
22. ^ Jump up to: White Servitude, by Richard Hofstadter

23. Jump up ^ Grubb 1985: 868

24. Jump up ^ Galenson June 1981: 462

25. Jump up ^ Galenson 1984: 1

26. Jump up ^ Grubb July 1985: 328

27. Jump up ^ Grubb July 1985: 334

28. Jump up ^ Frank R. Diffenderffer, The German Immigration into Pennsylvania Through the Port of
Philadelphia, 1700-1775, Genealogical Pub. Co., Baltimore, 1979.

29. Jump up ^ Pennsylvania Gazette (weekly Philadelphia newspaper), August 17, 1774

30. Jump up ^ Record of Indentures, Philadelphia, 1771-1773 , Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore,
1973.

31. Jump up ^ Eric Foner: Give me liberty. W.W.Norton & Company, 2004. ISBN 978-0-393-97873-5.

32. Jump up ^ U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2.

33. Jump up ^ "Laws on Indentured Servants". VirtualJamestown.org. circa 1619-1654. Retrieved 2008-
08-18.

34. Jump up ^ Jackson, Pauline (1984). "Women in 19th Century Irish Emigration"

35. Jump up ^ The literature on New England Indian indenture, while relatively new is actually vast and
growing. John A. Sainsbury, "Indian Labor in Early Rhode Island," New England Quarterly, 48, no. 3 (September
1975), 379-80; David J. Silverman, "The Impact of Identured Servitude on the Society and Culture of Southern
New England Indians, 1680-1810," New England Quarterly 74, no. 4 (Dec. 2001): 622-666; Silverman, Faith and
Boundaries: Colonists, Christianity, and Community among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha’s Vineyard, 1600–
1871 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Daniel Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-
Century Eastern Massachusetts (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996); Jean M. O’Brien, Dispossession by
Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1790 (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1997); Jim Coogan, "Slavery and Identured Servitude on Cape Cod," Cape Cod Times, Sunday May 19, 2013.

36. Jump up ^ Perhaps the largest source of information about these indentures are dozens of debt
proceedings against Indians in David T. Konig, ed. Plymouth Court Records, 1686-1859, (Wilmington, Del.: Pilgrim
Society, 1979-1981); Also important are the contracts reprinted int John Strong, "Sharecropping the Sea:
Shinnecock Whalers in the Seventeenth Century," in The Shinnecock Indians: A Culture History, edited by Gaynell
Stone [Readings in Long Island Archaeology and Ethnohistory, Volume VI] (Lexington, Mass.: Ginn Custom
Publishing, 1983), 231-263, and in Philip Rabito-Wyppensenwah, "Discovering the Montauketts in Rediscovered
Documents," and "Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Native American Whaling on Eastern Long Island," in The
History and Archaeology of the Montauk, edited by Gaynell Stone [Readings in Long Island Archaeology and
Ethnohistory, volume III] 2nd edition, (Stony Brook, N.Y.: Suffolk County Archaeological Association, 1993), 423-
429, 437-444; Other archives containing Indian indenture contracts include contract of Elisha Osborne. Indenture
contract, 23 June 1755. Arcives, Mashantucket Museum and Research Center, Mashantucket, CT, MSS 191; also,
The collection of the Fairfield Historical Society, Connecticut Colonial Records, Public Records of the Colony of
Connecticut, Volume 1 [Source: http://www.cslib.org/earlygr.html], and the library of the Falmouth Historical
Society in Falmouth, Mass. has some as well, as does the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth, in Yarmouth, Mass.

37. Jump up ^ Sainsbury, "Indian Labor in Early Rhode Island"; Brian D. Carroll, "From Warrior to Soldiers:
New England Indians in the Colonial Military," Ph.D. dissertation (University of Connecticut, 2009); Carroll,
"Savages in the Service of Empire: Native American Soldiers in Gorham's Rangers, 1744-1762," New England
Quarterly 85, no. 3 (2012): 383-429.

38. Jump up ^ Daniel Vickers, "The First Whalemen of Nantucket," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser. 40
(1983): 560–83, and "Nantucket Whalemen in the Deep-Sea Fishery: The Changing Anatomy of an Early American
Labor Force," Journal of American History 72 (1985): 277–96; Elizabeth A. Little, "Indian Contributions to Shore
Whaling," Nantucket Algonquian Studies 8 (1981): 38; Mark A. Nicholas, "Mashpee Wampanoags of Cape Cod, the
Whalefishery, and Seafaring’s Impact on Community Development," American Indian Quarterly 26 (2002): 162–
95; Russell Lawrence Basch, "'Colored' Seamen in the New England Whaling Industry: An Afro-Indian
Consortium," in Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America , ed. James F. Brooks
 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); John Braginton-Smith and Duncan Oliver, Cape Cod Shore Whaling:
America’s First Whalemen (Yarmouth, Mass.: Historical Society of Old Yarmouth, 2004).

39. Jump up ^ Lovell Family Collection. Archives, Falmouth Historical Society, Falmouth, MA.

40. Jump up ^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An
Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26.

41. Jump up ^ Grubb Spring 1994: 6

42. Jump up ^ Galenson 1984: 18

43. Jump up ^ Grubb Dec. 1994: 815

44. Jump up ^ Galenson 1984: 22

45. Jump up ^ Galenson March 1981: 47

46. Jump up ^ Grubb Spring 1994: 21

47. ^ Jump up to: a b Steinfeld, Robert J. (2001). Coercion, contract, and free labor in the nineteenth
century. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge university press. ISBN 0521774004.

48. Jump up ^ Menard, Russel (1973). "From Servant to Freeholder: Status Mobility and Property
Accumulation in Seventeenth-Century Maryland". William and Mary Quarterly. 1 30: 37–64 [50].

49. Jump up ^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An
Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26 [10].

50. Jump up ^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An
Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26.

51. Jump up ^ Abbott Emerson, Smith (1947). Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in
America, 1607-1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

52. Jump up ^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An
Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26 [18].

53. Jump up ^ Taylor, Philip (1971). The Distant Magnet: European Emigration to the U.S.A . London: Ayre
& Spottiswoode.

54. Jump up ^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An
Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26 [21].

55. Jump up ^ Salinger, Sharon V. (1981). "Colonial Labor in Transition: The Decline of Indentured
Servitude in Late Eighteenth‐Century Philadelphia". Labor History. 2 22: 165–191 [169].

56. Jump up ^ Salinger, Sharon V. (1981). "Colonial Labor in Transition: The Decline of Indentured
Servitude in Late Eighteenth‐Century Philadelphia". Labor History. 2 22: 165–191 [181].

57. Jump up ^ Miller, William (1940). "The Effects of the American Revolution on Indentured Servitude".
Pennsylvania History. 3 7: 131–141 [137].

58. Jump up ^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An
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59. Jump up ^ Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor, Jeffrey G. Williamson, eds. Globalization in historical
perspective (2005) p. 72

60. Jump up ^ Gordon K. Lewis and Anthony P. Maingot, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The
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61. Jump up ^ Alexandre Olivier Ecquemelin, The History of Buccaneers in America (1853 edition), p. 46

62. Jump up ^ Lewis and Maingot (2004) p 97

63. Jump up ^ Population, Slavery and Economy in Barbados , BBC.

64. Jump up ^ Higman 1997, p. 108.

 65. Jump up ^ A failed settler society: marriage and demographic failure in early Jamaica, Journal of
Social History, Vol. 28, No. 1, Autumn, 1994, by Trevor Burnard

66. Jump up ^ Walton Lai, Indentured labor, Caribbean sugar: Chinese and Indian migrants to the British
West Indies, 1838-1918 (1993)

67. Jump up ^ Steven Vertovik, "Indian Indentured Migration to the Caribbean," in Robin Cohen, ed. The
Cambridge survey of world migration (1995) pp 57-62

68. Jump up ^ Atkinson, James (1826). An account of the state of agriculture & grazing in New South
Wales. London: J. Cross. p. 110. Retrieved 2012-11-14. "On Sir Thomas Brisbane assuming the Government, it
was ordered, that all persons should, for every 100 acres of land granted to them, take and keep one convict until
the expiration or remission of his sentence."

69. Jump up ^ Perkins, John (1988), "Convict Labour and the Australian Agricultural Company", in
Nicholas, Stephen, The Convict Workers: Reinterpeting Australia's Past , Studies in Australian History, Cambridge
University Press, p. 168, ISBN 9780521361262, retrieved 2012-11-14, "A feature of the Australian Agricultural
Company's operation at Port Stephens was the simultaneous employment [...] of various forms of labour. The
original nucleus of the workforce consisted of indentured servants brought out from Europe on seven-year
contracts."

70. Jump up ^ "Documenting Democracy". Foundingdocs.gov.au. Retrieved 2009-07-04.

71. Jump up ^ Patel, Hasu H. (1972). "General Amin and the Indian Exodus from Uganda". Issue: A
Journal of Opinion 2 (4): 12–22. doi:10.2307/1166488.

72. Jump up ^ M Carter and K Torabully.Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora (Anthem
South Asian Studies)ISBN 978-1843310068

73. Jump up ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". United Nations. Retrieved 2011-10-14.

74. Jump up ^ "US Peonage and involuntary servitude laws". justice.gov. Retrieved 2011-10-14.

References[edit]

 Higman, B. W. (1997). Knight, Franklin W., ed. General History of the Caribbean: The slave societies of the
Caribbean 3 (illustrated ed.). UNESCO. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-333-65605-1.
 Galenson, David W. (March 1981). "White Servitude and the Growth of Black Slavery in Colonial America". The
Journal of Economic History 41 (1): 39–47.

 Galenson, David W. (June 1981). "The Market Evaluation of Human Capital: The Case of Indentured Servitude".
Journal of Political Economy 89 (3): 446–467.

 Galenson, David (March 1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic
Analysis". The Journal of Economic History 44 (1): 1–26.

 Grubb, Farley (July 1985). "The Incidence of Servitude in Trans-Atlantic Migration, 1771-1804". Explorations in
Economic History 22 (3): 316–39.

 Grubb, Farley (Dec. 1985). "The Market for Indentured Immigrants: Evidence on the Efficiency of Forward-Labor
Contracting in Philadelphia, 1745-1773". The Journal of Economic History 45 (4): 855–868.

 Grubb, Farley (Spring 1994). "The Disappearance of Organized Markets for European Immigrant Servants in the
United States: Five Popular Explanations Reexamined". Social Science History 18 (1): 1–30.

 Grubb, Farley (Dec. 1994). "The End of European Immigrant Servitude in the United States: An Economic Analysis
of Market Collapse, 1772-1835". The Journal of Economic History 54 (4): 794–824.

Further reading[edit]

 Abramitzky, Ran; Braggion, Fabio. "Migration and Human Capital: Self-Selection of Indentured Servants to the
Americas," Journal of Economic History, Dec 2006, Vol. 66 Issue 4, pp 882–905,
 Ballagh, James Curtis. White Servitude In The Colony Of Virginia: A Study Of The System Of Indentured Labor In
The American Colonies (1895)

 Brown, Kathleen. Goodwives, Nasty Wenches & Anxious Patriachs: gender, race and power in Colonial Virginia , U.
of North Carolina Press, 1996.
 Hofstadter, Richard. America at 1750: A Social Portrait (Knopf, 1971) pp 33–65 online

 Jernegan, Marcus Wilson Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America, 1607-1783 (1931)

 Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. (Norton, 1975).

 Salinger, Sharon V. To serve well and faithfully: Labor and Indentured Servants in Pennsylvania , 1682-1800.
(2000)

 Khal Torabully and Marina Carter, Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora Anthem Press, London,
2002, ISBN 1-84331-003-1

 Zipf, Karin L. Labor of Innocents: Forced Apprenticeship in North Carolina, 1715-1919 (2005).

 Whitehead, John Frederick, Johann Carl Buttner, Susan E. Klepp, and Farley Grubb. Souls for Sale: Two German
Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America , Max Kade German-American Research Institute Series, ISBN 0-
271-02882-3.

 Marion, Pascal. Dictionnaire étymologique du créole réunionnais, mots d'origine asiatique , Carré de sucre, 2009,
ISBN 978-2-9529135-0-8