Indentured Servants

Introduction

Indentured servitude was a form of bound labor. The most common type of indenture or contract in the British colonies required that the servant serve a master "well and faithfully [in] such employments as the master might assign" for a specified period of time, usually three to four years, and in a particular location. In return, the master promised to pay the passage of the servant to the colonies, provide food, clothing, and housing during the term of indenture, and, depending on the particular transaction, provide the servant "freedom dues" upon completion of service (Lai, pp. 256).

Indenture Document

The indenture referred to a document, a form that contained the terms of the servitude. It recorded the beginning and ending dates of service and the provisions of freedom dues. At the end of the term, the contract was the only proof that the individual had that she or he was free. An English pamphleteer, John Hammond, strongly urged servants to take special care to guard the document in order to avoid any problems when the term of service was completed.

The precise terms of the indenture ranged widely, depending upon where the servant was located and the type of labor performed. Skilled servants occasionally received wages or clauses were included in their contracts to permit them to work outside the master's domain at times when the master had insufficient tasks for the servant. German servants sometimes asked that they be taught English as part of the agreement. Freedom dues varied widely as well and included anything from money and land to tools, new or used clothes, animals, or seeds. One historian of the Chesapeake described how masters extended the length of servants' contracts for minor infractions in order to keep them from attaining their freedom. If they successfully fulfilled their contracts, servants often had a difficult time collecting their freedom dues. In one case a master literally fled before he paid the servant his dues.

Origins of Indentured Servants

The origins of indentured labor remain somewhat hazy. In the early 1580s the Englishman Sir George Peckham wrote a pamphlet intended to secure subscriptions from individuals who wished to colonize Newfoundland. A portion of the pamphlet analyzed why North American colonies were important for the British, and the concluding section argued that peopling these colonies need not be difficult. Peckham outlined the principle upon which indentured labor was based. English men and women would voluntarily exchange the cost of their passage to the New World for a fixed period of labor servitude. Historians credit the Virginia Company, the joint stock company authorized to settle and develop Virginia, with inventing the form of indentured servitude used throughout the colonies. A broadside issued by the company in 1609 referred to indentured labor, suggesting that servants arrived in the British North American colonies in the early settling of Jamestown. This one-page advertisement announced that wealthy and noble persons had agreed to emigrate to the new colony in the Chesapeake Bay, and that all those who wished to make the ...