Question

Indentured servants were the labor of choice before enslaved Africans. So what tilted the balance? Where did this leave the ex-indentured servants?

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) Indentured servants were the white labourers who were bought to Virginia with the promise of land. Upon their arrival, they were treated harshly and lived in atrocious conditions, while they were working under contract in tobacco fields. Their contract for labour was in exchange for the transport to Virginia and food and shelter.

Indentured servants stopped being the prime choice not because of the rise of slavery but rather that slavery became the choice because indentured slavery began to decline. This began to decline because of several reasons. Firstly, there were times when these servants actually protested against the atrocities that they faced. The labourers worked in the tobacco fields which were prosperous but demanded more labourers. Eventually, the colonists began to have slaves working in their fields as well as natives and Irishmen.

The colonists felt that they would be more in control if there was a certain racial solidarity by hiring the African slaves. Also, around the late 1600’s the number of servants who desired to go to Virginia declined drastically. This is because the people no longer felt the need to take refuge in another nation in order to live a better life.

This is when the colonists had to keep the profitable tobacco trade going by getting new labourers. These new labourers were the slaves who took the place of the indentured servants.