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Indentured servants could not marry without the permission of their master, were frequently subject to physical punishment, and did not receive legal favor from the courts. Female indentured servants in particular might be raped and/or sexually abused by their masters. If children were produced the labour would be extended by two years. [14]
But unlike slaves, servants were guaranteed to be eventually released from bondage. At the end of their term they received a payment known as "freedom dues" and became free members of society. [47] One could buy and sell indentured servants' contracts, and the right to their labor would change hands, but not the person as a piece of property.
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems.It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery.
Importing indentured labour became viable for plantation owners because newly emancipated slaves refused to work for low wages. This is demonstrated in the sheer number of freed slaves in colonies that imported Indian workers. Jamaica had 322,000 while British Guiana and Barbados had about 90,000 and 82,000 freed slaves, respectively. [13]
Slavery was institutionalized by the time the first civilizations emerged (such as Sumer in Mesopotamia, [5] which dates back as far as 3500 BC). Slavery features in the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. [6] Slavery was widespread in the ancient world in Europe, Asia, the Middle East ...
Fifteen years later, the Islands slave population had grown to 20,000, while indentured servants numbered 8,000. There were also more than 1,000 Irish freemen (former indentured servants whose term had expired) living on the island at that time. [10]: 230–1 By 1660, there were 26,200 Europeans and 27,100 African slaves on the Island.
An example of how the indentured servant was viewed is the 1662 Virginia law that forced both slave and indentured servant females, who bore children by their masters, to serve even more time, after their indentures had ended, for an additional two years, for the local churchwardens.
It is the first documented case of a black man sentenced to lifetime servitude and is considered one of the first legal cases to make a racial distinction between black and white indentured servants. [136] [137] After 1640, planters started to ignore the expiration of indentured contracts and keep their servants as slaves for life.