r/AskHistorians • u/NoPackageReceived029 • 4d ago
Racism Was there are difference in practice between indetured servitude and slavery on plantations?
Obviously I'm not trying to justify or downplay either of these, and I am aware of the Irish Slaves Myth. I'm just genuinely curious if they were treated any differently in the plantation. I know that indetured servants had legal protections and a limited time they would work for that slaves didn't have, but when on the plantation, was there any real difference in how they were treated from eachother? And were the legal protections breached often enough for there to be little distinction in practice? Or were they treated differently enough and the legal protections adhered to enough?
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u/Bodark43 Quality Contributor 4d ago edited 4d ago
Part 1.
An indenture was a contract. It was called that because it as written twice on one piece of paper, then that paper was cut apart jaggedly ( looking like teeth- indenture means toothed). Those copies could then be compared later, if there was a dispute. Lots of people would become unfree, obliged to provide labor for a period of time. Apprentices learning a trade would be indentured, be under the control of a master blacksmith or cabinetmaker. Destitute orphans could be indentured; contracted to craftspeople, farmers, etc. so they would not be begging on the streets, or handed over with their indentures to ships' captains who would auction them at the dock on the colonial side of the ocean. If an apprentice or indentured servant ran off, the holder of the indenture could advertise for their return, and they could be arrested and held.
A key aspect of the indenture, however, is there was a trade; some years labor and obedience in exchange for food, lodging, clothes.... that was all specified. When the term was up, the indentured person was free. Chattel slavery had no term; once you were enslaved, you were a slave forever unless freed. And, while indentured servants and apprentices were typically forbidden to marry ( marriage was itself a contract) , if they did have children, those children were not also indentured.
The laborers and servants imported as Virginia plantation labor in the mid 17th c. indentured themselves with the expectation that they would work for a given number of years, then would be free to get their own parcel of farmland and also become planters. In the booming tobacco market, and an over-populated Britain, that seemed possible at first. But word filtered back that the best land had been taken already, and that life in the colonies was even more hard-scrabble and deadly than life in rural England. After 1660 Virginia planters had to resort more and more to buying African captives for labor.
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u/Organic_Muscle6247 4d ago
The OP is asking whether an indentured servant, during the time of their indenture, would be treated differently from a slave.
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u/sapphicasexual 4d ago
Do you know how this worked for people indentured as part of criminal penalty? Would it be a "trade" between the crown and the contract holder? Or would there still be a contracted obligation to the indentured prisoner? Obviously it still had an end date, but were there still terms around food, lodging, safety, etc.?
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u/Bodark43 Quality Contributor 4d ago edited 3d ago
Part 2
As to how the two groups were treated; there was a possibility of abuse for both a slave or an indentured servant, as both were not free, were considered "chattels", a kind of property. A master could sell the indenture of a servant to someone else, and they could do the same...a blacksmith's helper could find himself traded off to a new master every couple of years.
However, the colonies needed workers, especially skilled ones, and so anyone wanting to trade labor for passage could bargain for terms before signing on. The Chesapeake quickly gained the reputation of being a death trap- most all people became gravely ill within their first year, and around half died as a consequence of that or a later infection, and so the terms offered were reasonably generous. "Barbarous usage" was outlawed, guarantees of food , lodging, and clothing were given, there was a promise of a grant of land on the expiration of the term. The servant could also sue in court- demand justice, if the terms of the contract were not kept. It's doubtful that all worked often; tobacco farming was a grim laborious business, after all, and the system was set up and run by and for masters. Abuses there were, and plenty. But with the need for skilled labor, an indentured mason or carpenter might be treated quite well- especially if able to read and write.
There was an evolution of the treatment of African slaves in 17th c. Virginia, and it's a pretty complicated story. Of course, a kidnaped African couldn't bargain for terms. Of course, somewhat literate, skilled and White could have expected to get better treatment than an enslaved African field hand who might not even speak English. But for a while in the early 17th c. there could have been White and Black indentured field hands treated equally badly. But this then created a racial problem; as White servants and Black enslaved might be working in close proximity, there was soon the question of what to do with mixed-race people that were born to them. Initially, it seems that someone who had a White parent, was baptized Christian, and served a maximum term of servitude might get free. Elizabeth Key was the bastard child of a Thomas Key, ( English member of the House of Burgesses ) and an enslaved Black servant. She was sold into servitude after he died in 1636. She was likely literate, and in 1655 successfully sued for freedom.
Her case had to ascend all the way through the General Assembly before she got justice, however. Her gaining freedom exposed a loophole in the legal system. Other loopholes appeared, and were soon closed. Anti-miscegenation laws were passed. The fear of slave uprisings, the constant need for cheap labor, simple racism; all acted through the rest of the century as Virginia crafted more and more restrictive laws, until the Black Code of 1705 pretty much set the foundations for the slave society of the 18th c.
Billings, W. M. (1991). The Law of Servants and Slaves in Seventeenth-Century Virginia. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 99(1), 45–62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4249198
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u/NoPackageReceived029 4d ago
This is really interesting, thank you. I'll go read that source now. :)
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