Indentured Servitude: Description, Causes And Treatment Of The Servants

Indentured servitude: Description, Causes and treatment of the servants

Indentured servitude is the historical practice of contracting people to work for a fixed period of time, typically threeto seven years (could be extended if he tried to run away or refused to work), in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of the contract orindenture. Most indentured servants were under age twenty-one. Male indentures mainly did manual labor and worked on farms. Female indentures worked as domestic servants and were expected to marry once theirterms of servitude expired. Indentured servants did not have the same rights as free men and we treated differently than free men.

The development of commerce and capitalism in the 1500s and 1600sin England created a large number of impoverished people in England which the country did not want and for many reasons like forced exile, lures and to escape bad living conditions in their countrypoor people who wanted to go to America became a commodity of profit for the merchants, traders and their eventual masters in America. Indentured servitude first appeared in America a little over adecade after the settlement of Jamestown in 1607.

There was a large need for labor; there was an abundance of land but high transportation costs created an obstacle for migration to ease the strainon the colonies because of the scarcity of labor. The Virginia Company, attempting to overcome high transportation costs created various schemes to increase migration that resulted in indenturedservitude. Also another reason for the emigration was the great profit to be made. Not only did English immigrate to Colonial America but so did Irish, Scottish and Germans also did immigrate.

Thevoyage to America took eight to twelve weeks and the ships carrying them were similar to slave ships in the sense that they were packed in by the same fanatic concern for profits that gave the slave...