Indentured Servitude

The African slave trade was very harsh for many reasons. This is because the idea of capture/sale was inhumane, blacks were kept in cages, conditions of ships were horrible, and one out of every three blacks died on the way over. By 1800, ten to fifteen million blacks had been transported as slaves to the Americas; while in Africa, fifty million human beings lives' were lost to death and slavery in those years. Blacks were easier to enslave than whites and Indians, but still were trouble to keep under thumb. These Afro-Americans rebelled by often running away and attempt to find family or sabotaging their work.

Have you ever wondered about what happened to the slaves brought from Africa to America? It wasn’t a pleasant trip, people were being killed getting sick and spreading it throughout the ships. On the ships if you were a slave you were to be in your area that is 6 feet by 16 inches, and that shrinks for women and kids. Buckets were passed around to use the restroom and they would often spill and get everywhere, making the ship stink, and even though the ship stunk, they were forced to eat and refusing or trying to kill themselves got them beat and when you didn’t eat them warmed a shovel and touched the slave’s lips with the shovel. After I fully examined Captain Thomas Phillips journal, Dr. Falconbridge's book and Olaudah Equiano’s Narrative

Indentured Servants The idea of indentured servants were not introduced until the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607. The growth of new crops such as rice, tobacco and indigo demanded plantation workers. Without enough workers, the landowners would lose money because the cash crops would die before they could be harvested. Without the machinery that is present today, workers would have to work very long hours each day. Supposedly, indentured servants were not the same thing as being a slave.

During the time of the 1650’s the Americas were not a part of what is now the United States and other countries in Central America and as well as the Caribbean. During those years European countries who were dominate in exploring the world and conquering new lands were the British, Spanish, French and the Dutch. The world economy was greatly impacted by the production of goods the Americas could provide Europe and even parts of Asia. The America’s were rich in materials that could not be made vastly, like the production of cotton, crops, tobacco and as well as natural gems like gold and silver that would increase wealth of the country who was exploring the region at the time. The British crown at the time was a powerful nation and if not the most powerful in wealth and military with great number of troops and

Slave ships drain Africans mentally but also physically. Unsanitary and dangerous ships hold hundreds of slaves in the bottom of them making conditions unbearable. Equiano documents these conditions saying, “Many a time we were near suffocation from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole days together. This, and the stench of the necessary tubs, carried off many,” (Equiano). Many slaves die from these egregious conditions if they chose not to attempt suicide.

Between 1750-1900, indentured servitude became much more popular due to the abolishment of slavery, the willingness of participants, the need for more workers, being able to be paid, and the movement of the world due to the Industrial revolution. Consequences to the popularization of Indentured Servitude were low wages, poor living conditions, and the mass immigration numbers to countries. During the years 1750-1900, the world was evolving to a more mechanical and industrial world compared to its past. But that does not mean agriculture as a whole was eliminated and an industry, people were still needed to work the fields and grow new plants and foods.

By establishing the institution of chattel slavery, in which a black person became not just a temporary servant but the lifetime property of his or her white master, the tobacco, cotton and rice planters of British North America ensured their rise to economic and political preeminence over the southern half of what would become the United

In the early 1600’s, indentured servants, usually someone from a poor class in England would sell their labor for a term of four to seven years for the opportunity to travel across the Atlantic and be funded by a master/farmer. After reviewing “A Contract for Indentured Service (1635)” the blank contract I referenced indicates a term of four to seven years to be completed. The contract promises to pay the servant in meat, drinks, apparel and lodging during his time as an indentured servant. After the term is completed the master is required to provide his former servant: clothing, three barrels of corn, and fifty acres of land. The risks that potential indentured servants had to consider when migrating to the American colonies were the bad

During the early eighteenth century slavery was a common practice in the United States, which was used to justify forced labor of African Americans. African people were captured and forced to migrate from their homes and families in Africa to become slaves in America. While on the ship to America many of these African captives were chained up and stacked on top of each other without access to necessities. Such things that these people were deprived of was access to food, water, restrooms, showers or any sanitation. This lack of proper living conditions during the forced migration of Africans to America caused many on board the ships to get diseases or die.

To the merchants and the crew of the slave ship, it was always a condition of “profits over people” (Rediker 142). In addition, this explains why African captives would be tightly crammed in the vessel so that they could be delivered in increasingly large quantities to gain profit, as long as the captives were delivered alive. Towards the end of the book, Rediker explains that “the dramas that played out on the decks of a slave ship were made possible, one might even say structured, by the capital and power of people far from the ship” (352). Merchants were highly influential in the constitution and economics the Atlantic slave trade. They funded and supplied countless voyages to other countries.

Labor systems have been the foundation for civilizations since the beginning of time. Who did what and how they benefited each other, in other words, specialization of labor, came to be a defining factor in whether a society was truly a civilization or not. Most great civilizations were founded on agricultural labor systems, and societies with no systematic format on their workforce were seldom able to take the main stage in world history. Between 1450 and 1750, the Americas began to mark their place in the world, proving they were just as relevant as Europe, Africa, or Asia. The labor systems established during 1450-1750 were key factors in how they were able to do so.

Slavery began long before the colonization of North America. This was an issue in ancient Egypt, as well as other times and places throughout history. In discussing the evolution of African slavery from its origins, the resistance and abolitionist efforts through the start of the Civil War, it is found to have resulted in many conflicts within our nation. In 1619, the first Africans in America arrived in Jamestown on a Dutch ship.

Indentured Servitude in Massachusetts Indentured servitude, the practice of signing oneself into a slave-like servitude for an agreed upon amount of time in exchange for various provisions, was widely popular in early Massachusetts as a way for American people to build a workforce and immigrants to migrate to the New World. Indentured men, women, and children, largely from Europe, became a crucial part of the fabric of the society, culture, and economy of this state and the city of Boston. Boston’s economy was shaped by immigrant indentured servants due to their vast impact in building the city to begin with, as well as the practice allowing for immigrant communities to be established in America. Plymouth Colony, one of the original colonies

Throughout the development of the colonies in America, slave trade grew to be a significant source of labor in primarily southern plantations within the late seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. During the era, with slaves being condemned to be considered socially inferior by law, and the increase in demand of goods such as rice and indigo, the slave labor force became a notable source for southern plantations in the eighteenth century. Slaves and people of color had always been considered to be socially inferior even before the colonies existed. With a sense of paternalism in Great Britain, people have always believed that those considered slaves,or servants rather, were second class citizens, and these people needed to be suppressed for their own best interests.

The US experienced massive immigration from Europe in the 1800s, which saw millions of people across the Atlantic to the New World. These people came from all corners of Europe including Ireland, Germany, Italy, Norway, and other scores of other nations and provinces. The people came as young men and women in search of jobs, others as families fleeing religious persecution and others as political radicals who were fleeing from the police. In addition, others came as farmers in search of land and a new start for that matter, and as paupers hardly capable of affording the rites of passage. This was the first wave of immigrants that shaped the US in considerable ways.