Indentured Servants In Early America

Words: 1900
Pages: 8
Open Document
Before colonization, Native societies heavily relied on agriculture to sustain their societies. Both men and women were integral to the process of gathering food with men primarily hunting and women primarily planting, harvesting, and preparing food. In addition to their role in agriculture, women also had the typical domestic roles of caring for children. The Crash Course #1: The Black Death, Native Americans, and Spaniards describes how Natives relied on the natural resources around them for food. For example, Natives on the West Coast primarily relied on fishing and Plains Natives relied on hunting buffalo. As for social classes, Native women had authority, particularly the ability to be religious leaders and own property. This contrasts …show more content…
Some were taught how to read and write, others were given food or clothing items. This contributed to how these women went about their lives. Education as a servant was hard to come by, but this opened up new opportunities for these women. According to Benjamin Rush, Thoughts Upon Female Education, women in early America should be educated not to pursue a future, but to spread education amongst their children. While this concept was strictly for a man’s approval, the idea created opportunities for women in America. Regardless of the implementation of the concept, allowing women to gain an education made an impact. The masters of poor indentured servants had to take it upon themselves to educate the young women. The liberation of indentured servants also created more opportunities for women regarding education. According to Liberating Indentured Servants, the liberation led to more equality in America. Along with this, it led to the decline of indentured servitude, granting freedom to servants and allowing women to use their education to the best of their …show more content…
Women made this journey with their children as well, risking their lives in the hope that they would be purchased after their arrival. The terrible conditions on the ships and mistreatment by the crew created less hope for the servants overseas. The colonies have relied on slave labor since their inception. Slaves were forcibly taken from across Africa and loaded onto slave ships, crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the Middle Passage. According to The Slave Ship, approximately 12.4 million slaves were forced to undertake the Middle Passage, many of whom did not survive. The entire process claimed the lives of an estimated 5 million people. If one was able to survive the voyage, they would be met with a lifetime of grueling labor. Enslavement was a common practice across the nation, especially in the South where many worked on plantations. As seen in the image, many slaves performed farm labor such as planting, hoeing, or picking crops. This was especially challenging for women, many of whom were forced to have children while enslaved. Reproduction in Bondage describes how pregnant slaves were
Show More

Related Documents: Indentured Servants In Early America

Olaudah Equiano's Journey To The Americas Research Paper

Some of which include the early colonial settlements in the Americas and their dependence on labor. In the early years of the Americas, colonists were originally reliant on Indentured Servants and eventually became reliant on African Slaves. Both of these solutions to labor were treated as property. Indentured Servants and African slaves differ in their journey to the Americas and their rights of freedom, but are similar in how they were treated. Indentured Servants and African Slaves differ in…

Words 635 - Pages 3

Indentured Servants In America

In the early beginnings of America, the use of slaves and indentured servants as a labor force was popular among English settlers who could buy and sell them as they pleased. Settlers fortunate enough to pay for their passage to America could arrive with freedom, but those remaining two thirds who couldn’t arrived as indentured servants (Eric Foner, ed., Give Me Liberty, 54). As for the Africans, they had no choice in freedom, they were sold off and transported to America as slaves. While the key…

Words 450 - Pages 2

The difference between slaves and inden Essay examples

and indentured servants has been distorted for years because of the deviations that transpired transversely at innumerable points throughout the late 1600’s and early 17th century. And so their corresponding characteristics or roles may seem different when you look at them from dissimilar historical viewpoints. The definition of indenture is an agreement or contract to which an individual is bound to provide various services set forth by a person or group of bond holders. Indentured servants included…

Words 770 - Pages 4

Indentured Servants DBQ Essay

towards indentured servants so they wouldn’t have to be as reliant on labor. In the late 1800s and early 1900s working conditions had not changed, if anything they had gotten worse, and with the slave ban, indentured servants had become the main alternative for labor. Indentured servants were in severely poor and beaten down living and working conditions that were as bad and possibly even worse than they were during slave labor. In the 1st document Herman Merivale explains that indentured servants…

Words 551 - Pages 3

Indentured Servants In Jamestown

sought out cheap labor by use of indentured servants. Slavery first appears in Virginia in the early 1600s by way of indentured servants. Most indentured servants were brought over from Britain to serve as labors. An indentured servant was required to sign a contract agreeing to work a set number of years in exchange for their travel to America. It was not until the 1680s that slavery became the lead force of labor in Virginia. The decrease of indentured servants was on the rise. The plantation…

Words 254 - Pages 2

Virginia Colony Research Paper

the Virginia Company’s first expedition arrived in Jamestown, the first community in the Virginia Colony. In the early years of the new colony slavery was not a dominant characteristic. Throughout the 1600’s, Virginia slowly became a colony that was dominated by slave labor due to the invention of the tobacco that could grow in the Virginia Colony, recently freed indentured servants getting land which lead to the tobacco boom, and the drop in the price of tobacco afterwards and the need for cheaper…

Words 1095 - Pages 5

The Southern Colonies In The 17th And 18th Centuries

The Southern Colonies in the 17th and 18th Centuries I. Southern Plantation Colonies -- general characteristics
A. Dominated to a degree by a plantation economy: tobacco & rice
B. Slavery in all colonies (even Georgia after 1750); mostly indentured servants for until 1676 in Virginia and Maryland -- increasingly black slavery thereafter.
C. Large land holdings in the hands of the favored few = aristocratic atmosphere (except N. Carolina and parts of Georgia)
D. Sparsely populated: churches &…

Words 4366 - Pages 18

Essay 2 Servitude

In a lot of ways indentured servants and slaves were very similar. Indentured servants had more hope for a better future but slaves could have better immediate conditions. They were both generally treated the same, subjected to the physical punishment of the masters. They worked for no immediate pay and had no real control over their working conditions. Although they were similar in some ways, they definitely had their differences. A main difference was that the indentured servants had the prospects of being free after a certain amount…

Words 1007 - Pages 5

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…

Words 677 - Pages 3

Omi And Winant Racial Formation Analysis

You had the wealthy white land owners, the white indentured servants, and the black indentured servants from Africa which soon turned into slaves. Society then divided into the North and the South; North was against slavery while the South depended on Slavery because of the large crops and need for labor. There were also instances…

Words 1274 - Pages 6