Question

Briefly explain how the market for indentured servants in Jamestown evolved. What was the difference between indenturedservants and redemptioners? Upon what characteristics were terms of indenture decided?

Answer 1

The notion of indentured servitude arose from a need for cheap labour. Soon the earliest settlers found they had plenty of land to care for but no one to care for. The Virginia Company developed the system of indentured servitude to attract workers with travel to the Colonies expensive for all but the rich. Indentured servants became vital to the economy of the colonies. The timing was perfect for the Virginia colonies. The Thirty Years War had left Europe's economy exhausted, and many skilled and unqualified workers were jobless.

A new life in the New World provided a glimmer of hope; this explains how half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies came in as indentured servants. Servants typically worked for four to seven years in exchange for the duties of travel, bed, board, lodging and liberty. While an indentured servant's life was harsh and oppressive, slavery was not. There were laws which were securing some of their rights. Yet their lives were not simple, and the punishments levied on the wrongdoers were harsher than those for the non-servants

A redemptioner is an immigrant, usually from the eighteenth or nineteenth century, who obtained passage to America by selling himself as an indentured servant. An Indentured Servant is an unfree laborer under contract to work (for a fixed amount of time) for another person or company / corporation, often without any monetary compensation, but in return for lodging, food, other necessities, training, or transit to a new country; Upon serving for the contract term (traditionally for seven years), the servant was then free to farm or take up his own trade