Indentured Servants in Colonial America

Indentured Servants in Colonial America

Indentured Servants
In
Colonial America
By: Sierra Kaylin Sullins
16 December 2013
American History (DC)
Research Paper

Slavery was widely accepted in Europe and America. Only a small number of people saw slavery as morally wrong and degrading. The indentured servants came over seas to pursue a better life and freely practice their religion. Once the number of indentured servants slowly died out, eventually completely, the enslavement of African Americans was the source of all labor on plantation farms. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that all forms of slavery were finally abolished.
Unprivileged peoples in places such as China, Japan and India sought after a better life in the Americas. However, since they did not have a sufficient amount of money for commodities like food, clothing and housing, a contractor in their destination would provide all of those things for them in exchange for their labor. During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, people migrated to the Americas and worked on plantations, but unlike slaves, they only had to work there for as long as their contract stated. They worked to cultivate many cash crops, such as tobacco, and this brought great wealth to the employers. However even though indentured servitude was not as dramatic as slavery, it still had an overall negative impact on the world by altering its demographics and forcing the indentured servants to face terrible conditions.
Along with the growth of tobacco, rice, and indigo came with it the rise of indentured servitude. The servants’ hard work was needed for the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of these cash crops. Though, many indentured servants were treated somewhat like slaves, they did have some incentives and rights. For example, Virginia and Maryland operated under what was known as the “Headright System.” Which explained that, for each laborer brought across the Atlantic, the master was rewarded with 50 acres of land. The system was mostly used by...

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