indentured servitude
Debt-bound work arrangement
Indentured servitude is a labor arrangement where a person works for a set period—typically four to seven years—in exchange for passage, room, board, or payment of debts.
The worker is bound by contract (an indenture) and cannot leave until the term expires.
Common in colonial America, where Europeans traded years of labor for transport to the New World.
Unlike slavery, indentured servitude was temporary and theoretically voluntary, though conditions were often harsh and the line between the two could blur.
Many early Virginia colonists arrived as indentured servants.
- slaveryOwnership of people
- bound overOrdered to await trial
- convict laborWork by incarcerated people
- contractEnforceable written agreement
- masterAuthority or controller
bought and sold · abolition · servant · villeinage · colonialism · colonial America · bondage · plantation economy · plantation labor · exploitation · human trafficking · triangular trade · oppression · passage · seven years · escape · labor · toil
- Colonial AmericaGeorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Declaration of Independence
- colonial historycolonization, colonies, pilgrims, Jamestown, Plymouth
- slaverychattel slavery, enslaved, slave, enslavement, slave traders
- colonial enterprisesBritish East India Company, Dutch East India Company, East India Company, Hudson's Bay Company, chartered companies
- Colonial Eracolonial assembly, colonial charter, colonial militia, colonial port, crown colony
- exploitationexploit, predatory, sex trafficking, take advantage, human trafficking
indentured servitudefreedom
Absence of constraint
liberty · autonomy · emancipation · independence · wage labor
indentured servitudeself-employment
Working for yourself
entrepreneurship · business ownership · economic independence · land ownership · proprietorship
serve, service, bonded, servitude, indenture, indentured, indentures, servitudes, indenturing