Ch. 3.2. Primary Source: Peter Kalm, Servants in the Colonies, ca. 1750
Peter or Pehr Kalm was a Finnish botanist who had been educated in Sweden and was commissioned in 1747 by the Swedish Royal Academy to make a scientific trip to North America. Based in southern New Jersey from 1748 to 1751, he met Benjamin Franklin and traveled widely in the northeastern English colonies. Although his account focuses on the market for servants at the port in Philadelphia, it was one of the few written by contemporary observers of colonial life that tried to provide an overall description of the system of indentured servitude and related phenomena.
The comment below is taken from the English translation of Kalm’s travel account (Adolph Benson, ed., Peter Kalm’s Travels in North America (2 vols., New York, 1937), I, pp. 204-206), from which Jensen, p. 486, excerpted it.
The servants which are employed in the English-American colonies are either free persons or slaves, and the former, again, are of two different classes.
1. Those who are entirely free serve by the year. They are not allowed to leave their service at the expiration of their year, but may leave it at any time when they do not agree with their masters. However, in that case they are in danger of losing their wages, which are very considerable. A man servant who has some ability gets between sixteen and twenty pounds in Pennsylvania currency, but those in the country do not get so much. A maidservant gets eight or ten pounds a year. These servants have their food besides their wages, but they must buy their own clothes, and whatever they get of these as gifts they must thank their master’s generosity for.
2. Indenture. The second kind of free servants consists of such persons as annually come from Germany, England and other countries, in order to settle here. These newcomers are very numerous every year: there are old and young of both sexes. Some of them have fled from oppression under which they have labored. Others have been driven from their country by religious persecution, but most of them are poor and have not money enough to pay their passage, which is between six and eight pounds sterling for each person. Therefore, they agree with the captain that they will suffer themselves to be sold for a few years on their arrival. In that case the person who buys them pays the freight for them; but frequently very old people come over who cannot pay their passage, they therefore sell their children for several years, so that they serve both for themselves and for their parents. There are likewise some who pay part of their passage, and they are sold only for a short time.
From these circumstances it appears that the price on the poor foreigners who come over to North America varies considerably, and that some of them have to serve longer than others. When their time has expired, they get a new suit of clothes from their master and some other things. He is likewise obliged to feed and clothe them during the years of their servitude. Many of the Germans who come hither bring money enough with them to pay their passage, but prefer to be sold, hoping that during their servitude they may get a knowledge of the language and character of the country and the life, that they may the better be able to consider what they shall do when they have gotten their liberty. Such servants are preferable to all others, because they are not so expensive.
To buy a Negro or black slave requires too much money at one time; and men or maids who get yearly wages are likewise too costly. But this kind of servant [i.e., indentured] may be gotten for half the money, and even for less; for they commonly pay fourteen pounds, Pennsylvania currency, for a person who is to serve four years, and so on in proportion. Their wages therefore are not above three pounds Pennsylvania currency per annum [per year]. These servants are, after the English, called servingar by the Swedes. When a person has bought such a servant for a certain number of years, and has an intention to sell him again, he is at liberty to do so, but is obliged, at the expiration of the term of servitude, to provide the usual suit of clothes for the servant, unless he has made that part of the bargain with the purchaser.
The English and Irish commonly sell themselves for four years, but the Germans frequently agree with the captain before they set out, to pay him a certain sum of money, for a certain number of persons. As soon as they arrive in America they go about and try to get a man who will pay the passage for them. In return they give according to their circumstances, one or several of their children to serve a certain number of years. At last they make their bargain with the highest bidder.