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It was the legal basis of the Apprentice ship system by which skilled trades were learned. Indentured servitude is not identical with Involuntary Servitude and Slavery . There have been multiple occasions where the indentured servitude has been abused, an example, where an indentured servant needs goods or services not available or supplied at a cost within the terms of the indenture finds that to obtain such goods or services requires the period of their indenture to be extended. In these circumstances, the system can represent a form of Unfree Labour . CARIBBEAN ISLANDS Most of the Europe an Settler s who came to the Caribbean Islands during the 16th and 17th Centuries did so as indentured servants. Commoner s, most of whom were young men, with dreams of owning their land or striking it rich quick would essentially sell years of their Freedom in exchange for passage to the islands. The landowners on the islands would pay for a servant’s passage and then provide them with food and shelter during the term of their service. The servant would then be required to work in the landowner’s (master) field for a term of bondage (usually four to seven years). During this term of bondage the servant was considered the property of the master. He could be sold or given away by his master and he was not allowed to Marry without the master’s permission. An indentured servant was normally not allowed to buy or sell goods although, unlike an African Slave , he could own personal property. He could also go to a local Magistrate if he was mistreated badly by his master. After the servant’s term of bondage was complete he was freed and paid “freedom dues”. These payments could take the form of land or Sugar , which would give the servant the opportunity to become an independent farmer or a free laborer. Indentured servitude was a common part of the landscape in England and Ireland during the 1600s . During the 1600s , many Irish were also kidnapped and taken to Barbados . The term ''Barbadosed'' was coined for these actions, and '' Redlegs '' for the group concerned. Many indentured servants were captured by the English during Cromwell’s expeditions to Ireland and Scotland , who were forcibly brought over between 1649 and 1655 . After , Malaria and the diseases that Europeans had brought over contributed to the fact that during the 17th century between 33 to 50 percent of the indentured servants died before they were freed. When slavery ended in the British Empire in 1838, plantation owners turned to indentured servitude for inexpensive labour. These servants emigrated from a variety of places, including China and Portugal, though a majority came from India. This system was abolished in 1917. As a result, today Indo-Caribbean s form a majority in Guyana , a plurality in Trinidad And Tobago and Suriname , and a substantial minority in Jamaica . NORTH AMERICA In for several years, one would expect to work as a blacksmith on one's own account after the period was over. During the 17th Century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia came from England this way. Their masters were bound to feed, clothe, and lodge them. Ideally, an indentured servant's lot in the establishment would be no harder than that of a contemporary Apprentice , who was similarly bound by contract and owed hard, unpaid labor while "serving his time." At the end of the allotted time, an indentured servant was to be given a new suit of clothes and set loose. However, according to author Michael A. Hoffman, of ''They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America'' (1993), the system was rife with abuse. Unscrupulous creditors could buy the debts of the unwitting poor in Britain and Ireland, and these people might find themselves involuntarily separated from their families and shipped off to America as indentured servants. Some masters also found ways to keep their charges indebted to them, and therefore unable to leave their bondage. Indentured servitude was a method of increasing the number of residents/ Emigrant s, especially in the British colonies. Convict labor only provided so many people, and since the journey across the Atlantic was dangerous and disease-stricken, resulting in deaths on every journey, other means of encouraging settlement were necessary. In fact contract-laborers were so important a group of people and so numerous that they were mentioned in the US Constitution: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, Three Fifths of all other Persons". Thus the system was still going strong in the 1780s, picking up immediately after a hiatus during the American Revolution. Fernand Braudel (''The Perspective of the World'' 1984, pp 405f) instances a 1783 report on "the import trade from Ireland" and its large profits to a ship owner or a captain, who: "puts his conditions to the emigrants in Dublin or some other Irish port. Those who can pay for their passage—usually about 100 or 80 Contractor , hiring out his labourers. Such circumstances affected the treatment a captain gave his valuable human cargo. After indentures were forbidden, the passage had to be prepaid, giving rise to the inhumane conditions of Irish " Coffin Ship s" in the second half of the 19th century. |
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