Knowledge Tree
indentured servitude
Facts (10)
Sources
Student Debt and The Spirit of Indenture - Dissent Magazine dissentmagazine.org 6 facts
claimIndentured servitude was a dominant aspect of labor and life in early America rather than an isolated practice.
procedureThe brokerage system for indentured servitude involved merchants or brokers in English ports signing prospective workers and selling their contracts to shippers or colonial landowners, who could then re-sell the contracts.
accountThe Virginia Company shifted to a policy of indentured servitude in 1620 to secure labor for the tobacco colonies because the initial colonists, who were primarily from the gentry, lacked practical farming skills and suffered from starvation and disease.
perspectiveHistorians such as Edmund S. Morgan and Marcus Rediker argue that indentured servitude was an exploitative system of labor, often functioning as a form of bondage akin to slavery.
claimThe Virginia Company extended the duration of indentured servitude contracts to four to seven years for labor in America, compared to the typical one-year terms used in England, to account for the costs of transit and the brokerage system.
perspectiveEconomic historian David W. Galenson argues that the system of indentured servitude was rational, free, and fair, noting that individuals had a free choice to enter the arrangement and that some indentured servants eventually prospered.
Alex Bradshaw about the history of the phenomenon of debt davidgraeber.org Aug 4, 2011 2 facts
claimDavid Graeber asserts that the existence of a state is historically necessary to create conditions where individuals are willing to enter into indentured servitude or debt bondage arrangements with others.
claimThe existence of a state is necessary to create conditions where individuals are willing to enter into indentured servitude or debt bondage.
Systemic Debt Slavery - David Korten davidkorten.org Jan 8, 2021 2 facts
perspectiveThe United States legal system enforces modern indentured servitude by favoring the rights of property over the rights of people.
accountDuring the early colonial period in the United States, individuals unable to pay for passage to the New World committed to a period of indentured service to the person who paid their debt to the ship captain.