Indentured Servitude

Company towns and indentured servitude are parts of American history that showcase the issues that can arise when human rights are violated and exploited for increased revenue. A simple explanation of the two practices would give away no intended malice— and sometimes, they did work the way they were intended— but more often the uglier side of human nature was revealed and the freedoms of the indentured servants and the employees of the company towns were threatened. Indentured servitude was common practice in the early days of the United States, and was a big source of labor prior to slavery. (Indentured Servants in Colonial Virginia). So what is indentured servitude? Indentured servitude is when a company will sponsor a trip to the United
The company owners often set out to create utopias and wanted very much to micro-manage every aspect of their employees lives in the company town. Many outlawed bars and condemned other activities they disagreed with. Another thing is that the employees had their services deducted from their pay checks— their housing, health care, and any other claim the boss’s could make, often leaving the employees with nothing. Some company towns tried to pay their employees in coupons for the other businesses in the company town, especially the company store. Sometimes the employees could not legally quit their job because they had so much debt stacked against them that they owed to the company towns. (Company Towns). Because the company owned the housing, the employees could be evicted from their homes at the behest of the company. This often happened when workers went on strike. A very tragic and extreme example of this is the Ludlow Massacre, where the workers of Colorado Fuel & Iron Company went on strike and were forced to sleep in tents away from the town. The National Guard and the company then launched an attack on the tent colony and killed dozens of people, including women and children. (A History of the Colorado Coal Field War). Before this assignment, I had heard of both indentured servitude and company towns, but I did not know much about either of the two. My knowledge of indentured servitude was that it was “legal” slavery, and I’d often hear it used in arguments about how white people were also slaves here in the United States, especially the Irish. I only briefly remember learning about company towns, and I knew a little bit about the mining towns specifically. After doing the research, I’m now more aware of this part of United States