Indentured Servants In America

The United States is the first when indentured servants arrived. The purpose of this was cheap labor because settlers became aware of land that needed responsibility from these servants. (PBS). In the early 18th century, “majority of Europeans who came to the Americas were not elite landholders. They were indentured servants.” (Lowcountry Digital History Initiative). Indentured servants is that they offer themselves for some years to work exchanging not having to pay any expenses to travel overseas. These individuals had housing, food, and clothing provided for them, unfortunately it was forbidden for them to get married or have children.
The transition from indentured servants to chattel slavery was quite the change starting from the late …show more content…
History, it mentions that they were “convinced that Africans best served their demand for labor, importation increased.” (U.S. History). It was the start that the British colonists began to abandon indentured servitude by having short-term workers who would always be replaced whether if they were whites or blacks. In the second paragraph, “...became more scarce and expensive to obtain.” (Lowcountry Digital History Initiative). It ties in how indentured servants were a bad thing, because it looked bad for the colonists and they didn’t want that. There are a few advantages that slaves gave for their slave owners. Slaves were becoming more known rather than indentured servants, because they were extremely cheaper to buy and still get the same results. It gave the slave owners profit, because slaves are basically paying them nothing in return. According to an article called The Economist, it quoted, “generally a highly profitable investment which yielded rates of return that compared favourably with the most outstanding investment opportunities in manufacturing.” This is an excellent way to describe how slaves were so profitable to their slave owners. Also it provides the slave owners has a balanced system of social and economics. To keep this going, they would need to keep distance from the slaves so they won’t think as if their actually “human …show more content…
The year 1619 is where the first African Americans reached to Jamestown, Virginia. “A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619.” (Becker), which was unexpected to have an individual trade slaves for food when they usually want them to do tasks for the owners. During this time, indentured servants were known and better for when it came to the labor system. In the 1700, there are already slaves being all over, but also there were slave codes were created in Virginia. It was meant to have a slave system and “impossible for African Americans to live freely.” These slaves had contracts where they couldn’t get out unless they could afford to buy themselves out, which rarely

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