Indentured Servitude 53in the American colonies, prior to 1700, came in the form
of white indentured servitude. Many Native Americans
groups residing in what became British North America
were not a successful labor source due to the fact that many
died from Old World diseases or were unaccustomed to the
skills required for surplus agricultural production. In some
cases, particularly among Algonquian-speaking groups, a
unique gender divide of labor in which women performed
agricultural work and men hunted would have made their
successful enslavement diffi cult given the English proclivity
for enslaving men in the production of cash crops. Addi-
tionally, settlers could expect reprisals if they enslaved the
local native peoples.
Th us, voluntary indentured servants accounted for
nearly half the white settlers in all the colonies outside of
New England. Th e term derived from the indenture, or con-
tract, signed by poor persons, who promised to work for a
fi xed number of years in return for the cost of their trans-
atlantic voyage. Generally, the term of service lasted fi ve to
seven years and once their service ended, indentured ser-
vants hoped to become landowners themselves. During the
17th century the desire for land drew to the North American
colonies a signifi cant number of English, Irish, and German
men and women willing to serve as un-free laborers.
Most of those who chose to become indentured ser-
vants came from British cities infested with poverty, pol-
lution, and disease. Th e hard work and loss of personal
freedom was seen as a small price to pay for the opportu-
nity to start over in the New World. Nevertheless, not all
servants went voluntarily. Some criminals escaped prison
or death through a sentence that relocated them to the colo-
nies. Still others in the poverty-ridden urban centers were
“kidnapped” and sold into servitude.
Most indentured servants immigrated to the Chesa-
peake region (the Virginia and Maryland colonies) through-
out the 17th and early 18th centuries. Of the En glish
emigrants to the region during that period, nearly 60 per-
cent came under indenture. Th ese servants would live in
their master’s household, where they were given room and
board but no other wages or compensation during their
term of service. Th e contract could be sold or transferred
from one master to another without consent from the ser-
vant. Th e vast majority of servants were single people who
were not allowed to marry until they were independent.
By law, at the end of the contracted period, most servants
were granted “freedom dues,” goods, and sometimes land,
to support themselves as independent settlers.a Bight of Biafra (Igbo) enclave in Virginia as a phenom-
enon unique in North America.
Th e Igbo-speaking imports into the Chesapeake played
a signifi cant factor in the rise of Afro-Virginian culture.
One implication of the presence of so many Igbo-speakers
was the proliferation of Igbo terms and concepts—okra,
buckra, obia—or discrete Igbo cultural practices (e.g., the
Jonkonu celebration, funerary customs, and spiritual be-
liefs) in Jamaica, Virginia, and other regions of the An-
glophone Americas that imported signifi cant numbers of
Africans from the Bight of Biafra. Another implication was
the possibility that Gabriel Prosser—leader of the failed
Richmond, Virginia, slave revolt in 1800—was accorded a
great deal of respect and veneration because of his black-
smithing skills and the spiritual powers associated with this
trade among the peoples living in the Biafran interior. In
fact, three separate blacksmiths were claimed to have been
part of the leadership core of this attempt to capture and
raze the capital of Virginia.
See also: Buckra; Coromantee; Ebo Landing; Transmigration
Walter C. RuckerBibliography
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Indentured Servitude
Before the introduction of African slaves to the North
American colonies in 1619 and as a result of the inability
to enslave the native Indian population, most un-free labor