Indentured servitude in British America facts for kids
Imagine a time when people paid for their trip to a new country by working for someone else for many years. This was called indentured servitude in the British American colonies. It was a very common way for people to come to America, especially before slavery became the main labor system.
More than half of all immigrants to the British colonies (except New England) were white servants. Nearly half of all white people who came to the Thirteen Colonies arrived as indentured servants. By the time of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, only a small part of the workers were indentured servants.
Indentured servitude became popular in the 1600s because the colonies needed many workers. At the same time, there were many people in Europe looking for work, but they couldn't afford the expensive trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Between the 1630s and the American Revolution, about half to two-thirds of white immigrants came this way. Many young men also went to the Caribbean as indentured servants to work on large farms called plantations. Sometimes, people were tricked or even forced into these agreements.
Indentured servitude continued in North America into the early 1900s, but the number of servants slowly went down. Experts aren't sure why it ended, but some reasons might be:
- Changes in the job market made it cheaper for employers to hire African slaves or paid workers.
- It became easier and cheaper for people to travel to North America, so they didn't need to rely on these contracts.
- The American Revolution also had an impact, especially on immigration from Britain.
In the Caribbean, fewer European servants came after the 1600s. Europeans learned about the harsh treatment and high death rates, often from tropical diseases. After the British Empire ended slavery in 1833, plantation owners again used indentured servants, mostly from India, until the British government stopped the practice in 1917.
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Indentured Servants in North America
Between the 1630s and the American Revolution, about half to two-thirds of European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies came as indentured servants. This was so common that a law, the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, even mentioned it. While many Europeans were indentured at some point, there were usually more free workers than active indentured servants. Indentured servants were most common in areas from Virginia north to New Jersey.
About 500,000 to 550,000 Europeans came to the 13 colonies before 1775. Around 55,000 of these were prisoners sent against their will. Of the 450,000 or so who came willingly, about 48% were indentured. Most of them (about 75%) were under 25 years old. The legal age for men to be considered adults was 24. Those over 24 usually had contracts for about 3 years. Some children came as well, often relatives of English people who paid for their trip in exchange for their work.
Farmers and shopkeepers in the British colonies found it hard to hire free workers because it was easy for people to start their own farms. So, a common solution was to bring a young worker from Britain or Germany. This worker would then work for several years to pay back the cost of their journey. During this time, servants didn't get paid cash. Instead, they received food, a place to live, clothes, and training. The contract said how many years they had to work, usually four or five years, but it could be one to seven. After that, they were free.
Not all European servants came willingly. Some were kidnapped and forced to come to the Americas. While efforts were made to stop this, some people were brought by force, and many more were tricked by recruiting agents.
Many white immigrants who arrived in colonial America as indentured servants were young men and women from Britain or Germany, under 21. Often, a teenager's father would sign papers with a ship captain. The captain would take the servants to the colonies and sell their contracts to someone who needed workers. When the contract ended, the young person received new clothes and was free. Many then started their own farms or used their new skills to work in a trade. Some even became successful enough to hire their own indentured servants.
Because of high death rates, many servants did not live to the end of their contracts. In the 1700s and early 1800s, many Europeans, especially from outside Britain, came as "redemptioners." This was a very strict type of indenture.
Indentured servants were different from apprentices. Apprentices were American-born children, often orphans or from poor families. Courts placed them with masters to learn a skill until a certain age. Famous apprentices include Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Johnson, who later became President of the United States.
Even George Washington used indentured servants. In 1775, he offered a reward for two white servants who ran away.
How Indentured Servitude Started
Indentured servitude in the Americas began with the Virginia Company in the early 1600s. They used it to help pay for transporting people to their new British colonies.
Before this system, the colonies needed many workers to build settlements, farm, and work as tradesmen. But many workers in Europe couldn't afford the trip across the Atlantic, which could cost about half a worker's yearly pay.
European banks couldn't easily lend money to workers because it was hard to get the money back across the ocean. So, workers couldn't move to America because they couldn't get loans for the trip.
To fix this, the Virginia Company let workers borrow against their future earnings to pay for their journey. This started around 1609, just two years after the Jamestown settlement was founded. However, this was risky for the Virginia Company. If workers died or refused to work, they lost their money.
By 1620, the Virginia Company started selling contracts for servants as soon as they arrived in the colonies. This reduced their risk to only the two or three months of the ocean voyage. As the system grew, individual farmers and tradesmen also started investing in indentured servants.
In the 1700s, wages in Great Britain were low because there were too many workers. The average yearly pay for a farm worker was about £2.50. The cost to travel and eat on the seven or eight-week ocean journey was about £5 to £7, which was like years of work in England.
Still, the need for indentured labor stayed low until crops like sugarcane in the West Indies or tobacco in the American South became popular. These crops needed a lot of workers, so the West Indies and American South used the most indentured labor.
Historian Richard Hofstadter wrote that servants on Southern plantations had a very hard life. They worked alongside, but separately from, enslaved African people. Both groups did similar work, often under strict supervisors. He noted that enslaved people were sometimes treated with more care because they were property for life, but white servants were "strained to the utmost" to do their work.
Over time, the market for indentured servitude grew. Contracts were shorter for healthy, strong, educated, or skilled servants. Places with harsh working conditions, like the West Indies, also offered shorter contracts compared to easier colonies.
Most indentured servants ended up in the American South, where cash crops needed a lot of farm labor. The Northern colonies, which were becoming more industrial, received far fewer indentured immigrants. For example, 96% of English people who moved to Virginia and Maryland between 1773 and 1776 were indentured servants. During the same time, only 2% of English people moving to New England were indentured.
Legal Agreements
An indenture was a legal contract that courts enforced. It would state the terms, like how long the person would work, what they would receive (food, lodging, clothes), and when they would be free. Sometimes, a servant could pay a fee to become free earlier.
When a ship arrived, the captain would often advertise in newspapers that indentured servants were available for sale. These ads would list the types of workers, such as blacksmiths, tailors, farmers, and even schoolteachers.
Once a buyer was found, the sale was recorded in a city court. For example, a record from Philadelphia in 1773 shows James Best, who had an indenture, became a servant to David Rittenhouse for three years after Rittenhouse paid £15 for his trip from London.
Rules for Servants
Indentured servants could not marry without their owner's permission. They could be physically punished, like many other young servants at the time. Courts made sure they fulfilled their work duties. If a female servant became pregnant, her work term was extended to ensure continuous labor.
However, unlike enslaved people, servants were guaranteed to be released from their bondage. At the end of their contract, they received a payment called "freedom dues" and became free members of society. These contracts could be bought and sold, meaning the right to a servant's labor changed hands, but the person themselves was not property.
Both male and female laborers faced harsh treatment, which sometimes even led to death.
Who Were Redemptioners?
Indentured servitude helped increase the number of colonists, especially in the English and later British colonies. Voluntary migration and sending prisoners only brought so many people. Since the journey across the Atlantic was dangerous, other ways were needed to encourage settlement. Contract laborers became a very important group. The United States Constitution even mentioned them when talking about how representatives would be counted: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States... including those bound to Service for a Term of Years...."
Many people who had lost their land or couldn't find work in cities signed these contracts and traveled to the Americas. In Massachusetts, religious teaching was often part of the indenture, and people usually lived in towns.
In the American South, the labor-intensive crop of tobacco was farmed by indentured laborers in the 1600s and 1700s. Indentured servitude was not the same as the apprenticeship system, but they had similarities, as both involved working for a set time. Most people in Virginia were Anglican, not Puritan, and while religion was important, their culture was more focused on business. In areas like Chesapeake and North Carolina, tobacco was a huge part of farming. In the Deep South (Georgia and South Carolina), cotton and rice farms were common. In the lower Atlantic colonies, where tobacco was the main crop, indentured servants mostly worked in the fields.
The system was still widely used in the 1780s, picking up again after a break during the American Revolution. For example, a report from 1783 about trade from Ireland showed how ship owners made large profits. They would offer terms to emigrants in Irish ports. Those who could pay for their trip arrived in America free. Those who couldn't pay were carried at the ship owner's expense. To get their money back, the ship owner would advertise that they had brought artisans, laborers, and servants, and would hire out their services for usually three to five years for adults, and six or seven years for children.
In simple terms, the ship owner acted like a contractor, renting out his workers. This situation affected how captains treated their valuable human cargo. After indentures were banned, the trip had to be paid for upfront. This led to the terrible conditions on Irish "coffin ships" in the mid-1800s.
Native Americans and Indenture in New England
Starting in the late 1600s, in southern New England and parts of Long Island, Native Americans were increasingly forced into an unfair system. This system was designed to control them and make them fit into the European way of life, while also using their labor for the economy. After King Philip's War (1675–1676), most Native Americans in the area were moved to reservations or lived in small areas near colonial towns.
Because they had less access to their traditional resources, lost land, and faced changes to the environment from European settlement, many Native Americans could no longer live as they used to. They became more dependent on European goods like cloth, tools, guns, alcohol, and food. Merchants often charged high prices for these items and offered credit, knowing that most Native Americans couldn't pay them back. When debts grew, Native Americans were taken to court by those they owed money to. If they couldn't pay, their land or, more often, their labor was taken to settle the debt.
Native American debtors were then indentured to their creditors for terms ranging from a few months to several years. In rare cases, some were indentured for a decade or more, and a very few were enslaved for life. Many Native Americans experienced repeated indentures throughout their lives, working short periods of indenture followed by brief times of freedom. The "time" Native American servants owed could be sold or given to heirs if a creditor died.
It's hard to know exactly how many Native Americans were indentured. However, historian John Sainsbury found that by the mid-1700s, about a third of all Native Americans in Rhode Island were indentured servants living and working in white households. Also, Massachusetts state records show many complaints from Native American tribes in the 1730s to 1760s about unfair lending practices by white people. Laws were eventually passed to try and control these practices.
Colonial military records also provide some information. Records from 1704 to 1726 show that almost two-thirds of Native Americans who joined the army were indentured at the time. From 1748 to 1760, this rate dropped, but still almost a third of Native American recruits were bound to white masters. In one Connecticut army group in 1746, almost half of the 139 Native American men had given their wages to white creditors before being sent to fight.
While many Native American men, women, and children became servants in New England homes, many adult men worked in the whaling industry. This happened on Long Island, Rhode Island, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and eastern Connecticut. These whaling indentures were a bit different. They said Native Americans would work as crew members on a certain number of whaling trips or "seasons" (usually November to April), not as servants in homes. For most of the colonial period, indentured or heavily indebted Native American whalers were the main workers in the early whaling industry. They remained important into the time of the American Revolution, but as their numbers decreased and the industry grew, they made up a smaller part of the workforce.
Why Indentured Servitude Declined
Indentured servitude started in the Americas in the 1620s and was used until about 1917. The reasons for its decline are debated by historians.
One idea is that the end of debtors' prisons might have made it harder to enforce contracts. Servants could agree to a contract with a ship captain and then refuse to sell themselves once they arrived. Also, immigrant aid groups pushed for more rules, making it harder to enforce contracts. With less ability to enforce contracts, the demand for indentured servants might have dropped. However, most debtors' prisons were still around when indentured servitude ended, and many rules were in place long before it disappeared.
Another reason might be that people in Europe earned more money compared to the cost of travel in the 1800s. In 1668, a trip from England to the colonies cost about 51% of a person's yearly income. By 1841, this dropped to 20-30%. This meant more Europeans could afford their own trip. With no need for travel money, fewer workers became indentured, and the supply of indentured servants decreased.
Employers might have also switched from indentured servants to enslaved people or paid workers. In many places, African slaves became cheaper for both unskilled and skilled labor. Most farm jobs previously done by indentured servants were eventually filled by slaves. Paid workers might have been more productive because employers could fire them. Firing an indentured servant meant losing the money spent to buy their contract. Both these changes would lead to less demand for indentured servitude. Another problem for employers was that white indentured servants who ran away were harder to find than African slaves because they blended in with the general white population.
The decline of indentured servitude for white servants also came from changing ideas in the 1700s and early 1800s. Over the 1700s, laws that punished all workers were slowly removed, leaving indentured servants as the only white adults subject to such punishments (except for sailors). These punishments for indentured laborers continued in the United States until the 1830s. After this, white workers under contract were treated the same as wage laborers. This change happened for several reasons:
- White indentured labor became linked with slavery, at a time when slavery was being attacked in the Northern states.
- Workers became more active and were influenced by the ideas of the American Revolution.
- More people could vote in many states, giving workers more political power.
Punishments, once seen as normal for free labor, became seen as turning ordinary work into "contracts of slavery" in the 1800s.
Changes in the Job Market
As colonial export industries grew quickly in the 1600s and 1700s, there weren't enough workers from natural population growth or immigration to meet the demand. So, the cost of indentured servants went up a lot. For example, in the Chesapeake Bay, the cost of indentures rose by as much as 60% in the 1680s. However, this higher cost didn't make more European workers want to emigrate, because they didn't benefit from the higher prices. So, the supply of immigrants didn't grow enough to meet the demand. Some companies tried to encourage workers by making contracts shorter for productive emigrants. Some American businesses also offered small wages or ended contracts early. These actions increased the cost of an indenture while making it less valuable.
The rising cost of indentured labor and its limited supply pushed American producers toward a cheaper option: enslaved workers. Enslaved people were much cheaper and more available. Unlike indentured workers, they were forced to emigrate. No incentives were needed, though higher prices encouraged slave traders to bring more people. Slavery could better meet the high demand for unskilled farm workers in colonies like those in the Caribbean. However, indentures still existed in colonies that needed skilled workers, because training an enslaved worker was more expensive than the cost of an indenture.
Easier Immigration
It became easier and cheaper to immigrate, which meant emigrants didn't need outside money from indentures as much. The cost of immigration from Britain to the United States dropped from 50% of a person's income to less than 10% during the 1700s. This was due to higher incomes in Europe (from economic growth) and a sharp drop in travel costs.
New inventions greatly impacted how easy and cheap passenger travel was, reducing the need for indentures. Railroads made it cheaper for immigrants to reach cities not on the coast. Steamboats weren't necessarily cheaper than older sailing ships, but they made transatlantic travel much easier and more comfortable, which attracted wealthier people who could afford to immigrate without indentures.
The British Navy's efforts against pirates also lowered travel costs. Safer seas meant smaller crews (no need for many weapons) and lower insurance costs (ships were less likely to be captured).
The types of immigrants also changed from single men to entire families. Single men usually left home with little savings. Families, however, often sold their belongings in Europe to pay for their journey.
Impact of the American Revolution
The American Revolution greatly reduced immigration to the United States. Historians disagree on how much this affected indentured servitude long-term. Sharon Salinger says the economic problems after the war made long-term work contracts less appealing. She found that the percentage of bound citizens in Philadelphia dropped from 17% to 6% during the war. William Miller suggests the Revolution caused only temporary problems for white servitude. David Galenson agrees, saying that while British indentures didn't fully recover, Europeans from other countries replaced them.
Legal Changes
In 1799, New York State passed a law to slowly end slavery. Existing enslaved people became indentured servants. This status finally ended in 1827, and all indentured people gained full freedom.
Several laws passed by both American and British governments helped indentures decline. The British Passenger Vessels Act 1803 tried to make travel more expensive to stop emigration. The American law that ended imprisonment for debtors (passed in 1833) made it harder to catch runaway servants. This increased the risk of buying indenture contracts.
In the 1800s, most indentures of this type happened in the old Northwest Territory. Whether these indentures were allowed depended on how "involuntary servitude" was understood in the 1787 Northwest Ordinance. This law said: "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 question was whether punishments or forced work made indentured servitude "involuntary." When the Northwest Ordinance was written, white adult servants were still being brought into the United States. So, it seems likely that the people who wrote the Ordinance thought indenture was a "voluntary" choice. This means the indentured servant chose to work for someone who paid for their trip.
The Territory of Hawaii was the last place in the United States to widely use indentures. By 1900, the practice had ended in the rest of the country, replaced by systems like the credit-ticket system for Chinese laborers. Before the U.S. took over Hawaii, indentures were widely used to bring Japanese contract workers to Hawaii for plantation work. In the Hawaiian Organic Act of 1900, the U.S. banned further use of indentures in the territory and canceled all existing contracts, ending the practice there.
Indentured Servants in the Caribbean
Europeans in the Colonies
Half a million Europeans went as indentured servants to the Caribbean (mostly the English-speaking islands) before 1840. Most were young men who dreamed of owning land or getting rich quickly. They would essentially sell years of their labor for a trip to the islands. However, some were also forced into servitude. People at the time reported that young people were sometimes tricked into servitude to be exploited in the colonies.
Landowners on the islands paid for a servant's trip and then provided food, clothes, shelter, and training during the agreed time. The servant then had to work in the landowner's fields for a set period, usually four to seven years. Servants were not allowed to marry without their master's permission. They could own personal items. They could also complain to a local judge if they were treated unfairly beyond what was normal. However, a servant's contract could be sold or given away by their master.
After a servant's term was finished, they became independent and received "freedom dues." These payments could be land, which gave the servant a chance to become an independent farmer or a free laborer. As free men with little money, they became a political group that opposed the rich plantation owners.
Indentured servitude was common in England and Ireland in the 1600s. During this time, British and Irish people went to Barbados as both masters and indentured servants. Some went as prisoners. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, many Scottish and Irish prisoners of war were sold as indentured laborers to the colonies. There were also reports of kidnappings of young people to work as servants.
After 1660, fewer indentured servants came from Europe to the Caribbean. Newly freed servant farmers, given small plots of land (25–50 acres), found it hard to make a living because profitable sugar plantations needed hundreds of acres. However, they could still make money growing tobacco. The landowners' reputation for being harsh also discouraged potential indentured servants. In the 1600s, the islands became known as dangerous places, as between 33% and 50% of indentured servants died before they were freed, many from diseases like yellow fever and malaria.
Indian Servants After Slavery Ended
When slavery ended in the British Empire in 1833, plantation owners looked for cheap labor. They turned to indentured servitude. These servants came from all over the world, but most came from India. Many indentured laborers from India went to work in colonies that needed manual labor. Because of this, today, Indo-Caribbean people make up a large part of the population in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. They are also a significant group in Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, St Lucia, and other Caribbean islands. The British government finally ended indentures in the Caribbean in 1917 by stopping the transport of people from India for debt servitude.
Images for kids
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An indenture signed by Henry Mayer, with an "X", in 1738. This contract bound Mayer to Abraham Hestant of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who had paid for Mayer to travel from Europe.
See also
- Slavery in the colonial United States
- Indentured servitude in Pennsylvania
- Irish indentured servants
- Indentured servitude in Virginia
- Indian slave trade in the American Southeast
- United States labor law
