Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. They included men and women; most were under age 21, and most became helpers on farms (performing manual labour) or house servants (performing domestic servitude). They were not paid; wages and cash were in too short supply for that. It was a system that provided jobs and—most important—transportation for poor young people from the overcrowded labor markets of Europe to labor-short America. The great majority became farmers and farm wives.

America

In colonial North America, farmers, planters, and shopkeepers found it very difficult to hire free workers, primarily because cash was short and it was so easy for those workers to set up their own farm. Consequently, the more common solution was to pay the passage of a young worker from England or Germany, who would work for several years to pay off the travel costs debt. During that indenture period they were not paid wages, but they were provided food, room, clothing, and training. 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. 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. Legal arrangements of this type have been widespread throughout world history in different forms.

Workers, usually Europeans, including Irish, Scottish, English, and Germans, immigrated to Colonial America in substantial numbers as indentured servants, particularly to the British Thirteen Colonies. In the 17th century, nearly two-thirds of English settlers came as indentured servants, although indentured servitude was not a guaranteed route to economic autonomy. Given the high death rate, many servants did not live to the end of their terms. In the 18th and early 19th century, numerous Europeans traveled to the colonies as redemptioners, a form of indenture.

It has been estimated that the redemptioners comprised almost 80% of the total British and continental emigration to America prior to the Revolution.

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. The most famous of these was Benjamin Franklin who illegally fled his apprenticeship with his brother, and Andrew Johnson, who later became president.

Costs and wages

Wages were low in England, amounting to about 50 shillings a year for a plowman, and 40 shillings a year for an ordinary unskilled worker. Ship captains negotiated prices for transporting (and feeding) a passenger on the seven or eight week journey across the ocean, averaging about 6 pounds to 10 pounds, the equivalent of four or five years of work back in England.

Legal documents

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

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:

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:

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 befound 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 could look forward to a release from bondage. At the end of their term they received a payment known as "freedom dues" and become free members of society. 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 became a "privileged stratum, assigned to lighter work and more skilled tasks."

Redemptionist profile

Indentured servitude was a method of increasing the number of colonists, especially in the 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:

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. 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 Upper South, 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:

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.

Decline

Indentured servitude was a major element of colonial labor economics, from the 1620s until the American Revolution. Few indentures arrived after 1775, so Southern planters turned increasingly to black slaves for their labor force.

Several factors contributed to the decline of indentured servitude. The expansion of staple crop production in the colonies led to an increased demand for skilled workers, and the price of indentured agricultural labor increased. For example, the cost of indentured labor rose by nearly 60 percent throughout the 1680s in some colonial regions. Relative labor costs changed, with an increase in real income in Europe and England. This, along with improved transportation productivity and efficiency with smaller crew sizes, and cheaper insurance rates the proportion of annual income needed to pay for voyage to the colonies, so immigrants could refrain from entering indentured contracts.

Rising prices for English servants made the rather elastic supply of Africans comparatively less expensive and more desirable. Colonial farmers preferred not to train adult slaves to do skilled labor, and chose to train younger Africans when they reached the colonies or to train the children of adult slaves already in British America. By the turn of the 17th century, unskilled labor positions were often filled by African slaves and skilled service positions were still filled by white indentured servants. Thereafter, Africans began to replace indentured servants in both skilled and unskilled positions.

Caribbean

A half million Europeans went as indentured servants to the Caribbean (primarily the south Caribbean, Trinidad, French Guiana, and Surinam) before 1840. 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. 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 was 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.

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. In 1643, there were 37,200 whites in Barbados (86% of the population). Many indentured servants were captured by the English during Cromwell’s expeditions to Ireland and Scotland, who were forcibly brought over between 1649 and 1655.

After 1660, fewer indentured servants came from Europe to the Caribbean. Newly freed servant farmers, given a few acres of land, were unable to make a living because profitable sugar plantations needed to cover hundreds of acres. The landowners’ reputation as cruel masters became a deterrence to the potential indentured servant. In the 17th century, the islands became known as a death traps, as between 33 to 50 percent of indentured servants died before they were freed, many from Yellow fever, malaria and other diseases.

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. Indeed, From 1846 to 1932, an estimated 28 million Indians departed India 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.

Australia and Pacific

In the article on the history of Vanuatu, it states that, "During the 1860s, planters in Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the Samoa Islands, in need of laborers, encouraged a long-term indentured labor trade called "blackbirding." At the height of the labor trade, more than one-half the adult male population of several of the Islands worked abroad".

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 (from Melanesia, mainly the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, with a small number from the Polynesian and Micronesian islands such as Samoa, Kiribati and Tuvalu). They were collectively known as Kanakas.

How many Islanders were kidnapped (or ''blackbirded'') is unknown and remains controversial. Whether Islanders were legally recruited, persuaded, deceived, coerced or forced to leave their homes and travel by ship to Queensland is difficult. 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 tended to relate to the first 10–15 years of the trade.

Australia repatriated many of these people to their places of origin in the period 1906-1908 under the provisions of the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901.

The Australian 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.

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, 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", and indentured service is considered a form of servitude. 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.

See also

Indenture (document)

Redemptioner

Runaway servants

Slavery

Coolie

History of Guyana

Involuntary servitude

Trafficking in human beings

Bracero Program

Padrone system

Indian indenture system

Indentured servitude in Pennsylvania

Further reading

Immigrant Servants Database

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

Saxton, Martha. ''Being Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America'' New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.

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

Notes

External links

GUIANA 1838 - a film about indentured labourers

White slavery and indentured servitude

Category:Debt bondage

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