2b.
How did indentured servitude impact colonial society?
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Tasks -
1. Identify the arguments for and against indenture.
2. Compare the costs and benefits of indenture for both the servant and master.
3. Assume you are a teenager considering considering an indenture for travel to
the New World. What would you do and why?
4. Assume the role of a servant and write a letter home to England describing
the conditions of your life.
5. "Document My World" In colonial times some some young
people were willing to indenture themselves to the role of apprentice
in exchange for learning a trade. In what ways do you volunteer your time
in exchange for learning a new skills?
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Documents
|
Format |
Subject |
Indentured Service - positive |
Doc 4 Alsop Justifies Indentured
Servitude |
text |
rationale behind servitude |
Doc
10 The
Benefits of Indentured Servitude
|
text |
to be edited |
Doc 25
"The
Natural Tie Between Master and Apprentice has been Rent Asunder: An Old
Apprentice Laments
Changes in the Workplace," 1826
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6622/ |
Indentured Service - negative |
Doc 6 Convict poem about indenture |
text |
sad tale of a wayward youth sold into indenture |
Doc 8 John
Frethorne's Letter to his Parents |
text |
to be edited |
Doc 12 "Stolen Children." from
London |
text |
Warning that children are being stolen from their parents |
Relationship master -
servant |
Doc 7 Disputes between servants and masters |
text |
court record form Mass Bay - same source as 2-8 |
Doc 9 Indentured
Servant's Confession (1684). |
text |
to be edited |
Doc 11 Virginia co takes children from
London |
text |
The Privy Council grants the
Virginia Company authority to coerce children, 1620 |
Doc 18 Discipline of apprentices |
text |
Two examples of apprentices
disciplined for bad behavior, Salem, Massachusetts, 1669 |
Doc 21 Indentured boy freed |
text |
because of ill treatment by his master |
Doc 22 Indenture reversed? |
text |
Master
may end up owing the servant? |
Advertisement, promotions |
Doc 1 Advice to bring slaves to Florida |
text |
Need slaves to get the work done -needs to be
edited |
Doc 3 Ads for runaway servants plus
one poem |
text |
|
Doc 15 Tobacco Brides shipped |
text |
Va Co to colonist - brides for sale |
Geography
of Slavery, 18th Century Runaway Slave and Indentured Servants Advertisements.
Good
source of ads, docs, essay, accounts
|
Contracts / legislation |
Doc 2 Act to inherit father's slavery |
text |
responding to intermarriage |
Doc 5 Rev Bright’s agreement for passage |
text |
shows learned classes also "indentured" for passage |
Doc 13 Indenture of 4 yr old black girl |
text |
Indenture of the manumitted Negress Kitty, May
18, 1804 |
Doc 14 Indentured boy freed |
text |
because of ill treatment by his master |
Doc 16 Status of children with one
slave parent |
text |
Deny freedom to mulatto children |
Doc 17
Parish clerk binds out mulatto boy |
text |
Contrast to free white and full slave |
Doc 19 Widow apprentices her young son |
text |
Spinster binds out four year old son as
"apprentice and servant," 1723 |
Doc 20 Indenture of 4 yr old black girl |
text |
Indenture of the manumitted Negress Kitty, May
18, 1804 |
Doc 23 Notice for runaway indentured
servants |
text |
Try
to pass themselves of as married couple? |
Demographics |
Doc 26 Age, gender,
price of servants pdf |
table |
Almanacs of American Life Set,
Revolutionary
America, 1763 to 1800
(p 120) |
Doc 27 Data on
indentured servants and slaves pdf |
table |
Almanacs of American
Life Set,
Colonial America to
1763 (p 166) |
Possible internet additions:
Good docs and historians comment on indentured servitude to slavery at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr3.html
Labor
Contracts, Virtual Jamestown - Created by Crandall Shifflett and located at
the Virginia Center for Digital History, this page allows users to search 17th
century indentured servant registers. http://www.virtualjamestown.org/servantcontracts.html
The Misfortunes of Indentured Servants . by Gottlieb Mittelberger. Mittelberger describes the hardships suffered by prospective
servants and their families from the voyage to America to their fates once
landed. Also online at Gottlieb Mittelberger On the Misfortune
of Indentured Servants (1754) http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1601-1650/mittelberger/servan.htm
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