Indentured Servitude

Hundreds of thousands of British and Irish men, women, and children crossed the Atlantic during the seventeenth century as indentured servants. Many had agreed to serve for four years, but large numbers had been trafficked or “spirited away” or were sent forcibly by government agencies as criminals, political rebels, or destitute vagrants. In Indentured Servitude Anna Suranyi provides new insight into the lives of these people. The British government, Suranyi argues, profited by supplying labour for the colonies, removing unwanted populations, and reducing incarceration costs within Britain. In addition, it was believed that indigents, especially destitute children, benefited morally from being placed in indenture. Capitalist entrepreneurs who were influential at the highest levels of government made their fortunes from Atlantic trade in goods, indentured servants, and slaves, and their participation in the servant trade contributed to the commercialization of criminal justice. Suranyi breaks new ground in showing how indentured servitude was challenged: once in the colonies, indentured servants adapted resourcefully to their circumstances and rebelled against unfair conditions and abuse by suing their masters, by running away, or through outright revolt. Emerging ideas about race and citizenship led to vehement public debate about the conditions of indentured servants and the ethics of indenture itself, prompting legislation that aimed to curb the worst excesses while slavery continued to expand unchecked.

Hundreds of thousands of British and Irish men, women, and children crossed the Atlantic during the seventeenth century as indentured servants. Many had agreed to serve for four years, but large numbers had been trafficked or “spirited away” or were sent forcibly by government agencies as criminals, political rebels, or destitute vagrants. In Indentured Servitude Anna Suranyi provides new insight into the lives of these people. The British government, Suranyi argues, profited by supplying labour for the colonies, removing unwanted populations, and reducing incarceration costs within Britain. In addition, it was believed that indigents, especially destitute children, benefited morally from being placed in indenture. Capitalist entrepreneurs who were influential at the highest levels of government made their fortunes from Atlantic trade in goods, indentured servants, and slaves, and their participation in the servant trade contributed to the commercialization of criminal justice. Suranyi breaks new ground in showing how indentured servitude was challenged: once in the colonies, indentured servants adapted resourcefully to their circumstances and rebelled against unfair conditions and abuse by suing their masters, by running away, or through outright revolt. Emerging ideas about race and citizenship led to vehement public debate about the conditions of indentured servants and the ethics of indenture itself, prompting legislation that aimed to curb the worst excesses while slavery continued to expand unchecked.

A rare memoir from the early eighteenth century by an Englishman who traveled to the New World as an indentured servant.

From 1609 until well after the founding of the Republic, half of all the colonists who came to America did so under some form of involuntary labor. Author John van der Zee draws on original memoirs, newspapers, and pamphlets to re-create the life stories of a number of the remarkable men and women whose enshacklement and destitution paved the way for American freedom. From the narratives of convicts, redemptioners (who accepted servitude in exchange for transportation to America), and those who were "spirited away" (snatched against their will), van der Zee weaves a colorful "people's history" of colonial and Revolutionary times. In their own words and through their own eyes, we meet such men and women as the first labor organizer in America; the young nobleman whose memoirs inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped; and a real-life Moll Flanders. The book also offers a surprising new interpretation of the Revolution as growing out of this widespread practice of servitude.--From publisher description.

This is the story of the colonists of the kitchens, the stables, the fields, the shops, and those who came to America as indentured servants, men and women who sold" themselves to masters for a period of time in order to pay passage from an old world to a new and freer one. Their leaven has gone into the fiber of American society." Originally published in 1947. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

The proliferation of literature on the various forms of human exploitation before the nineteenth century provides the raison d'etre for this seminal collection of essays. The ideological foundations upon which systems of coerced labour were constructed are discussed, and then placed into context by examinations of unfree labour in Europe and the colonies. Attention is also paid to the ways in which the oppressed created their cultural space, and challenged those who held them in servitude.

Gaines Bradford Jackson is a man with a goal of informing the public that it appears the democracy idea of the American founding fathers seems to be crumbling into a seedy oligarchy, which is robbing the average citizen of his/her civil liberties. He has compiled and written a provocative book in his latest creation entitled Indentured Servitude Revisited. He has cleverly written about honesty, the objectives of the original founding fathers, and a historical overview of how the US Constitution evolved. Slavery founded America, and it was supposedly done away with, but its ugly head has resurfaced time and time again in gradually eroding the individual freedoms supposedly guaranteed by the US Constitution. Jackson builds a good case of describing the original sin of our founding fathers when they made the judiciary self-regulated. This out-of-control system has allowed for democracy to be eroded in America and has allowed the old axiom of the greed for money to rule the ones in power to cause the existing oligarchy (rule by select extremely wealthy individuals only) to come about in its ugly plan of stealing the citizens' civil liberties and attempting to commit everyone to become a slave of big money. The book is fully documented to support the premises being made. All Americans should read this book and begin to push for the twenty-eighth amendment with the inclusion of the JAIL amendment proposals to put a check on the runaway legal system before it is too late. Jackson offers a solution, only if enough Americans become fully informed and begin to question everything government does and push to remove the career politician--another one of the roots of evil that has oozed into our government and ruined it along with the lifetime appointments of the "good old boys" known as the Supreme Court justices. Read this book and get mad, as you have a full right to get angry for what has been going on, and inform your neighbors and all others you know (in particular your state representatives and senators); let us change America together before something really awful happens. The plain truth is revealed in this book as a hallmark read for anyone that does not like or accept what our central government is attempting on every law-abiding citizen in the continental United States of America.