Indentured servitude was a form of bound labor common in British North America. Although all of the British colonies, including those in the Caribbean, employed indentured servants at one time or another, these laborers were particularly numerous in the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland during the seventeenth century and the middle colonies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York during the eighteenth. In exchange for paid passage to the colonies, a servant would bind him or herself to an indenture, or labor contract, of four to seven years. Some laborers negotiated directly with potential masters or their agents, but many seeking transport to the colonies negotiated with a ship's captain who would, upon arrival, sell the contracts. Servants were recruited from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany.
Male servants outnumbered females by approximately three to one. Most men worked as agricultural laborers and women as household servants. Freed servants hoped for quick upward mobility. Men became wage laborers, tenants, and sometimes landowners. Women looked toward marriage, and until the eighteenth century, the poorest of female servants could marry well.
Although British laborers had known servitude in England, the colonial system was particularly exploitive. Many servants experienced excessive brutality and found little protection under the law. Female servants were particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, and a female servant who became pregnant was required to compensate her master for work time lost. Labor contracts were no longer personal agreements but commodities that could be bought, sold, and traded without the consent of servants. Some historians see this commodification of labor as an early step toward the institution of chattel slavery.
Marilyn J. Westerkamp
See also
Colonial Period.
