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Essay On Indentured Servants

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Essay On Indentured Servants
Indentured Servants and Slavery

Indentured servitude and slavery were part of American history for many years. It was introduced in the first settlement, Jamestown, which utilized these groups to help in the economic start of this new nation. Although these two terms seem similar they also have significant differences which will be discussed. In 1607, indentured servants first came to America ten years after the Jamestown settlement was established. Early settlers realized after coming to this new world that they had a lot of land to take care of. Nevertheless, there was not enough people to take care of the land. It was then that the settlers considered indentured servitude to provide cheap labor. In 1619, the first African
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Indentured servants were usually men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five and made an agreement with wealthy colonists to work for a certain amount of years to obtain land, money, or something that they needed. However, unfair colonists told the indentured servants that they had to work for a longer amount of time than it said in their agreement because of necessities they used while they were laboring for the colonist. Then years later they said the same thing over again to them to trap them in a continuous loop of labor to where indentured servants were almost considered slaves. Slavery wasn’t something you had a choice to be apart of. It was labor that you were made to do your entire life obtaining nothing in return. Slavery was forever and it didn’t stop just with you. If you were a slave and had children then your children would automatically be slaves too. Although Indentured servitude and slavery have similarities they are also quite different. Indentured servants were young men looking to work in exchange for land or money in America. Slaves were brought to America and forced to work for the colonists receiving nothing in return. Indentured servants and slavery were both groups that were involved in America’s first colonization and although they were frequently taken advantage of, they were very important in building this new nation’s

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