Pros And Cons Of African Indenture Servants

In fact, some indenture servants did fulfill their desire and became free citizens. They became successful farmers, landowners and purchased the indenture servants. In surface, it seemingly was a terrific solution for the unlucky Africans to make their desire come true. However, life was not so easy. The rest of other servants and their next generations had failed since very few of them lived to complete the terms of their contracts. The facts were that the master prevented their servants from marrying and could sell them at any time without their agreement. Female servants were obligated to suffer harassment from their master. Besides, men and women indentured as couple were sometimes divided, and if one spouse died, the other was forced to server both terms. Life was so harsh that many servants tried to run way or came to suicide. On the other hand, for those who became free also encountered disadvantages. As a result of prohibition from literacy and competition with other white owners; they, unconditionally, again signed another contract with the white and restarted the circle. Above all, the heftiest price that African
The relationship between the slaveholders and slaves was governed by the stringently imposed set of rules. The black slaves were supposed to express their loyalty and their lower status when contacting with whites. Furthermore, American slaves also endured the “caste system or a stratification system where there was no mobility between social position and a person’s class was totally permanent” (Reading package-week 1-reading 2-page 11). It means that they had no chances to escape from their miserable fate. ““Slave owners sought to make their slaves completely dependent on them and a system of restrictive codes governed life among slaves. They were prohibited from learning to read and write, and their behavior and movement was restricted.”(Article Slavery in America,