Why did indentured servants want to come to the colonies?

Why did indentured servants want to come to the colonies?

The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap labor. With passage to the Colonies expensive for all but the wealthy, the Virginia Company developed the system of indentured servitude to attract workers. Indentured servants became vital to the colonial economy.

What did it mean to be an indentured servant in Colonial America?

Indentured servants were men and women who signed a contract (also known as an indenture or a covenant) by which they agreed to work for a certain number of years in exchange for transportation to Virginia and, once they arrived, food, clothing, and shelter.

What did it mean to be an indentured servant in seventeenth century colonial America?

Indentured servants were individuals who bargained away their labor for a period of four to seven years in exchange for passage to the New World. In the 17th century, indentured servants made up the mass of English immigrants to the Chesapeake colonies and were central to the development of the tobacco economy.

What were indentured servants in colonial America?

What was the role of indindentured servants in the colonies?

Indentured servants were a crucial means of building and sustaining colonial populations in English plantation societies that, owing to high mortality rates, would otherwise have collapsed. They also provided a key source of cheap labor without which the rapid growth of staple production would have been impossible.

Who were the indentured servants of Jamestown?

Learn more about Indentured Servants. Indentured servants first arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607. The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap labor. The earliest settlers soon realized that they had lots of land to care for, but no one to care for it.

How did indentured servitude start in America?

Indentured Servants In The U.S. Indentured servants first arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607. The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap labor. The earliest settlers soon realized that they had lots of land to care for, but no one to care for it.

How much land did indentured servants get paid?

Their contract may have included at least 25 acres of land, a year’s worth of corn, arms, a cow and new clothes. Some servants did rise to become part of the colonial elite, but for the majority of indentured servants that survived the treacherous journey by sea and the harsh conditions of life in the New World,…