Indentured Servitude vs. Black Slavery
Compare and contrast indentured servitude with black slavery. Why did Chesapeake colonists make the switch?
After the colonies started to thrive with the new crop exports, there was a very high demand for field workers to cultivate those crops. There were two ways that the colonists met this demand: the use of indentured servants and the use of black slaves. Indentured servants were, by definition, “persons who agreed to serve a master for a set number of years in exchange for the cost of transport to America.” Our textbook also goes on to add that “indentured servitude was the dominant for of labor in the Chesapeake colonies before slavery.” The use of slaves started after 1700 when the supply of indentured servants began to diminish. A slave, also by definition, is “(especially in the past) a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.” Between 1619 and 1622, approximately 3,750 individuals were sent to the colony of Virginia. During this time, people rarely moved to Virginia as a family because the voyage was too expensive. The individuals that came were most likely indentured servants who exchanged their labor over a predetermined time for transportation to the new world. The time that the person served was partly based on their age; the younger the servant, the longer they served. To make the bargain a fair trade, the master promised to give the workers proper care and, at the end of their service, provide them with tools and clothes according to “the custom of the country.” However, powerful Virginians corrupted the system. The servants were promised land when they were freed, but were often cheated and became members of a growing, landless class in seventeenth-century Virginia. Whenever it was possible, Virginia planters bought able-bodied workers capable of hard labor, and the preference of male workers skewed the gender ratio in the colony almost six to one. This imbalance meant that, even if the servant lived to the end
After the colonies started to thrive with the new crop exports, there was a very high demand for field workers to cultivate those crops. There were two ways that the colonists met this demand: the use of indentured servants and the use of black slaves. Indentured servants were, by definition, “persons who agreed to serve a master for a set number of years in exchange for the cost of transport to America.” Our textbook also goes on to add that “indentured servitude was the dominant for of labor in the Chesapeake colonies before slavery.” The use of slaves started after 1700 when the supply of indentured servants began to diminish. A slave, also by definition, is “(especially in the past) a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.” Between 1619 and 1622, approximately 3,750 individuals were sent to the colony of Virginia. During this time, people rarely moved to Virginia as a family because the voyage was too expensive. The individuals that came were most likely indentured servants who exchanged their labor over a predetermined time for transportation to the new world. The time that the person served was partly based on their age; the younger the servant, the longer they served. To make the bargain a fair trade, the master promised to give the workers proper care and, at the end of their service, provide them with tools and clothes according to “the custom of the country.” However, powerful Virginians corrupted the system. The servants were promised land when they were freed, but were often cheated and became members of a growing, landless class in seventeenth-century Virginia. Whenever it was possible, Virginia planters bought able-bodied workers capable of hard labor, and the preference of male workers skewed the gender ratio in the colony almost six to one. This imbalance meant that, even if the servant lived to the end