In the meantime, servants—whether seasoned or unseasoned—were treated as property subject to overwork and beatings. For instance, in Alice Proctor, whom Captain John Smith termed a proper and civil gentlewoman, arranged for her runaway maidservant Elizabeth Abbott to be beaten, and the punishment was so severe that Abbott died. Other female servants were victims of sexual assault. DeVries worried that servants were not treated with appropriate dignity.
John Pott, a Jamestown physician and future Virginia governor, ransomed her freedom for two pounds of beads. On at least two occasions, servants banded together to protest the way they were treated. In both cases, the authorities were notififed before the plans could be carried out, and the conspirators were punished.
According to Berkeley, four of the Gloucester County conspirators were hanged for their actions. The General Assembly did pass legislation aimed at protecting servants from mistreatment.
In , the assembly further directed masters not to make bargains with their servants in an attempt to trick or manipulate them into extended terms of service. Other acts aimed to protect the limited rights of Virginia Indian servants. Of course, these laws were neither preventative nor always enforced; rather, they reflected the harsh reality of servitude in Virginia, a reality that, as time passed, became less and less distinct from chattel slavery.
Morgan wrote. For much of the seventeenth century, those servants were white English men and women—with a smattering of Africans, Indians, and Irish—under indenture with the promise of freedom.
Most historians have explained this shift by citing either social or economic shifts in Virginia beginning around the s. By harnessing that discontent and, in the name of racial solidarity, pointing it in the direction of enslaved Africans, white elites could create a more stable workforce and one that was less likely to threaten their own interests. Other historians have observed that the flow of English servants began to dry up beginning in the s and fell off dramatically around , forcing planters to rely more heavily on slaves.
Slavery did not end indentured servitude, in other words; the end of servitude gave rise to slavery. The historian John C. Over time, as the supply of enslaved Africans increased and their prices decreased, farmers and planters agreed that they preferred a slave for life to a servant who had the hope of freedom.
Even so, indentured servants—particularly those with specialized skills—and convict servants continued to be imported to the colony throughout the eighteenth century. Encyclopedia Virginia Grady Ave. Virginia Humanities acknowledges the Monacan Nation , the original people of the land and waters of our home in Charlottesville, Virginia.
We invite you to learn more about Indians in Virginia in our Encyclopedia Virginia. Skip to content. Contributor: Brendan Wolfe. Origins Servitude had a long history in England, dating back to medieval serfdom. Land and Labor Merchants of Virginia.
Tobacco Tamper. A Virginia Indian in a headdress holds a bow in one hand and tobacco leaves in the other. William Buckland Palladian Room. The formal, Palladian-style room in Gunston Hall features rococo woodwork. June The English Parliament passes the Ordinance of Labourers, declaring that all men and women under the age of sixty who do not practice a craft must serve anyone requiring their labor.
January 12, The English Parliament passes the Statute of Artificers, which compiles and revises years' worth of law regarding indentured servitude.
It is still in effect when Jamestown is founded in He is awarded the next open appointment as prebendary of Bristol Cathedral, which he will take up in November 18, The Virginia Company of London issues its "Instructions to George Yeardley," which include the establishment of the General Assembly and the headright system. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Indentured servitude refers to a contract between two individuals, in which one person worked not for money but to repay an indenture, or loan, within a set time period.
Indentured servitude was popular in the United States in the s as individuals, mainly European immigrants, worked in exchange for the price of passage to America. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was passed after the Civil War, made indentured servitude illegal in the U. Today, it is banned in almost all countries. Essentially, indentured servitude was a kind of barter system. For example, someone who sought a new life in America, but who could not afford the expensive steamship fare from another country, would contract with a wealthy U.
Indentured servitude in the U. Many early American settlers needed cheap labor to help manage their large estates and farmland, and plenty of landowners agreed to fund the passage of European immigrants to Virginia in exchange for their labor.
Approximately , European workers immigrated to the American colonies in the s as indentured servants, and indentured servitude continued throughout much of the s—albeit at a slower pace. Other parts of the world also engaged in some version of indentured servitude at around the same time that it was happening in the United States. For example, a great many people left Europe for the Caribbean to work as indentured servants on sugar plantations.
Under indentured servitude, the contract stipulated that the worker was borrowing money for transportation and would repay the lender by performing a certain kind of labor for a set period. During its heyday, the indentured servitude system allowed landowners to provide only food and shelter for indentured servants, as opposed to wages. Some landowners offered their servants basic medical care, but typically labor contracts did not provide for this.
Some indentured servants served as cooks, gardeners, housekeepers, field workers, or general laborers; others learned specific trades such as blacksmithing, plastering, and bricklaying, which they could choose to turn into careers later. Most workers who became indentured servants were males, generally in their late teens and early twenties, but thousands of women also entered into these agreements and often worked off their debts as household employees or domestic servants. Although some indentured servants completed their contracts and received land, livestock, tools, and other necessities to set out on their own, many others did not live to pay off their contracts because they perished from diseases or work-related accidents; some also ran away before completing their terms of service.
In general, indentured servants enjoyed little personal freedom. The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude. Landowners turned to African slaves as a more profitable and ever-renewable source of labor and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun. All rights reserved.
History Detectives. Learn more about Indentured Servants. Indentured Servants In The U. New York: W. Norton, An unflattering portrait of servants themselves but still a useful overview of the acquisition of servants and the roles they played in the colonies. Equally detailed treatment of the convict labor system.
Tomlins, Christopher. Revises downward earlier estimates for the total number of indentured servants in the American colonies and argues that the institution may not have been as important as many other scholars have argued.
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