Indentured Servitude in the Early American Colony Years - Essay Example

Indentured Servitude Indentured servitude, a form of debt bondage, was established in the early American colony years. Planters, farmers, and shopkeepers in the colonies saw difficulties in hiring free workers, mainly because it easy for potential workers to have their own farms set up. As a result, a solution was to have young workers transported from Germany or England, who would commit themselves to work for years in order to settle their debts. During this indenture duration, servants were never paid wages; however, they were offered accommodation, food, training and clothing. The indenture document detailed the specific number of years a servant was required to work, after which they would earn freedom1. Not all servants were willingly sent. There were several cases of kidnapping, especially with the white slaves. In the 17th century, about two thirds of the New World settlers from the Isles of British came as indentured servants. Due to the high rates if death, several servants never lived to see freedom in the end of their terms. In early 19th century and late 18th century, many Europeans did travel to the colonies as the redemptioners, which is a form of indenture (Galenson 1984). Indentures had various restrictions. For example, indentures were not allowed to marry or get married without permission from their owner. They were subjected to physical punishment, and their labor obligations were enforced by courts. The law even lengthened the term of women indentures in case they became pregnant. However, contrary to the slaves, servants were given a guarantee that they would be set free from bondage after their terms elapse. At the end of their term, servants received freedom dues payment and joined the free members of the society. In fact, one could sell or buy indentures contract of servants as well as their right to labor, but not the person per se as a property. Both female and male servants could be at any given point be subjected to violence, sometimes resulting to their death. Generally, indentured servitude was a mechanism of having the number of colonists increased, particularly in the British and English colonies2. Convict labor and voluntary migration provided many people, and other means of offering settlement was inevitable because the journey across the Atlantic was somehow dangerous. In the end, contract laborers became a significant group of people and very many that saw the United States Constitution count them in the appointment of representatives (Rosenbloom 2008). Indentured servitude, from 1620s, was a major element of the colonial labor economics until the American Revolution. Very few indentures arrived in the period of revolution war, leading to the decline of indenturing practice consequently. There were various factors that led to the decline of indentured servitude. The increased demand for trained and skilled workers due to the expansion of the production of staple crop, and the increase of the price of indentured agricultural labor facilitated the decline. For example, the cost of indentured servants rose by about 60 percent throughout the 1680s in many colonial areas. The relative cost of labor changed with the increase in real income in England and Europe. This together with improved transportation efficiency and productivity with smaller crew sizes and relatively cheap rates of insurance reduced the voyage costs to the colonies, and therefore the immigrants could pay for it themselves and refrain from getting engaged in indentured contracts. The increasing prices for English servants made the elastic supply of Africans more desirable and less expensive comparatively. Colonial farmers never preferred training adult slaves to perform skilled labor and went for younger Africans on reaching colonies, or to train children of adult slaves in British America already3. By the end of the 17th century, African slaves filled the positions of unskilled labor, while the white indentured servants filled the positions of the skilled service. Africans however began replacing the indentured servants in both unskilled and skilled positions (Galenson 1984). To sum up, indentured servants arrived first in America in the decade that followed the Jamestown settlement by the Virginia Company in 1607. The indentured servitude idea was born out of the need for cheap labor. The very first settlers realized soon that they had vast land to take care of, with no one to service it. The Virginia Company developed an indentured servitude system in order to attract workers after the passage to the colonies for the wealthy and for all expensive. The indentured servants ended up being very pivotal to the colonial economy. The Virginia colony timing was ideal; this is because of the thirty years of war that had left the economy of Europe so depressed, with many unskilled and skilled laborers lacking work. A glimmer of hope was offered by the new life in the new world, explaining how one half to two thirds of immigrants arrived as indentured servitudes in American colonies. Servants were subjected to four to seven working years in order to earn freedom dues, room, lodging, board, and passage. Although the life of indentured servants was restrictive and harsh, it was not slavery. Their rights were protected by some laws, although their life was not a very easy one, with punishments meting out to people who crossed boundaries harsher than for non servants (Rosenbloom 2008). The contract of indentured servants could be extended as a punishment in case one breaks the law like running away or female servants getting pregnant. Many historians have argued that indentured servants who survived the work and awarded freedom package were better off than newly arriving immigrants coming freely to the country. Their contract, sometimes, included at least 25 land acres, arms, a cow, a year’s worth of corn and new clothes. Some of the servants rose to become part of elites of the colonial system4. However, for most of the indentured servants who survived the perfidious journey by sea and very callous and harsh life conditions in the new world, their satisfaction was their modest life as those with freedom in a mushrooming colonial economy. In 1619, the first black Africans arrived in Virginia. They were first treated as indentured servants, with no slave laws put in place, and given similar opportunities as the whites for freedom cues. However, the slave laws were passed soon, in Virginia in 1661 and 1641 in Massachusetts. Small freedoms that may have been in place for the black Africans were withdrawn. With the growth of labor demands, so the cost of indentured servants did. Many owners of the land felt threatened by the freed servants who demanded for land (Rosenbloom 2008). The problems of indentured servitude were then realized by the colonial elite. African slaves were turned to by landowners as an ever renewable and more profitable source of labor. The shift from indentured servants to racial slavery began. During the period of 17th and 18th century, various institutions of labor market developed to enhance the labor movement in response to the already created opportunities by American factor proportions. Even though some immigrants moved on their own, most of the immigrants were indentured servants or African slaves. Due to the cost of passage, exceeding income of a half a year for British immigrant and income for a full year for German immigrant, very few migrants from Europe could pay the sum to the Americas. They did this by indentures or signing contracts, committing to work for a given number of years, with their labor as the only viable asset to them. British merchants sold these contracts to colonists in America. This, indentured servitude, was introduced in 1619 by the Virginia Company, and rose from of combination of two other labor types used widely in England: service in apprenticeship and husbandry. There were other cases where migrants borrowed money in order to settle their passage and signed to repay the merchants through pledging to offer themselves as American servants, also known as redemptioner servitude5. Because redemtioners could predict the terms they might negotiate for labor in advance, they increased the risk, presumably, they committed themselves for other benefits, and for example, an opportunity to pick their own master and choose where they would get employed (Galenson 1984). Although immigration data for the period of colonies are incomplete and scattered, scholars have estimated that between about half and three quarters of immigrants from Europe who arrived at the colonies came as redemptioner or indentured servants. The terms of servant service varied in response to different productivity of individuals, conditions of employment, and balance of demand and supply in different locations. Other major source of labor was the forced African slave migration. The introduction of slavery in the West Indies was done in earlier dates. In the late 17th century, big numbers of slaves were imported to mainland colonies. The proportion of the blacks in Chesapeake area rose to 40 percent from 13 percent from 1700 to 1780. In Georgia and South Carolina, the share of black population rose to 41 percent from 18 percent in the same period. This explained the transition from indentured Europeans to African enslave labor, resulting from shifts in demand and supply conditions in the Trans Atlantic and England slave market. Conditions of Europe however improved after 1650; this reduced the indentured servant supply, and increased competition at the same time in the slave trade, lowering the slave prices. In essence, the early experience of the colonies with indentured servants paved way for slavery transition6. Just like slaves, the indentured servants were not free, and their ownership could be transferred easily and freely from one owner to another (Rosenbloom 2008). However, contrary to slaves, indentured servants could look forward to becoming free some day. Over time, there was a regional marked division in institutions of labor market emerged in the colonial America. The use of slaves was only concentrated in Lower South and Chesapeake, where the staple crop presence provided rewards economically for scale of cultivation expansion beyond the achievable size with family labor. The indentured servants, European immigrants, concentrated in the Middle Colonies and Chesapeake, where servants expected to get agricultural opportunities once they complete their term of servant service7. Although New England could support the self sufficient farmers, the soil and climate were not that favorable to the commercial agriculture expansion, since it attracted few indentured servants, slaves, and free immigrants relatively (Rosenbloom 2008). In summary, this paper has discussed the origin, process and decline of indentured servitude. List of References Galenson, David. "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". The Journal of Economic History 44 (1): 1984, 1–26. Rosenbloom, Joshua. "Indentured Servitude in the Colonial U.S.". EH.Net Encyclopedia, 2008. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Rosenbloom.Indenture Read More