Chapter 3.0. Indentured Servants: Introduction
It is well known that in the colonial period many people worked as indentured servants, that is, they worked for a master for a set term and according to a written contract. But in fact servants with “indentures,” or written contracts, represented just the most well known and formalized form of colonial servitude. Many of those who worked as servants lacked any written contract at all. And the contracts for indentured servants varied a great deal in terms of how long they lasted, the conditions of work, and the degree to which the servants might also be apprentices (i.e., by receiving some training). This chapter, beginning with the brief introduction below, is taken from Merrill Jensen, American Colonial Documents to 1776 (1955), pp. 481-86.
A basic fact in the peopling of the colonies was that the majority of the people who came to the colonies did not pay their way. The ordinary Englishman or European could not save enough in a lifetime to purchase his own passage across the Atlantic, much less that of a family. Therefore they came at the expense of others. This was made possible by the system of indentured servitude which lasted down into the nineteenth century. In its simplest form the immigrant signed a contract to work, usually from four to seven years, in payment for his passage. The system was begun by the Virginia Company and was well established by 1624. Its importance is indicated by a Virginia census of 1624-1625 which showed that 487 out of a total population of 1,227 were indentured servants. In 1671, Governor William Berkeley reported that Virginia had a total population of 40,000, of whom 6,000 were indentured servants and 2,000 were Negro slaves.
The system was extended to other colonies and was of the greatest importance in the settling of Pennsylvania. Although there are few reliable statistics, it has been estimated that two-thirds of the people who came to Pennsylvania came as indentured servants. During the eighteenth century a new type of indentured servant appeared: the “redemptioner.” The redemptioners were usually people who could pay part of their own way and who were allowed a period of time after arrival to dispose of their services to pay for the balance of their passage. If they could not do so, the ship captain could sell them as indentured servants to satisfy the remaining debt. This method was first used by German immigrants but spread to the Scotch-Irish and others who came to Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century. It differed also from indentured servitude in that it was a method most often used by families, whereas indentured servitude usually applied to individuals. The most recent scholarly estimate declares that between one-half and two-thirds of all the white immigrants to the colonies were indentured servants, redemptioners, or convicts.
The indenture or contract was a standard printed form. It usually provided for the conditions of service and for the compensation to be awarded to the servant at the end of his term of service. The compensation varied. In most of the southern colonies tools and fifty acres of land were commonly promised, but the available evidence indicates that very few ex-servants settled on the land promised to them.
The traffic in servants became a highly organized business, engaged in by both European and colonial shipowners and merchants. In general, the conditions on the immigrant ships were horrible, and various colonies passed a considerable amount of legislation for improvement of the traffic. There is a considerable diversity of opinion as to the lot of indentured servants. Many were badly treated, and there was colonial legislation to improve conditions. On the other hand, legislation provided for strict punishment of recalcitrant and runaway servants.
Eighteenth-century newspapers are replete with unflattering descriptions of runaway servants. The ire of colonists was particularly aroused by the many convicts sent over to the colonies as servants. And large numbers were sent. London and the home circuit shipped over 17,000 convicts to the colonies between 1718 and 1772. Maryland alone received over 9,000 convict servants from Britain between 1748 and 1775. Yet all colonial efforts to end this traffic were consistently vetoed.
Very little evidence exists as to the fate of servants, once they had worked out their contracts. Perhaps a greater proportion had a chance for advancement in the early days of the colonies than was true in the eighteenth century. Seven burgesses in the Virginia Assembly of 1629 were former servants. But even in the eighteenth century there are examples of servants or their descendants who were people of importance. The maternal grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was an indentured servant. Tradition has it that at least one signer of the Declaration of Independence, Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire, was an indentured servant, as well as Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789, but the evidence is not clear.
What is clear is that by the end of the colonial period, families or individuals who had started as indentured servants, sought to hide the fact if they had achieved any prominence. As for servants as a group, a modem scholar has estimated that perhaps a tenth became land-owning farmers and that another tenth became artisans. The proportion of redemptioners achieving ultimate independence was probably greater since most of them had property when they came to the colonies. As to convicts, American records are understandably non-existent, and even the most indefatigable genealogists have shown no interest in the English records of convicts shipped to America.