Indentured Servants Research Paper
Indentured Servants
HST-201 – U.S. History
Indentured Servants Indentured servants were an important piece of establishing colonies in North America. They first arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in the sixteenth century (PBS, n.d.). The growth of tobacco and other crops created a tremendous need for labor in the early colonies. With this need came many changes, problems and unintended consequences of using indentured servants.
The Beginning
Indentured servants were colonists that exchanged several years of labor for the cost of passage to America and the grant of land (Tindall & Shi, 2013, p.38). The idea of indentured servants was born when colonists realized that they had a tremendous amount of land to care for, but no one to care for it. This became very prevalent when tobacco became profitable, as it was labor intensive and the need for servants was rapidly growing (PBS, n.d.). At this time the European economy was depressed, which left many laborers looking for work. The opportunity of new life in America offered hope; which explains how one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants. (PBS, n.d.). Typically, an indentured servant would work for several years. This …show more content…
The threat posed by the increasing number of indentured servants might have been one of the reasons this type of servitude diminished. (Dictionary of American History, 2013) Another reason for the decline of indentures servants what that many farmers and plantation owners began to rely on the labor of enslaved Africans. Slaves were more costly than servants, but they served for life and by the 1660s colonial legislative assemblies had legalized lifelong slavery (Tindall & Shi, 2013,
HST-201 – U.S. History
Indentured Servants Indentured servants were an important piece of establishing colonies in North America. They first arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in the sixteenth century (PBS, n.d.). The growth of tobacco and other crops created a tremendous need for labor in the early colonies. With this need came many changes, problems and unintended consequences of using indentured servants.
The Beginning
Indentured servants were colonists that exchanged several years of labor for the cost of passage to America and the grant of land (Tindall & Shi, 2013, p.38). The idea of indentured servants was born when colonists realized that they had a tremendous amount of land to care for, but no one to care for it. This became very prevalent when tobacco became profitable, as it was labor intensive and the need for servants was rapidly growing (PBS, n.d.). At this time the European economy was depressed, which left many laborers looking for work. The opportunity of new life in America offered hope; which explains how one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants. (PBS, n.d.). Typically, an indentured servant would work for several years. This …show more content…
The threat posed by the increasing number of indentured servants might have been one of the reasons this type of servitude diminished. (Dictionary of American History, 2013) Another reason for the decline of indentures servants what that many farmers and plantation owners began to rely on the labor of enslaved Africans. Slaves were more costly than servants, but they served for life and by the 1660s colonial legislative assemblies had legalized lifelong slavery (Tindall & Shi, 2013,