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Indentured Servitude Analysis

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Slavery has played a huge role in contemporary history. In this project I will research the settlement of indentured servitude in Jamestown in the 1600s. I will also explore how it affected contemporary society in Virginia 21th century. Tobacco was growing rapidly in Jamestown Virginia and there were not enough laborers to help grow the tobacco. That is where indentured servants came in. The servants were people who were fresh out of the streets and out of the jails in England and on their way to the new world Jamestown Virginia. They may have been hired for cheap labor but, little did they know they were making history by producing one of the America’s largest cash crops. Today immigrants are still working for cheap labor in the tobacco fields …show more content…

In fact, this is exactly what Sandra L. Dahlberg described in her research on Richard Frethorne’s letter called "Doe Not Forget Me" when she stated “in the letters, Frethorne painted a dire portrait of his life in Virginia: he was hungry, he had insufficient clothing, and he lacked consistent access to shelter” (Dahlberg, 2012). That means that the people were not only immigrants they were poor also. The same can be said about the immigrants working in the tobacco fields today. However, the people was basically brought over either by involuntarily, forced or maybe kidnapped. They lived in little to no shelter. They were hungry and …show more content…

The workers worked hard for little money; which is the exact same thing that the indentured servants went through. This is almost the same thing Richard Fethorne went through in the colonial period. The letter written by Richard Frethorne "Doe Not Forget Me" was one of the many letters written during the colonial period. However, this particular letter describes the hardship that Richard and other indentured servants went through.
One area of humanity I plan to compare to indentured servitude is the industrial revolution period. When we take a look at the industrial revolution we can see similarity in how people worked hard and they were not paid very much money. The history of slavery has definitely effected the industrial revolution period. During the colonial period, the colonist was able to get people to work for cheap labor. During the industrial period the idea of indentured servitude was still there. People were still working for cheap

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In fact, in 1650 indentured servitude was the more common variety of labor workers the colonists relied on. In the text it states, “About 80 percent of the immigrants to the Chesapeake during the seventeenth century came as indentured servants” (Roark 60). This evidence exhibits the fact that slaves weren’t exclusively

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Indentured servants were people who were granted their passage to America in exchange for their labor for up to seven years. Bacon’s Rebellion dramatically changed the ratio of indentured servants to slaves in the colonies. Socially, the bringing in of slaves made for more diversity

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In the time period from 1607 to 1750, the economies of Virginia and Massachusetts began to develop. In Virginia, during the colonial times, it was a tobacco growing colony with a large population of tobacco planters. The spread of the tobacco cultivation increased the demand for workers and led Chesapeake planters to buy large amounts of slaves. They chose not to use indentured servants because African slaves offered more advantages to the owners. This led to a great increase in slave population along with the growth of tobacco planters in Virginia; an upper class of wealthy landowners with control emerged.

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Item #1, painting of 17th century English being transported to the colonies as Indentured Servants By 1617, tobacco was a booming and successful crop for the colonists. The first commercial shipment of tobacco to England was in 1617 and the tobacco sold for a very lucrative price. However, tobacco was very labor-intensive crop and the colonists were experiencing a shortage of labor to grow and cultivate their crops. Land in the colonies was cheap and readily available and most colonists preferred to own and work their own land rather than working for someone else; thus the importation of indentured servants. Approximately 80% of those immigrating to the Chesapeake during the 17th century came to the colonies as indentured servants.

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Indentured servants, were by all accounts, the main source of labor in the seventeenth century. The labor force was mainly needed for the newly discovery of the cash crop that was tobacco. It was a plant that need a lot of man power to be harvested and transported to port to be shipped back to England. “At first they turned to their overpopulated country for labor, but English indentured servants brought with them the same haphazard habits of work as their masters.” Indentured service being described as haphazard is an understatement; uprising.

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In Virginia, people mostly focused on growing of staples and exotic crops for cash. The crops that they grew in their colony were rice, indigo, and tobacco. But in Virginia, tobacco was the crop that they focused on, in fact, tobacco was the first most famous staple crop grown and became their economic foundation. As far as working in the fields, Virginia started off with indentured servants to perform the labor, but as they became expensive they shifted to purchasing slaves. Mortality rates were higher because of diseases that many of them came in contact with, men were expected to live to forty and women weren’t expected to live past their thirties.

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This is a picture of the hired servants working on a farm in Jamestown because the slaves were not yet introduced. The servants are harvesting tobacco on a farm in the southern colonies, where they depended on large-scale servants and cash crops, such as tobacco, for their economy. The servants will be working for the landlord for some years. They signed a contract that would work on a farm for a few years and then their freedom would be granted in America. These servants came in many sizes and colours.

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Basicly, the indentured servants were regularly from England, and did not have money to sail to Virginia. So then they had to become a servant to pay the voyage. The servants worked for a “master” for a period of time under a contract. They usually worked on tobacco. They were given food and a place to live.

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As given per the scenario, being a young woman out to venture on my own, one of my key concerns would be safety. What colony will provide for me in security, economically, socially, and and maybe even religiously. Another large factor that comes into question is time. While reading about the early colonizations things changed vastly from one year to the next. These changes were based on wars, climate, political powers/influences, and relationships with nearby natives.

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What ultimately led to the shift from white servants to black slaves was a series of uprisings. As the tobacco boom and the shortage of labor continued, Virginian landowners pushed legislation that would indenture servants for longer periods of time, these provisions were met with backlash and as a result, the colonies saw an influx of indentured servant rebellions. The largest of these rebellions was Bacon’s rebellion; since many of the whites who came to America as indentured servants had aspirations to becoming landowners themselves after their contracts expired, by the landowners extending it and making it more difficult for them to exit their service, in a way, they felt they were being duped by false promises (Takaki 58). Nathaniel Bacon led this rebellion and resulted in whites and blacks to take arms and rise against landowners in what would be the largest uprising until the American Revolution (Takaki 60). One of the concerns raised as a result of this rebellion is that whites were legally able to obtain while blacks could not.

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The book explains how at first, the black salves were similar to white servants. They worked together and were sometimes freed after a certain period. The whites and blacks hung out after work and often had kids. Few have stated that many masters in the South treated their slaves better than those up North. Some may say this because masters in the South saw their slaves as an investment, which makes prefect sense.

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In 1607, the first wave of colonial settlers arrived in Virginia and began to establish Jamestown. Many of the new settlers came from wealthy families never performing a day of manual labor. With agricultural farming, being the revenue source of the new colonial settlers there would soon be a great demand for labor. Contracts of indentures were expiring and with much devastation in England, there was a shortage of English servants.

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In the 17th centuries early settlers came to America in the hope of taking their custom and traditions forward. However, the environment and geography brought changes to their lifestyles. Soon, people became to alter their pattern of living in the different colonies. During the 17th and 18th centuries, geography and the environment profoundly influenced the economic development and overall health and success of the two regions called the Chesapeake and the New England, which began to form in the early 17th century.

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In his letter he described his life as an indentured servant as one where he has nothing to comfort him but sickness and death. The life that he was living in colonial Virginia was one where you couldn’t escape or else you will be captured. Attempting it could of cause him to die, therefore he hoped his parents brought his escape but with his parents being poor there was no way of escaping the life of an indentured servant. Having no escape as an indentured servant, he wrote to his parents a letter asking that his parents bought out the indenture. In his letter, he wrote that he was trapped in a place filled of diseases that can make any body weak and leave you with lack of comfort and rattled with guilt.

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The Virginia colony intended to reproduce into an English society when they settled. With tobacco becoming a huge crop in Virginia, they invested heavily in servants to help with the plantations, “Our principal wealth…. consisteth in servants.” (Takaki 53). Whites

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