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Indentured Servitude Essay

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Indentured servitude set the foundation for slavery in the early colonies. Indentured servants would provide free labor for a certain number of years and in the end were rewarded with an area of land. When this became too difficult to provide land, slavery was born. Although morally unethically, the colonist’s economy improved when indentured servitude transitioned into slavery of Africans through Bacon’s Rebellion, triangle trade, and laws allowing mistreatment of slaves as property. Bacon’s Rebellion was the turning point in indentured servitude. At the end of the servants’ time they were granted land, the only problem was that the land belonged to the Native American Indians. There was already so much conflict surrounding the relationship …show more content…

Beatings of slaves were common along with awful living spaces. There were even metal contraptions that some slaves would wear on their head that would prevent them from lying down on the job. The slave owners had a mentality of white superiority that allowed them to think it was okay to treat slaves like this because they were not worth as much. Laws were passed in the colonies that allowed slavery and blacks to be treated as property, instead of other human beings. As slaves began escaping laws and punishments only became crueler, all in order to maintain economic stability through the abuse of slave labor. Beginning in 1607, slavery arose as indentured servitude ended, as it was full of too many complications. Bacon’s rebellion proved that free labor is successful, as long as I was purely free and not reliant on the promise of land in the end. The accessibility and legality of slavery made it the perfect economical move to maintain the prospering cash crops of the North American colonies. Slavery seemed like the best option for the colonies in the 17th century, but the issues of differing human morality will begin to rise and trigger the civil

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