White indentured servitude : An American economic experience

Date

1970

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Abstract

White Indentured servitude is a much neglected area of economic history. There has been in recent years a renewed interest in the history of slavery in this country and the problems created by it. Scarcely anyone is aware that black slavery came later and that it is a direct offshoot of white bondage. When the first negro servants arrived in Jamestown in 1619, white servitude was already well established. There was no legal distinction between the two until about fifty years later. From this time forward the two existed side by side. White indentured servitude continued to exist until the early 1830's, dying out only thirty years before slavery. The economic impact of white Indentured servitude is much greater than generally realized. Because of this system, the English colonies developed along different lines than other colonies in the New World. This dissertation attempts to relate the more rapid settlement and the more rapid economic development of the English colonies to the influence of white indentured servitude. This was accomplished through its effect upon loosening social restraints, establishing a more fluid society and creating an atmosphere conducive to the acceptance of technological as well as social change. The procedure followed in this dissertation is to look into the economic conditions of Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries because these conditions determined to a large extent what classes would become caught up in the system. Who these people were and the degree of their attachment to the institutions of their homeland, determines to a large extent, their reactions and progress in the new land. An attempt is made to determine why the unique white bondage system developed in the English colonies alone. This required an examination of change in attitude of ruling classes toward the ruled and the changing composition of those two classes. The evolution of laws dealing with the increasing numbers of the landless are studied in relation to the economic developments that caused their detachment from their ancestral plots. The usual reasons given for the mass migration of the European poor, such as the desire for religious freedom, for economic opportunity, etc., are found to be much exaggerated if not downright false. The overwhelming majority came simply because there were profits to be made out of their exploitations. This profit was not restricted to the ultimate users, the planters and colonial artisans. The traffic in bondage was a multi-tiered operation stretching from the recruiters in the backlands of Europe to the soul drivers who drove their herds of human wares through the New World backlands selling them off in much the same matter as if they were cattle. Each link in the chain of supply of indentured servants was a lucrative operation. When laws curtailed these profits, the supply dried up. When colonial regulations curbed the exploitative abuses of the owners, the demand dried up and the system ended. The conclusions attempt to relate the impact of white indentured servitude to the strong democratic tradition in this country in contrast to the tendency of slavery to lead to aristocracy. The impact of white servitude is best seen in the Jacksonian movement. Jackson's followers were by and large the frontiersmen and eastern working classes who were for the most part ex-endentured servants or descendents of them. Even if some modern historical interpretations downgrades the democratic nature of the Jacksonian movement, we would still conclude that the democratic forces as they emerged throughout American history were strongly influenced by the spirit and ideas of freed indentured servants and their descendents.

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Keywords

Indentured servitude, Slavery

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