Indentured Servants In America

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In the early beginnings of America, the use of slaves and indentured servants as a labor force was popular among English settlers who could buy and sell them as they pleased. Settlers fortunate enough to pay for their passage to America could arrive with freedom, but those remaining two thirds who couldn’t arrived as indentured servants (Eric Foner, ed., Give Me Liberty, 54). As for the Africans, they had no choice in freedom, they were sold off and transported to America as slaves. While the key difference between slaves and indentured servants is the ability of servants to voluntarily give up their freedom and have the opportunity to gain it back, there many similarities in both the way that they were transported to the colonies and in the …show more content…
The voyage of the indentured servants took several weeks, which is likely similar to the length of time it took for the slaves (Gottlieb Mittelberger, The Misfortune of Indentured Slaves). Secondly, when looking at the way both slaves and indentured servants were treated you can see that there are several similarities. For instance, both of them were forced to work, commonly tied up, beaten, whipped, and sometimes even killed, and lastly lost freedom either for the remainder of their life or for several years (Eric Foner, 54 & 137). The key difference between these two people was the ability of the indentured servants to give up their freedom in exchange for the passage to America where they could then gain back their freedom after years of labor, although this wasn’t always the case. This difference is important because it determined the difference in quality of life between these two groups. While they both endured horrific experiences and conditions a servant could at least hope for or look forward to a better life in the future, but slaves on the other hand had nothing to look forward to, there was no hope of freedom or a better