Indentured Servitude vs. Slavery

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Indentured Servitude vs. Slavery
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African Slaves
1670 1770
North 1,125 3,410
South 48,460 411,362
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Colonial Slave Revolts

• 1663 - First serious slave conspiracy in Colonial
  America, Sept. 13. Servant betrayed plot of White
  servants and Negro slaves in Gloucester County,
  Va.
• 1712 - Slave revolt, New York, April 7. Nine
  Whites killed. Twenty-one slaves executed.
• 1730 - Slave conspiracy discovered in Norfolk and
  Princess Anne counties, Va.
• 1739 - Slave revolt, Stono, S.C., Sept 9.
  Twenty-five Whites killed before insurrection was
  put down.
• 1741 - Series of suspicious fires and reports of
  slave conspiracy led to general hysteria in New
  York City, March and April. Thirty-one slaves,
  five Whites executed.
• 1773 - Massachusetts slaves petitioned
  legislature for freedom, Jan. 6. There is a
  record of 8 petitions during Revolutionary War
  period.

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The First Arrivals

• 1619 in Jamestown
• 20 Africans brought by the Dutch and traded to
  the English
• English used them as workers on tobacco
  plantations
• By 1660, slavery as we know it was established in
  Virginia

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NPS image
In a detail from NPS artist Keith Rocco's painting of a Jamestown waterside scene in the 1660s, enslaved African load hogshead barrels of tobacco aboard a ship bound for England.
 
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NPS Image
In a detail from NPS artist Keith Rocco's painting of a Jamestown waterside scene in the 1660s, newly-arrrived Africans are inspected by an English settler.
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Where did they come from?

• Western Africa
• 3 influential kingdoms Songhai, Benin, and
  Kongo
• Future slaves taken by the Portuguese from here
• Commonalities of West African culture
• Small villages
• Respect family and tradition
• Political leaders get their authority from
  religion (Islam)
• Everyone owns the land
• Trade

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Royal African Company

• English slave trading company
• Founded in 1672
• Has a monopoly on the slave trade in the colonies
  until 1698
• Agents in Virginia received a 7 percent
  commission on sales
• Planters complained that the company was not
  supplying them with enough slaves
• Stopped trading slaves in 1731 in favor of gold
  dust and ivory

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Triangular Trade
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Where did the captured Africans end up?
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Indentured Servants

                                                

                                                

                   
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The Original Workers

• Men, women, and sometimes children from Great
  Britain
• Sign a contract tying you to your master for 4-7
  years, no marriage and no bearing children
• Servant got passage from England, food,
  clothing, shelter, (salary?)
• Master property, could sell or transfer the
  rights of your servant

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Indentured Servants

• If caught trying to escape, they were given a
  longer length of servitude
• Permission from masters was required to leave
  colony, work for someone else or keep money for
  personal use
• Approximately ½ of the European population that
  came to the colonies started as indentures, up to
  90 of population that settled in Chesapeake area
  (Virginia)
• Men bricklayer, joiner, plasterer, cook, clerk,
  gardener, coachman, butcher, blacksmith, and
  musician
• Women performed domestic chores like laundry,
  sewing, and housekeeping

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Reflections from a modern day about back then

• "I had not the vaguest idea of how much labor,
  strength, perseverance, determination, and focus
  was required to not only make your Colony
  successful and eventually thriving, but to simply
  survive as an individual and not be inundated by
  the many impasses, hardships, and setbacks that
  gripped early colonial settlers after venturing
  to the New World." Jonathon Allen

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Convicts

• Used as a labor force as well
• Ran away more frequently and not as trusted as
  indentured servants
• Largely male, young, poor and unskilled
• Length of servitude was longer than indentured
  usually
• Possibly 1/4th of British immigrants to the 13
  Colonies were convicts

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Questions

• The argument is often made that indentured
  servants were not the same as slaves. Is this
  statement accurate?
• Slavery continues to become less and less popular
  in the north, however the concept of indentured
  servitude remains well through the 18th century.
  Why would slavery remain strong in the south
  while in the north it virtually dies out?

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Works Cited

• http//www.stratfordhall.org/ed-servants.html
• Major revolts and escapes handout from Ms. Carter
• http//www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us3
  .cfm