White folks 'slaves' to the machine longer than most other nations...INDENTURED SERVANT CONTRACTS

WHITE PEOPLE ARE NOT RACIST
NOR PRIVILEGED:
HERE'S A LIST OF "WHITE SLAVE TRADES"
DATING BACK OVER 3,000 YEARS:

1.THE ROMAN SLAVE TRADES
2.THE GREEK SLAVE TRADES
3.THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN "WHITE SLAVE TRADES"
4.THE IRISH SLAVE TRADES
5.THE GERMAN SLAVE TRADES
6.THE FRENCH SLAVE TRADES
7.THE CRIMEAN SLAVE TRADES
8.THE POLISH SLAVE TRADES
9.THE SLAVIC SLAVE TRADES
10.THE ARAB WHITE SLAVE TRADES
11.THE BARBARY WHITE SLAVE TRADES
12.THE AFRICAN TRANS-SAHARAN WHITE SLAVE TRADES
13.THE AFRICAN SUB-SAHARAN WHITE SLAVE TRADES
14.THE MIDDLE-EASTERN WHITE SLAVE TRADES
15.THE WHITE SLAVE TRADES OF THE GOLDEN HORDE
16.THE NEW ZEALAND WHITE SLAVE TRADES
17.THE AMERICAN WHITE SLAVE TRADES
18.THE WORLDWIDE SEX TRAFFICKING OF WHITES

ALL OF THESE INCLUDED MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN

********************************************************************************************


"It's true and I'm sorry to acknowledge this
but the white folks have been "slaves" to the machine
alot longer then most nations....prayers out"
EAGLE CLAW

EAGLE CLAW

https://www.facebook.com/fleuryjayson?fref=photo

 

INDENTURED SERVANT

Indentured servant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Indenture contract signed with an X by Henry Meyer in 1737

Indentured servitude was a labour system whereby young people paid for their passage to the New World
by working for an employer for a certain number of years.

It was widely employed in the 18th century in the British colonies in North Americaand elsewhere.

It was especially used as a way for poor youth in Britain and the German states to get passage to the American colonies. They would work for a fixed number of years, then be free to work on their own.

The employer purchased the indenture from the sea captain who brought the youths over;
he did so because he needed labour.

Some worked as farmers or helpers for farm wives, some were apprenticed to craftsmen.

Both sides were legally obligated to meet the terms, which were enforced by local American courts.

Runaways were sought out and returned.

About half of the white immigrants to the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries were indentured.

During the late 17th and early 18th centuries poor children from England and France were kidnapped
and sold into indentured labor in the Caribbean for a minimum of five years,
but most times their contracts were bought and sold repeatedly and some laborers never attained their freedom.^[1]

Indentured servants in the North American colonies[edit]

Between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants to the American colonies between the 1630s and American Revolution had come under indentures.^[2] However, while half the European immigrants to the 13 colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired. Free wage labor was the more common (in this sense) for Europeans in the colonies.^[3] Indentured persons were numerically important mostly in the region from Virginia north to New Jersey. Other colonies saw far fewer of them. The total number of European immigrants to all 13 colonies before 1775 was about 500,000; of these 55,000 were involuntary prisoners. (A separate 300,000 were enslaved Africans.) Of the 450,000 or so European arrivals who came voluntarily, Tomlins estimates that 48% were indentured.^[4] About 75% were under the age of 25. The age of adulthood for men was 24 years (not 21); those over 24 generally came on contracts lasting about 3 years.^[5] Regarding the children who came, Gary Nash reports that, "many of the servants were actually nephews, nieces, cousins and children of friends of emigrating Englishmen, who paid their passage in return for their labor once in America."^[6]
Farmers, planters, merchants, and shopkeepers in the American colonies found it very difficult to hire free workers, primarily because it was so easy for potential workers to set up their own farms.^[7] Consequently, a common solution was to transport a young worker from Britain or a German state, who would work for several years to pay off the debt of their travel costs. During the indenture period the servants were not paid cash wages, but were provided with food, accommodation, clothing and training. The indenture document specified how many years the servant would be required to work, after which they would be free. Terms of indenture ranged from one to seven years with typical terms of four or five years.^[8] In southern New England, a variant form of indentured servitude, which controlled the labor of Native Americans through an exploitative debt-peonage system, developed in the late 17th century and continued through to the period of the American Revolution.
Not all European servants were sent willingly. Several instances of kidnapping for transportation to the Americas are recorded and this falls more clearly into the category of "white slavery". While these white slaves were often indentured in the same way as their willing counterparts it is an important distinction. An illustrative example is that of Peter Williamson (1730–1799). As historian Richard Hofstadter pointed out, "Although efforts were made to regulate or check their activities, and they diminished in importance in the eighteenth century, it remains true that a certain small part of the white colonial population of America was brought by force, and a much larger portion came in response to deceit and misrepresentation on the part of the spirits [recruiting agents]."^[9]
Most white immigrants arrived in Colonial America as indentured servants, usually as young men and women from Britain or Germany, under the age of 21. Typically, the father of a teenager would sign the legal papers, and work out an arrangement with a ship captain, who would not charge the father any money.^[10] The captain would transport the indentured servants to the American colonies, and sell their legal papers to someone who needed workers. At the end of the indenture, the young person was given a new suit of clothes and was free to leave. Many immediately set out to begin their own farms, while others used their newly acquired skills to pursue a trade.^[11][12][13]A few became sufficiently prosperous that they were eventually able to acquire indentured servants of their own.^[14]
Given the high death rate, many servants did not live to the end of their terms.^[8] In the 18th and early 19th century, numerous Europeans, mostly from outside the British Isles, traveled to the colonies as redemptioners, a particularly harsh form of indenture.^[15]
Indentured servants were a separate category from bound apprentices. The latter were American-born children, usually orphans or from an impoverished family who could not care for them. They were under the control of courts and were bound out to work as an apprentice until a certain age. Two famous bound apprentices were Benjamin Franklin who illegally fled his apprenticeship to his brother, and Andrew Johnson, who later became President of the United States.^[16]
George Washington used indentured servants;^[17] in April 1775, he offered a reward for the return of two runaway white servants.^[18]
Development[edit]

Indentured servitude in the Americas was first developed by the Virginia Company in the early seventeenth century as a method for transporting labor to its newfound British colonies.
Before the rise of indentured servitude, a large demand for labor existed in the colonies to help build settlements, farm crops and serve as tradesmen, but laborers in Europe could not afford transatlantic crossing, which could cost roughly half a worker’s annual wage.^[19]
In the 18th century, wages in Great Britain were low because of a surplus of labor. The average was about 50 shillings (£2.50, equivalent to £327 in 2014)^[20] a year for a plowman, and 40 shillings (£2) a year for an ordinary unskilled worker. Ships' captains negotiated prices for transporting and feeding a passenger on the seven- or eight-week journey across the ocean, averaging about £5 to £7, the equivalent of four or five years of work back in England.^[21][22]
European institutions could not lend to the workers since there was no effective way to enforce a loan from across the Atlantic, rendering labor immobile via the Atlantic because of capital market imperfections.^[19]
To address this imperfection, the Virginia Company would allow laborers to borrow against their future earnings at the Virginia Company for a fixed number of years in order to raise enough capital to pay for their voyage. Evidence shows this practice was in use by 1609, only two years after the founding of the Virginia Company's original Jamestown settlement.^[23] However, this practice created a financial risk for the Virginia Company. If workers died or refused to work, the investment would be lost.^[23]
By 1620, the Virginia Company switched to selling contracts of "one hundred servants to be disposed amongst the old Planters" as soon as the servants reached the colonies.^[24] This minimized risk on its investment to the 2–3 months of transatlantic voyage. As the system gained in popularity, individual farmers and tradesmen would eventually begin investing in indentured servants as well.^[25]
Still, demand for indentured labor remained relatively low until the adoption of staple crops, such as sugarcane in the West Indies or tobacco in the American South.^[26] With economies largely based on these crops, the West Indies and American South would see the vast majority of indentured labor.^[27]
Author and historian Richard Hofstadter has written:
The most unenviable situation was that of servants on Southern plantations, living alongside but never with Negro slaves, both groups doing much the same work, often under the supervision of a relentless overseer… Even as late as 1770, William Eddis, the English surveyor of customs at Annapolis, thought that the Maryland Negroes were better off than "the Europeans, over whom the rigid planter exercises an inflexible severity." The Negroes, Eddis thought, were a lifelong property so were treated with a certain care, but the whites were "strained to the utmost to perform their allotted labor."^[28]
Over time the market for indentured servitude developed, with length of contracts showing close correlations to indicators of health and productivity. Tall, strong, healthy, literate or skilled servants would often serve shorter terms than less productive or more sickly servants.^[29][30] Similarly, harsh destinations such as the West Indies would offer shorter contracts compared to the more hospitable colonies.^[26]
The majority of indentured servants ended in the American South, where cash crops necessitated labor-intensive farming. As the Northern colonies moved to more industrialization and trade, they got significantly less indentured immigration.^[31] For example, 96.28% of English emigrants to Virginia and Maryland from 1773 to 1776 were indentured servants. During the same time period, only 1.85% of English emigrants to New England were indentured.^[32]
Legal documents[edit]



Indenture of apprenticeship binding Evan Morgan, a child aged 6 years and 11 months, for a period of 14 years, 1 month. Dated Feb. 1, 1823, Sussex Co., Delaware.
An indenture was a legal contract enforced by the courts. One indenture reads as follows:^[33]
This INDENTURE Witnesseth that James Best a Laborer doth Voluntarily put himself Servant to Captain Stephen Jones Master of the Snow Sally to serve the said Stephen Jones and his Assigns, for and during the full Space, Time and Term of three Years from the first Day of the said James’ arrival in Philadelphia in AMERICA, during which Time or Term the said Master or his Assigns shall and will find and supply the said James with sufficient Meat, Drink, Apparel, Lodging and all other necessaries befitting such a Servant, and at the end and expiration of said Term, the said James to be made Free, and receive according to the Custom of the Country. Provided nevertheless, and these Presents are on this Condition, that if the said James shall pay the said Stephen Jones or his Assigns 15 Pounds British in twenty one Days after his arrival he shall be Free, and the above Indenture and every Clause therein, absolutely Void and of no Effect. In Witness whereof the said Parties have hereunto interchangeably put their Hands and Seals the 6th Day of July in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Three in the Presence of the Right Worshipful Mayor of the City of London. (signatures)
When the ship arrived, the captain would often advertise in a newspaper that indentured servants were for sale:^[34]
Just imported, on board the Snow Sally, Captain Stephen Jones, Master, from England, A number of healthy, stout English and Welsh Servants and Redemptioners, and a few Palatines [Germans], amongst whom are the following tradesmen, viz. Blacksmiths, watch-makers, coppersmiths, taylors, shoemakers, ship-carpenters and caulkers, weavers, cabinet-makers, ship-joiners, nailers, engravers, copperplate printers, plasterers, bricklayers, sawyers and painters. Also schoolmasters, clerks and book-keepers, farmers and labourers, and some lively smart boys, fit for various other employments, whose times are to be disposed of. Enquire of the Captain on board the vessel, off Walnut-street wharff, or of MEASE and CALDWELL.
When a buyer was found, the sale would be recorded at the city court. The Philadelphia Mayor’s Court Indenture Book, page 742, for September 18, 1773 has the following entry:^[35]
James Best, who was under Indenture of Redemption to Captain Stephen Jones now cancelled in consideration of £ 15, paid for his Passage from London bound a servant to David Rittenhouse of the City of Philadelphia & assigns three years to be found all necessaries.
Restrictions

Indentures could not marry without the permission of their owner, were subject to physical punishment
(like many young ordinary servants), and saw their obligation to labor enforced by the courts.

To ensure uninterrupted work by the female servants, the law lengthened the term of their indenture if they became pregnant. But unlike slaves, servants were guaranteed to be eventually released from bondage.

At the end of their term they received a payment known as "freedom dues"
and become free members of society.^[36]

One could buy and sell indentured servants' contracts, and the right to their labor would change hands,
but not the person as a piece of property.

Both male and female laborers could be subject to violence, occasionally even resulting in death.

Richard Hofstadter notes that, as slaves arrived in greater numbers after 1700, white laborers in Virginia
became a "privileged stratum, assigned to lighter work and more skilled tasks".^[28]

He also notes that "Runaways were regularly advertised in the newspapers, rewards were offered,
and both sheriffs and the general public were enlisted to secure their return. ...

The standard penalty in the North, not always rigorously enforced, was extra service of twice the time
the master had lost, though whipping was also common."^[28]
Redemptionist profile

Indentured servitude was a method of increasing the number of colonists, especially in the English
and later British colonies. Voluntary migration and convict labor only provided so many people,
and since the journey across the Atlantic was dangerous, other means of encouraging settlement
were necessary.

Contract-laborers became an important group of people and so numerous that the United States Constitution
counted them specifically in appointing representatives:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years....^[37]
Displaced from their land and unable to find work in the cities, many of these people signed contracts
of indenture and took passage to the Americas. In Massachusetts, religious instruction in the Puritan way
of life was often part of the condition of indenture, and people tended to live in towns.

The labor-intensive cash crop of tobacco was farmed in the American South by indentured laborers
in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[38]

Indentured servitude was not the same as the apprenticeship system by which skilled trades were taught,
but similarities do exist between the two, since both require a set period of work.

The majority of Virginians were Anglican, not Puritan, and while religion did play a large role in everyday lives,
the culture was more commercially based.

In the Chesapeake and North Carolina, tobacco constituted a major percentage of the total agricultural output.
(In the Deep South (mainly Georgia and South Carolina), cotton and rice plantations dominated.)

In the lower Atlantic colonies where tobacco was the main cash crop, the majority of labor that indentured servants performed was related to field work. In this situation, social isolation could increase the possibilities for both direct
and indirect abuse, as could lengthy, demanding labor in the tobacco fields.

The system was still widely practiced in the 1780s, picking up immediately after a hiatus
during the American Revolution.

Fernand Braudel (The Perspective of the World 1984, pp 405f) instances a 1783 report on
"the import trade from Ireland" and its large profits to a ship owner or a captain, who:
"puts his conditions to the emigrants in Dublin or some other Irish port.
Those who can pay for their passage—usually about 100 or 80 [livres tournois]
—arrive in America free to take any engagement that suits them.
Those who cannot pay are carried at the expense of the shipowner,
who in order to recoup his money, advertises on arrival that he has imported artisans, laborers
and domestic servants and that he has agreed with them on his own account to hire their services
for a period normally of three, four, or five years for men and women and 6 or 7 years for children."
In modern terms, the shipowner was acting as an contractor, hiring out his laborers.

Such circumstances affected the treatment a captain gave his valuable human cargo.

After indentures were forbidden, the passage had to be prepaid,
giving rise to the inhumane conditions of Irish 'coffin ships' in the second half of the 19th century.^[39]

Southern New England Native Americans and indenture

Slavery
Contemporary
Historical
By country or region
Religion
Opposition and resistance
Related
v t e

Starting in the late 17th century, in southern New England and parts of Long Island,
Indians were increasingly pulled into an exploitative debt-peonage system designed to control
and assimilate Indian people into the dominant culture as well as channel their labor
into the market-based Atlantic economy.^[40]

Following King Philip's War (1675–1676) most Indians in the region were resigned to reservations or lived i
n increasingly marginal enclaves on the edges of colonial towns.

Due to restricted access to resources,land loss, and changes to the environment caused by European settlement,
many Indians, especially coastal groups, could no longer practice traditional subsistence activities
and therefore became increasingly dependent on European trade goods—cloth, tools, guns, alcohol,
and increasingly, food. Merchants trading these items to Indians

often inflated the cost and, based on a predatory lending scheme, advanced them credit for these purchases,
knowing full well most Indians would not be able to repay the debts.

Eventually when debts mounted, Indians were hauled into court by their creditors.

When they could not pay either their lands, or more commonly their labor, was seized to settle the debt.

Indian debtors were then indentured to their creditors for terms ranging from a few months to sometimes years.

Rare cases exist when Indians were indentured for a decade or more and a few were enslaved for life
(this was quite rare however).^[41]

Many Indians experienced repeated indentures over the course of their lifetimes, amounting to a phenomenon
of 'serial indenture' or debt peonage—multiple short indentures alternating with brief periods of 'freedom.'

The 'time' Indian servants owed could be sold or willed to heirs if a creditor died. There was an active trade in Indian servant labor in the first half of the 18th century. Children were also indentured to pay their parents debts, often from aged six to eighteen (for girls) or twenty-one (for boys).^{[citation needed]}

Assessing how many Indians experienced indenture is difficult as exact Indian populations during the colonial period
are unknown. However, Historian John Sainsbury was able to document that by the mid-18th century
about a third of all Indians in Rhode Island were indentured servants living and working in white households.

Also, the Massachusetts state archives contains numerous petitions, written from the 1730s to 1760s
from Indian tribes in their jurisdiction complaining about abuses in the indenture system and predatory lending
by whites.

Statutes were eventually passed attempting to regulate practices.

Colonial military records do provide some data on Indian indenture as well.

Enlistment records from 1704 to 1726 show that almost two-thirds of Indians who joined the army
were indentured at the time of their enlistment.

Records from 1748 to 1760 show a decline in this rate, but still show almost a third of Native American recruits
being bound to white masters at the time of their enlistment.

One Connecticut regiment raised in 1746 during King George's War (containing 980 men total)
contained 139 Indian men.

Almost half of them had signed their wages over to white creditors before being deployed.^[42]

While many Indians, men, women and children, became servants in New England households,
the labor of many adult men was funneled into the whaling industry on Long Island, Rhode Island, Cape Cod
and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, as well as the coast of eastern Connecticut.

These whaling indentures were somewhat distinct from normal indenture contracts, and stipulated that Indians
serve not as servants in white households but instead as crew members on a certain number of whaling voyages
or 'seasons' of whaling (typically November through April). Throughout most of the colonial period indentured
or heavily indebted Indian whalers were the primary labor force in the early whaling industry.

They remained an important source of labor into the Revolutionary and early national era,
but as their numbers dwindled and the industry expanded exponentially,
they made up an increasingly smaller portion of the labor force.^[43]
Text of Whaling Indenture Contract of Isaac Pepenie
(Wampanoag Indian) to James Lovell Jr. 1729.:
“Witnesseth that Isaac Pepenie Indian of Falmouth, Barnstable labourer, hath . . . of his own free will. . . Bound and obliged himself to Serve James Lovell Junr . . . a Sea faring man, on Diverse Whale Voiages in the several seasons . . . the date of these presents: viz. this winter season in . . . Barnstable, and the next Spring at Nantucket, and former season following in the sloops or vessels that . . . [Lovell] desire, all which respective voyages . . . and any and all materials for the performing of sd. Voyages . . . he the said Isaac Pepenie to have one eighth and diet according to costom . . . as shall be needful with his master for the sum of fifteen pounds which he the said James Lovell doth hereby agree to pay for him, . . . then the sd. Pepenie doth by these [agreements] oblige himself to attend [the] Whale Voiages at the order and direction of said James Lovell, his administrators or assigns in manner aforesaid . . .
this first day of October in the Eleventh year of His Majesty's Reign ano dom 1729.
Isaac Papenie
Barnstable.
We the subscribers two of his Majestys Justices of the Peace for said County being present
at the execution of the premesis do allow and approbate the same as just and reasonable. \
Danl. Parker, Joseph Lothrop”^[44]
Decline

Indentured servitude appeared in the Americas in the 1620s and remained in use as late as 1917.^[45]

The causes behind its decline are a contentious domain in economic history.
The end of debtors' prisons may have created a limited commitment pitfall in which indentured servants
could agree to contracts with ship captains and then refuse to sell themselves once they arrived in the colonies.

Increased lobbying fromimmigrant aid societies led to increased regulation of the indentured labor market,
further increasing the difficulty of enforcing contracts. With less ability to enforce the contracts, demand
for indentured servants may have fallen.

However, most debtor prisons were still in service when indentured servitude disappeared
and many regulations on indentured servitude were put in place well before the disappearance.^[46]

A rise in European per-capita income compared to passage fare during the nineteenth century
may also explain the disappearance of indentured servitude.

While passage from England to the colonies in 1668 would cost roughly 51 percent of English per-capita income,
that ratio would decrease to between 20 and 30 percent by 1841.^[47]

This increase in relative income may have been further supplemented by a demonstrated increase in savings among European laborers, meaning European emigrants would have the capital on hand to pay for their own passage.

With no need for transit capital, fewer laborers would have become indentured,
and the supply of indentured servants would have decreased.^[48][49]

Labor substitutions may have led employers away from indentured servants and towards slaves or paid employees.
In many places, African slaves became cheaper for unskilled and then eventually skilled labor, and most farmhand positions previously filled by indentured servants were ultimately filled by slaves.^[50]

Wage laborers may have been more productive, since employers were more willing to terminate waged employment.
In comparison, firing an indentured servant would mean a loss on the original capital investment spent purchasing the servant’s contract.^[51]

Either substitution would lead to a decrease in demand for indentured servitude.

An additional problem for employers was that, compared to African slaves, European indentured servants
who ran away could not always be easily distinguished from the general white population,
so they were more difficult to re-capture.

Indentured servitude's decline for white servants was also largely a result of changing attitudes that accrued
over the 18th century and culminated in the early 19th century.

Over the 18th century, the penal sanctions that were used against all workers were slowly going away from colonial codes, leaving indentured servants the only adult white labor subject to penal sanctions (with the notable exception of seaman, whose contracts could be criminally enforced up to the 20th century).

These penal sanctions for indentured laborers continued in the United States until the 1830s, and by this point treatment of European laborers under contract became the same as the treatment of wage laborers
(however, this change in treatment didn't apply to workers of color).

This change in treatment can be attributed to a number of factors, such as the growing identification
of white indented labor with slavery at a time when slavery was coming under attack in the Northern states,
the growing radicalism of workers influenced with the rhetoric of the American Revolution, and the expansion
of suffrage in many states which empowered workers politically.

Penal sanctions, previously considered perfectly in line with free labor, became in the 19th century
a way to transform ordinary labor into "contracts of slavery."^[52]
Labor market dynamics

Given the rapid expansion of colonial export industries in the 17th and 18th Century, natural population growth and immigration were unable to meet the increasing demand for workers. As a result, the cost of indentured servants rose substantially. In the Chesapeake Bay, for example, the cost of indentures rose as much as 60% in the 1680s.^[53] The increase in the price of indentures did not however act as an incentive for European workers to emigrate for they were not affected by the price at which they were sold in American ports. As a result, the companies that generated indentures disrupted the price signaling effect and thus the supply of immigrants did not expand sufficiently to meet demand. Some actors in the market attempted to generate incentives for workers by shortening the length of indenture contracts based on the productivity of the prospective emigrant.^[54]

Some American firms also opted to incentivize workers by paying small wages or by negotiating early expiration of indentures.^[55]

The rising cost of indentured labor and its inelastic supply pushed American producers towards other forms of labor. Slaves were substantially cheaper and the supply of them was more abundant for it was not constrained by the slaves’ willingness to emigrate. Additionally, slave traders were directly incentivized by the price mechanism to expand “production” (in the form of raiding expeditions), so supply was relatively elastic. Slavery thus was better able to satisfy labor demands in colonies requiring large quantities of unskilled workers (for example plantation colonies in the Caribbean). Indentures however prevailed in colonies that required skilled workers (in which the cost of training a slave was higher than the price differential between a slave and an indentured servant). Alison Smith and Abbott E Smith’s analysis of London port records shows how destination of indentured emigrants shifted from the West Indies towards New England as early as the 1660s,^[56]

supporting the theory that indentured servitude might have declined in some regions
because of labor market dynamics.
Affordability of emigration

The rise in the affordability of emigration reduced emigrants’ need for external financing in the form of indentures. David Galenson’s analysis on affordability shows that the cost of emigration from Britain to the United States over the course of the 18th Century dropped from 50% of per capita income to less than 10%.^{[clarification needed]}

This is attributable to higher levels of real income in Europe (a result of economic growth in the 18th Century) and to a sharp decline in transportation costs.<sup>[57

]</sup>Innovation had a strong impact on the ease and cost of passenger transportation, reducing the need of indentures.
The railroad made non-port cities a much cheaper destination for emigrants. The steamboat was not necessarily cheaper than older sailing technologies, but it made transatlantic travel much easier and comfortable, an attractive factor for high-income classes (that could easily afford emigration without indentures).^[58]

The British Navy’s efforts against piracy also reduced transportation costs. Safer seas implied smaller crews (for there was no need to man weapons on board) and also reduced insurance costs (ships were at lower risk of being captured). The composition of emigrants also shifted from single males towards entire families. Single males usually left their homes with little if any savings. Instead, families generally liquidated assets in Europe to finance their venture.^[59][60]
Impact of American Revolution

The American Revolution severely limited immigration to the United States. Economic historians differ however
on the long-term impact of the Revolution. Sharon Salinger argues that the economic crisis that followed the war made long-term labor contracts unattractive. His analysis of Philadelphia’s population shows how the percentage of bound citizens fell from 17% to 6.4% over the course of the war.^[61]

William Miller posits a more moderate theory, stating “the Revolution (…) wrought disturbances upon white servitude. But these were temporary rather than lasting”.^[62] David Galenson supports this theory by proposing that British indentures never recovered, but Europeans from other nationalities replaced them.^[63]
Legal deterrence

Several acts passed by the American and the British government fostered the decline of indentures. The English Passenger Vessels Act of 1803, which regulated travel conditions aboard ships, attempted to make transportation more expensive as to stop emigration.

The American abolishment of imprisonment of debtors by federal law (passed in 1833) made prosecution of runaway servants more difficult, increasing the risk of indenture contract purchases.

Robert J. Steinfeld traces the legal history of the permissibility of indentures of this nature in the 19th century,
most of which occurred in the old Northwest Territory, centring around the interpretation of what "involuntary servitude" consisted of in the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, which declared "There shall be neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude in the territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the Party
shall have been duly convicted." The permissibility (or not) of penal sanctions in labor became an issue
of "fundamental law," in which it was questioned whether those sanctions or specific performance enforcements
turned indentured servitude into "involuntary servitude." At the time when the Northwest Ordinance was constructed, white adult servants were still being imported into the United States, and thus, historically, it seems likely that the Ordinance's framers considered indenture to be a form of "voluntary" servitude.^[52]
Caribbean

A half million Europeans went as indentured servants to the Caribbean (primarily the south Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago,French Guiana, and Suriname) before 1840.^[64][65]

Most were young men, with dreams of owning their land or striking it rich quick would essentially sell years of their labor in exchange for passage to the islands. However, forceful indenture also provided part of the servants: contemporaries report that youngsters were sometimes tricked into servitude in order to be exploited in the colonies.^[66]

The landowners on the islands would pay for a servant’s passage and then provide them with food, clothes, shelter and instruction during the agreed upon term. The servant would then be required to work in the landowner’s (master) field for a term of bondage (usually four to seven years). During this term of bondage the servant had a status similar to a son of the master. For example they were not allowed to marry without the master’s permission.

They could own personal property. They could also complain to a local magistrate about mistreatment that exceeded community norms. However, his contract could be sold or given away by his master. After the servant’s term was complete he became independent and was paid “freedom dues”. These payments could take the form of land which would give the servant the opportunity to become an independent farmer or a free laborer. As free men with little money they became a political force that stood in opposition to the rich planters.^[67]

Indentured servitude was a common part of the social landscape in England and Ireland during the 17th century. During the 17th century, many Irish were also taken to Barbados.^{[clarification needed]}

In 1643, there were 37,200 whites^{[clarification needed]} in Barbados (86% of the population).^[68]

During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms many Scottish and Irish prisoners of war were sold
as indentured labors to the colonies.^[69]

There were also reports of kidnappings of youngsters to work as servants.
After 1660, fewer indentured servants came from Europe to the Caribbean.

Newly freed servant farmers, given 25–50 acres of land, were unable to make a living because profitable sugar plantations needed to cover hundreds of acres. However, profit could still be made through the tobacco trade, which was what these small 25 acre farms did to live comfortably.

The landowners’ reputation as cruel masters became a deterrence to the potential indentured servant. In the 17th century, the islands became known as death traps, as between 33 to 50 percent of indentured servants died before they were freed, many from Yellow fever, malaria and other diseases.^[70]

When slavery ended in the British Empire in 1833, plantation owners turned to indentured servitude for inexpensive labor. These servants arrived from across the globe; the majority came from India where many Indians
departed as indentured laborers to work in colonies requiring manual labor. As a result, today Indo-Caribbeans form a majority in Guyana, a plurality in Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, and a substantial minority in Jamaica,
Grenada, Barbados, St lucia and other Caribbean islands.^[71][72]
Australia and the Pacific

Main article: Blackbirding
Convicts transported to the Australian colonies before the 1840s often found themselves hired out in a form of indentured labor.^[73] Indentured servants also emigrated to New South Wales.^[74]

During the 1860s planters in Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the Samoa Islands, in need of laborers, encouraged a trade in long-term indentured labor called "blackbirding". At the height of the labor trade, more than one-half the adult male population of several of the islands worked abroad.^{[citation needed]}

Over a period of 40 years, from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, labor for the sugar-cane fields of Queensland, Australia included an element of coercive recruitment and indentured servitude of the 62,000 South Sea Islanders. The workers came mainly from Melanesia – mainly from the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – with a small number from Polynesianand Micronesian areas such as Samoa, the Gilbert Islands (subsequently known as Kiribati) and the Ellice Islands(subsequently known as Tuvalu). They became collectively known as "Kanakas".^{[citation needed]}
It remains unknown how many Islanders the trade controversially kidnapped (or blackbirded). Whether the system legally recruited Islanders, persuaded, deceived, coerced or forced them to leave their homes and travel by ship to Queensland remains difficult to determine. Official documents and accounts from the period often conflict with the oral tradition passed down to the descendants of workers. Stories of blatantly violent kidnapping tend to relate to the first 10–15 years of the trade.^{[citation needed]}

Australia deported many of these Islanders to their places of origin in the period 1906–1908
under the provisions of thePacific Island Labourers Act 1901.^[75]

Australia's own colonies of Papua and New Guinea (joined after the Second World War to form Papua New Guinea) were the last jurisdictions in the world to use indentured servitude.^{[citation needed]}
Africa

A significant number of construction projects, principally British, in East Africa and South Africa,
required vast quantities of labor, exceeding the availability or willingness of local tribesmen.

Coolies from India were imported, frequently under indenture, for such projects as the Uganda Railway,
as farm labor, and as miners.

They and their descendants formed a significant portion of the population and economy of Kenya and Uganda,
although not without engendering resentment from others. Idi Amin's expulsion of the "Asians" from Uganda
in 1972 was an expulsion of Indo-Africans.^[76]
Indian Ocean[edit]

The islands of the Indian Ocean, especially Mauritius, with extensive sugar cane plantations sought a cheaper workforce than emancipated workers negotiating for higher wages. Mauritius was the country of coolitude,^[77] the 'Great Experiment' of widespread recourse to indentured labor having started there. Mauritius acted as a hub or plaque tournante for this indentured population of coolies, receiving and onward dispatching hundreds of thousands of coolies to Africa and the Indies through the Aapravasi ghat.
Legal status

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948)
declares in Article 4 "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade
shall be prohibited
in all their forms".^[78] However, only national legislation can establish its unlawfulness.

In the United States, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) of 2000 extended servitude
to cover peonage as well as Involuntary Servitude.^[79]
See also

• Bracero Program
• Coolie
• Home Children
• History of Guyana
• Indenture (document)
• Indentured servitude in Pennsylvania
• Indian indenture system
• Involuntary servitude
• Padrone system
• Redemptioner
• Runaway servants
• Slavery
• Trafficking in human beings
• Khal Torabully

Notes[edit]

1. Jump up^ Pirates: An Illustrated History, by Nigel Cawthorne; pg. 35
2. Jump up^ Galenson 1984: 1
3. Jump up^ John Donoghue, "Indentured Servitude in the 17th Century English Atlantic: A Brief Survey of the Literature," History Compass (2013) 11#10 pp 893–902.
4. Jump up^ Christopher Tomlins, "Reconsidering Indentured Servitude: European Migration and the Early American Labor Force, 1600–1775," Labor History (2001) 42#1 pp 5–43, at p.
5. Jump up^ Tomlins (2001) at notes 31, 42, 66
6. Jump up^ Gary Nash, The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution (1979) p 15
7. Jump up^ Fred Shannon, Economic History of the People of the United States (1934) pp 73–79
8. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} White Servitude, by Richard Hofstadter
9. Jump up^ Richard Hofstadter (1971). America at 1750: A Social Portrait. Knopf Doubleday. p. 36.
10. Jump up^ William Moraley and Susan E. Klepp, The infortunate: the voyage and adventures of William Moraley an indentured servant, Google Books, page xx
11. Jump up^ James Curtis Ballagh, White Servitude In The Colony Of Virginia: A Study Of The System Of Indentured Labor In The American Colonies (1895)
12. Jump up^ Frank R. Diffenderffer, The German Immigration into Pennsylvania Through the Port of Philadelphia, 1700–1775, (1979); this book describes the indenturing process in detail for immigrants from numerous European countries.
13. Jump up^ Moraley, William; Klepp, Susan E. and Smith, Billy Gordon (2005). "The infortunate: the voyage and adventures of William Moraley, an indentured servant". Biography & Autobiography, 2nd ed. (Pennsylvania State University Press). ISBN 0-271-02676-6.
14. Jump up^ The Fort Scott Tribune, (newspaper) Fort Scott, Kansas, Monday, November 3, 1986, p.4B
15. Jump up^ "Price & Associates: Immigrant Servants Database". Immigrantservants.com. Retrieved 2009-07-04.
16. Jump up^ Ruth Wallis Herndon and John E. Murray, eds., Children Bound to Labor: The Pauper Apprentice System in Early America (2009)
17. Jump up^ "George Washington: Farmer", by Paul Leland Haworth.
18. Jump up^ "The forgotten history of Britain's white slaves". The Daily Telegraph. May 3, 2007.
19. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Galenson 1984: 3
20. Jump up^ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2014), "What Were the British Earnings and Prices Then? (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
21. Jump up^ Shannon, Economic History of the People of the United States (1934) pp. 75–76
22. Jump up^ Kerby A. Miller et al,, eds. (2003). Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan: Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675–1815. Oxford U.P. p. 75.
23. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Galenson 1984: 4
24. Jump up^ Galenson 1984: 6
25. Jump up^ Galenson 1984: 8
26. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Galenson March 1981: 40
27. Jump up^ Galenson March 1981: 39
28. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c} White Servitude, by Richard Hofstadter
29. Jump up^ Grubb 1985: 868
30. Jump up^ Galenson June 1981: 462
31. Jump up^ Grubb July 1985: 328
32. Jump up^ Grubb July 1985: 334
33. Jump up^ Frank R. Diffenderffer, The German Immigration into Pennsylvania Through the Port of Philadelphia, 1700–1775, Genealogical Pub. Co., Baltimore, 1979.
34. Jump up^ Pennsylvania Gazette (weekly Philadelphia newspaper), August 17, 1774
35. Jump up^ Record of Indentures, Philadelphia, 1771–1773, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1973.
36. Jump up^ Eric Foner: Give me liberty. W.W.Norton & Company, 2004. ISBN 978-0-393-97873-5.
37. Jump up^ U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2.
38. Jump up^ "Laws on Indentured Servants". VirtualJamestown.org. circa 1619–1654. Retrieved 2008-08-18.
39. Jump up^ Jackson, Pauline (1984). "Women in 19th Century Irish Emigration"
40. Jump up^ The literature on New England Indian indenture, while relatively new is actually vast and growing. John A. Sainsbury, "Indian Labor in Early Rhode Island," New England Quarterly, 48, no. 3 (September 1975), 379–80; David J. Silverman, "The Impact of Indentured Servitude on the Society and Culture of Southern New England Indians, 1680–1810," New England Quarterly 74, no. 4 (Dec. 2001): 622–666; Silverman, Faith and Boundaries: Colonists, Christianity, and Community among the Wampanoag Indians of Martha’s Vineyard, 1600–1871 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Daniel Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996); Jean M. O’Brien, Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1790 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Jim Coogan, "Slavery and Identured Servitude on Cape Cod," Cape Cod Times, Sunday May 19, 2013.
41. Jump up^ Perhaps the largest source of information about these indentures are dozens of debt proceedings against Indians in David T. Konig, ed. Plymouth Court Records, 1686–1859, (Wilmington, Del.: Pilgrim Society, 1979–1981); Also important are the contracts reprinted int John Strong, "Sharecropping the Sea: Shinnecock Whalers in the Seventeenth Century," in The Shinnecock Indians: A Culture History, edited by Gaynell Stone [Readings in Long Island Archaeology and Ethnohistory, Volume VI] (Lexington, Mass.: Ginn Custom Publishing, 1983), 231–263, and in Philip Rabito-Wyppensenwah, "Discovering the Montauketts in Rediscovered Documents," and "Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Native American Whaling on Eastern Long Island," in The History and Archaeology of the Montauk, edited by Gaynell Stone [Readings in Long Island Archaeology and Ethnohistory, volume III] 2nd edition, (Stony Brook, N.Y.: Suffolk County Archaeological Association, 1993), 423–429, 437–444; Other archives containing Indian indenture contracts include contract of Elisha Osborne. Indenture contract, 23 June 1755. Archives, Mashantucket Museum and Research Center, Mashantucket, CT, MSS 191; also, The collection of the Fairfield Historical Society, Connecticut Colonial Records, Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, Volume 1 [Source:http://www.cslib.org/earlygr.html], and the library of the Falmouth Historical Society in Falmouth, Mass. has some as well, as does the Historical Society of Old Yarmouth, in Yarmouth, Mass.
42. Jump up^ Sainsbury, "Indian Labor in Early Rhode Island"; Brian D. Carroll, "From Warrior to Soldiers: New England Indians in the Colonial Military," Ph.D. dissertation (University of Connecticut, 2009); Carroll, "Savages in the Service of Empire: Native American Soldiers in Gorham's Rangers, 1744–1762," New England Quarterly 85, no. 3 (2012): 383–429.
43. Jump up^ Daniel Vickers, "The First Whalemen of Nantucket,"William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser. 40 (1983): 560–83, and "Nantucket Whalemen in the Deep-Sea Fishery: The Changing Anatomy of an Early American Labor Force,"Journal of American History 72 (1985): 277–96; Elizabeth A. Little, "Indian Contributions to Shore Whaling," Nantucket Algonquian Studies 8 (1973): 38; Mark A. Nicholas, "Mashpee Wampanoags of Cape Cod, the Whalefishery, and Seafaring’s Impact on Community Development," American Indian Quarterly 26 (2002): 162–95; Russell Lawrence Basch, "'Colored' Seamen in the New England Whaling Industry: An Afro-Indian Consortium," in Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America, ed. James F. Brooks (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); John Braginton-Smith and Duncan Oliver, Cape Cod Shore Whaling: America’s First Whalemen (Yarmouth, Mass.: Historical Society of Old Yarmouth, 2004).
44. Jump up^ Lovell Family Collection. Archives, Falmouth Historical Society, Falmouth, MA.
45. Jump up^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26.doi:10.1017/s002205070003134x.
46. Jump up^ Grubb Spring 1994: 6
47. Jump up^ Galenson 1984: 18
48. Jump up^ Grubb Dec. 1994: 815
49. Jump up^ Galenson 1984: 22
50. Jump up^ Galenson March 1981: 47
51. Jump up^ Grubb Spring 1994: 21
52. ^ Jump up to:^{a b} Steinfeld, Robert J. (2001). Coercion, contract, and free labor in the nineteenth century. Cambridge [etc.]: Cambridge university press. ISBN 0521774004.
53. Jump up^ Menard, Russel (1973). "From Servant to Freeholder: Status Mobility and Property Accumulation in Seventeenth-Century Maryland". William and Mary Quarterly. 1 30: 37–64 [50].
54. Jump up^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26 [10].doi:10.1017/s002205070003134x.
55. Jump up^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26.doi:10.1017/s002205070003134x.
56. Jump up^ Abbott Emerson, Smith (1947). Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607–1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
57. Jump up^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26 [18].doi:10.1017/s002205070003134x.
58. Jump up^ Taylor, Philip (1971). The Distant Magnet: European Emigration to the U.S.A. London: Ayre & Spottiswoode.
59. Jump up^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26 [21].doi:10.1017/s002205070003134x.
60. Jump up^ Salinger, Sharon V. (1981). "Colonial Labor in Transition: The Decline of Indentured Servitude in Late Eighteenth‐Century Philadelphia". Labor History. 2 22: 165–191 [169].doi:10.1080/00236568108584612.
61. Jump up^ Salinger, Sharon V. (1981). "Colonial Labor in Transition: The Decline of Indentured Servitude in Late Eighteenth‐Century Philadelphia". Labor History. 2 22: 165–191 [181].doi:10.1080/00236568108584612.
62. Jump up^ Miller, William (1940). "The Effects of the American Revolution on Indentured Servitude". Pennsylvania History. 37: 131–141 [137].
63. Jump up^ Galenson, David (1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". Journal of Economic History. 1 44: 1–26 [13].doi:10.1017/s002205070003134x.
64. Jump up^ Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor, Jeffrey G. Williamson, eds. Globalization in historical perspective (2005) p. 72
65. Jump up^ Gordon K. Lewis and Anthony P. Maingot, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The Historical Evolution of Caribbean Society in Its Ideological Aspects, 1492–1900 (2004) pp 96–97
66. Jump up^ Alexandre Olivier Ecquemelin, The History of Buccaneers in America (1853 edition), p. 46
67. Jump up^ Lewis and Maingot (2004) p 97
68. Jump up^ Population, Slavery and Economy in Barbados, BBC.
69. Jump up^ Higman 1997, p. 108.
70. Jump up^ A failed settler society: marriage and demographic failure in early Jamaica, Journal of Social History, Vol. 28, No. 1, Autumn, 1994, by Trevor Burnard
71. Jump up^ Walton Lai, Indentured labor, Caribbean sugar: Chinese and Indian migrants to the British West Indies, 1838–1918(1993)
72. Jump up^ Steven Vertovik, "Indian Indentured Migration to the Caribbean," in Robin Cohen, ed. The Cambridge survey of world migration (1995) pp 57–62
73. Jump up^ Atkinson, James (1826). An account of the state of agriculture & grazing in New South Wales. London: J. Cross. p. 110. Retrieved 2012-11-14. "On Sir Thomas Brisbane assuming the Government, it was ordered, that all persons should, for every 100 acres of land granted to them, take and keep one convict until the expiration or remission of his sentence."
74. Jump up^ Perkins, John (1988), "Convict Labour and the Australian Agricultural Company", in Nicholas, Stephen, The Convict Workers: Reinterpeting Australia's Past, Studies in Australian History, Cambridge University Press, p. 168,ISBN 9780521361262, retrieved 2012-11-14, "A feature of the Australian Agricultural Company's operation at Port Stephens was the simultaneous employment [...] of various forms of labour. The original nucleus of the workforce consisted of indentured servants brought out from Europe on seven-year contracts."
75. Jump up^ "Documenting Democracy". Foundingdocs.gov.au. Retrieved 2009-07-04.
76. Jump up^ Patel, Hasu H. (1972). "General Amin and the Indian Exodus from Uganda". Issue: A Journal of Opinion 2 (4): 12–22. doi:10.2307/1166488.
77. Jump up^ M Carter and K Torabully.Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora (Anthem South Asian Studies)ISBN 978-1843310068
78. Jump up^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". United Nations. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
79. Jump up^ "US Peonage and involuntary servitude laws". justice.gov. Retrieved 2011-10-14.

References

• Higman, B. W. (1997). Knight, Franklin W., ed. General History of the Caribbean: The slave societies of the Caribbean 3(illustrated ed.). UNESCO. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-333-65605-1.
• Galenson, David W. (March 1981). "White Servitude and the Growth of Black Slavery in Colonial America". The Journal of Economic History 41 (1): 39–47. doi:10.1017/s0022050700042728.
• Galenson, David W. (June 1981). "The Market Evaluation of Human Capital: The Case of Indentured Servitude". Journal of Political Economy 89 (3): 446–467. doi:10.1086/260980.
• Galenson, David (March 1984). "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis". The Journal of Economic History 44 (1): 1–26. doi:10.1017/s002205070003134x.
• Grubb, Farley (July 1985). "The Incidence of Servitude in Trans-Atlantic Migration, 1771–1804". Explorations in Economic History 22 (3): 316–39. doi:10.1016/0014-4983(85)90016-6.
• Grubb, Farley (Dec 1985). "The Market for Indentured Immigrants: Evidence on the Efficiency of Forward-Labor Contracting in Philadelphia, 1745–1773". The Journal of Economic History 45 (4): 855–868.doi:10.1017/s0022050700035130.
• Grubb, Farley (Spring 1994). "The Disappearance of Organized Markets for European Immigrant Servants in the United States: Five Popular Explanations Reexamined". Social Science History 18 (1): 1–30. doi:10.2307/1171397.
• Grubb, Farley (Dec 1994). "The End of European Immigrant Servitude in the United States: An Economic Analysis of Market Collapse, 1772–1835". The Journal of Economic History 54 (4): 794–824. doi:10.1017/s0022050700015497.
• Tomlins, Christopher. "Reconsidering Indentured Servitude: European Migration and the Early American Labor Force, 1600–1775," Labor History (2001) 42#1 pp 5–43. new statistical estimates

Further reading

• Abramitzky, Ran; Braggion, Fabio. "Migration and Human Capital: Self-Selection of Indentured Servants to the Americas,"Journal of Economic History, (2006) 66#4 pp 882–905, in JSTOR
• Ballagh, James Curtis. White Servitude In The Colony Of Virginia: A Study Of The System Of Indentured Labor In The American Colonies (1895) excerpt and text search
• Brown, Kathleen. Goodwives, Nasty Wenches & Anxious Patriachs: gender, race and power in Colonial Virginia, U. of North Carolina Press, 1996.
• Hofstadter, Richard. America at 1750: A Social Portrait (Knopf, 1971) pp 33–65 online
• Jernegan, Marcus Wilson Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America, 1607–1783 (1931)
• Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. (Norton, 1975).
• Salinger, Sharon V. To serve well and faithfully: Labor and Indentured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1682–1800. (2000)
• Tomlins, Christopher. Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in English Colonization, 1580–1865 (2010); influential recent interpretation online review
• Torabully, Khal, and Marina Carter, Coolitude: An Anthology of the Indian Labour Diaspora Anthem Press, London, 2002,ISBN 1-84331-003-1
• Whitehead, John Frederick, Johann Carl Buttner, Susan E. Klepp, and Farley Grubb. Souls for Sale: Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America, Max Kade German-American Research Institute Series, ISBN 0-271-02882-3.
• Zipf, Karin L. Labor of Innocents: Forced Apprenticeship in North Carolina, 1715–1919 (2005).

Historiography[edit]

• Donoghue, John. "Indentured Servitude in the 17th Century English Atlantic: A Brief Survey of the Literature," History Compass (Oct. 2013) 11#10 pp 893–902, DOI: 10.1111/hic3.12088

External links

• GUIANA 1838 – a film about indentured laborers

Categories:

• Debt bondage
• Apprenticeship
• Colonization history of the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

 

THE LOST SLAVES !!!


Sana Raja with Peter Thottam

Well, you learn something every day...
IRISH: THE FORGOTTEN WHITE SLAVES

They came as slaves: human cargo transported on British ships bound for the Americas.

They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children.

Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways.

Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment.

Some were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.

We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we?

We know all too well the atrocities of the African slave trade.

But are we talking about African slavery?

King James VI and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish.

Britain’s Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbour.

The Irish slave trade began when James VI sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World.

His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies.

By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants.

The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves.

Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade.

Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic.

This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.

During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia.

Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder.

In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves.

They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish.

However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.

As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period.

It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.

African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (£50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than £5 Sterling).

If a planter whipped, branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime.

A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African.

The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit.

Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce.

Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master.

Thus, Irish mothers, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their children and would remain in servitude.

In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women to increase their market share:

The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls (many as young as 12) with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves.

This practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale.”

In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company.

England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century.

Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia.

There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish captives.

One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would have plenty of food to eat.

There is little question the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if not more, in the 17th Century) as the Africans did.

There is also little question that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry.

In 1839, Britain finally decided on it’s own to end its participation in Satan’s highway to hell and stopped transporting slaves.

While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the new law slowly concluded this chapter of Irish misery.

But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience, then they’ve got it completely wrong.

Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.

But, why is it so seldom discussed?

Do the memories of hundreds of thousands of Irish victims not merit more than a mention from an unknown writer?

Or is their story to be the one that their English masters intended:

To completely disappear as if it never happened.

None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their ordeal.

These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books conveniently forgot.

 

"in the end the inner circles will turn on the innermost circle"
-susan lynne schwenger

 

the first mother of believers; the wife of the PM (islam start) was a catholic and very very rich arab
- islam was a monster created by the catholic church

 

Here's something to think about... and it's about time we did...
Wanda Oreilly