Indentured Servants In England s North American Colonies
Slaves existed in the England s North American colonies throughout the 1600s.
However, indentured servitude was very common before the 1680s. For half a
century or so after 1620, most laborers were indentured servants; only a small
proportion were African slaves (Clark, Hewitt, Brown Jaffee, 2007 p64). Indentured
servants were people who signed an indenture, a contract by which they agreed to
work for a serval number of years in exchange for transportation to colonies; in
addition, they would get food, clothing, land, and freedom. The first Indentured
servants in British colonies were introduced by the Virginia Company in 1619. At that
time, there was no slave law; they had same opportunities for freedom with whites.
However, in 1641, Massachusetts... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
Between the 1620s and the 1650s, as the tobacco economy expanded, thousands of
English immigrants flocked to Virginia and Maryland (Clark, Hewitt, Brown
Jaffee, 2007 p73). Indentured servants were used at the beginning. However, with
more people came to American colonies, the prosperity of the colonial economy,
and freed servants demand of land. The colonists realized that the indentured
servants might not the best option, and they need more cheap labor. Tobacco was
the main source of income for most of the colonists. To grow tobacco plantations
needed a significant amount of land and work force. African slaves were a low
price. Slaves labor produced a large number of profits for the plantation owners. By
the early eighteenth century, the rice grown on these plantations because South
Carolina s chief export, and planters turned almost exclusively to imported African
slaves for their workforce (Clark, Hewitt, Brown Jaffee, 2007 p87). By 1690, rice
was growing successful in Carolina, and the rice cultivation spread to Georgia as
well. Some African slaves had some experience of grow rice in West Africa, and
the planters imported more African slaves to grow rice. As rice economy growth,
the number of white servants in Carolinas and Georgia fell, and the population of
slaves increased. That all Negroes and Indians, (free Indians in amity with this
government, and degrees, mulattoes, and mustizoes, who are now free, excepted,)
mulattoes or mustizoes who now are, or shall hereafter be, in this Province, and all
their issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and they are hereby declared to
be, and remain forever hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the
mother (Johnston 1840). Slaves were a cheaper option than indentured servants.
Indentured servants had a