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The Pros And Cons Of Indentured Servants

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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. …show more content…

Congress mandated that paper money be issued and accepted in lieu gold and silver coins and specie-backed notes. The government promised to redeem the bills and their value was dependent on public confidence in the government. Many thought this promise of backing the bills was about as good as the green ink printed on one side, hence the name "greenbacks." The paper money depreciated in terms of gold and became the subject of much controversy, particularly because debts contracted earlier could now be paid in this cheaper currency. Even though there were issues with the currency, this was the first attempt at a national currency for the United States. (Sources: PowerPoint lecture discussion May 4, American Promise, Vol 1 to 1877, page 448, and Civil War Financing, 1861-
1865, http://www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/)

Item #12, photo of Wilmer McLean’s home at Appomattox Court House, 1865
This site is significant in that the first Civil War battle occurred within ¼ mile of this house and on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Lieutenant
General Ulysses S. Grant, essentially ending the Civil War. Lee sent a messenger to

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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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While the Congress was able to print money, the dollar had extraordinarily little worth. Some states began to create their own money, which made

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Prior to the Civil War, the United States currency was based on gold which required every coin or dollar in circulation to have corresponding gold to support that monetary value. However, during the Civil War our government transitioned from this gold standard to Greenbacks. Greenbacks were paper currency, printed on green paper, in two forms: Demand Notes and United States Notes. They were legal tender but did not hold comparable gold to support that legal

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255 Words | 2 Pages

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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Then the issue of inflation and the necessity of paper currency was brought to light stirring up more problems for the government. In 1785, the debaters believed and saw paper money as a means of easy repayment and prevented the need of “hard money” (silver and gold coins”; however, the farmers believed that the re instalment

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The first few years in Jamestown were difficult, but when a colonist named John Rolfe introduced tobacco, the new colony flourished. Large tobacco plantations were formed, and many people came to Jamestown to be indentured servants. These indentured servants would work for 7 years, then receive land from the plantation owners. This didn’t always work out, though: many plantation owners would simply refuse to give up valuable land. After a rebellion led by dissatisfied former indentured servants in 1676, rich tobacco plantation owners decided that indentured servants were too risky to employ, so they instead decided to purchase slaves.

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Each colony had issued its own paper money. The more money there was in circulation, the less a dollar was bought. Then came the financial collapse. People’s paper dollars were refused as payment. They had no gold or silver.

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The colonies became home to people of many different classes and religions so tension was inevitable; however, this period of strife and growth created the alarming notion that witches also lived among the colonists. By the early 18th century, immigration of other European groups was increasing primarily due to politics, religion and economics. These newcomers took full advantage of their physical environments; the south was fueled by plantations, while the north was fueled by manufacturing and industry. The southern plantations required more labor so the 18th century saw a rise in African slaves, which were quite different than the indentured servants that had come from England

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During the Civil War paper money had been made, but at the time it was not exchangeable for gold or silver. Congress had to decide wether or not to keep the paper money, get rid of it, or make it exchangeable for gold and silver. People had arguments on why they should do either option. The ones who voted to get rid of paper money or make it exchangeable feared inflation. Where the people who voted to keep paper money said there was not enough gold and silver to support a growing economy.

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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.

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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.

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In the beginning of the colonies, a large amount of settlers came as indentured servants. The reason for this was that there were many English that wanted to come to the new land. It was cheaper and the labor paid very well, for most of them this was the only way they were able afford the trip. The colonies were in dire need for a labor service so they took advantage of their poverty. It wasn’t for at least around fifty years until Africans started showing up to the colonies.

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The tobacco industry in Virginia started to boom from the 1620’s through the 1660’s. Because of this boom in production, the colonists of Virginia faced a major problem. The problem that arose was that the colonist did not have enough workers to grow the tobacco anymore. As a result of this issue, the colony began to receive indentured servants in order to keep up with the high production of tobacco. Indentured servants were the lower sorts from England who were bought for about 15-10 pounds and then were also apart of what is called the headwright system.

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It took a large workforce to till, plant, and process the tobacco plant. In order to bring more people to the New World, landowner or sponsors, offered contracts to individuals who could not pay for the expensive trip to the America’s. Thus began indentured servants; men whose passage to the New World was paid for by wealthy colonists with the understanding that they would work for the sponsor to pay off this debt. Indentured servants became a primary source of labor in the American colonies during the seventeenth century. Advantages within Indentured

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Indentured servitude was a form of cheap labor equal to that of slavery. In the 1800s and into the early 1900s, immigrants from the eastern world were hired into low paying jobs to pay their debt to the wealthy bby working on plantations in terrible working conditions. The people were to sign a contract that bound them to work for up to 15 hours a day for a number of years until their fee for traveling to the new world was paid. The majority of the people That were indentured servants were from India and other Eastern parts of Asia this was due to the spread of the Industrial Revolution brought about by Western Europe.

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