...The Life of a Young Indentured Servant In the novel Our Nig, Harriet Wilson reverses conventional gender roles by depicting women as disciplinarians and men as passive. The reader is introduced to Mrs. Bellmont as a cruel and nasty parent who constantly abuses Frado. Her uncontrollable rage compares to the depictions of the cruel southern mistress who beats the master’s illegitimate child. While Frado is not the child of the Bellmonts, the wife seems comparable to these slave mistresses as she exerts extreme cruelty for no specific reason. Mr. Bellmont is seen as very passive, but his refusal to stand up to his wife points to his symbolic position as a neglectfully benevolent slave father. However, this association of women with abusive authority and men with passivity does not apply to everyone. Wilson only keys in on the Belmont family to exemplify this gender role reversal. Throughout the story we ascertain that the male children of the Bellmont family are very sympathetic of Frado and want her to be able to enjoy herself in their household. In traditional reading, especially in the 19th century, men are assumed the power role of the household and usually fail to show emotion. This role reversal is important because it shows the power that woman are able to posses in the household. Wilson helps the reader understand how women do act when they are in power and she gives an in depth perception of this her. Wilson explains a story about an indentured servant but the details are...
Words: 1231 - Pages: 5
...indenture, or contract, that included housing and food in exchange for labor. The time these people worked was from 4 to 7 years, but children would have worked longer. In other cases, indentured servants were not free people, but prisoners and sinners sent to the colonies as punishment. Nevertheless, they had the following liberties while working. Even though indentured servants had to work tirelessly, they were not slaves. They had a few rights granted to them in the contract. While working, the household or plantation that...
Words: 537 - Pages: 3
...Two of the main reasons why Virginians shifted from utilizing indentured servants to using enslaved peoples were economics and racism. The economic viability of using enslaved Africans instead of white indentured servants was probably the more “active” and common reason why they came to be used much more extensively than indentured servants. Racism was a much more “passive” reasoning for it. By the late seventeenth century, the amount of indentured servants was not adequate to work the sugar plantations of Barbados and the other English sugar islands. Slaves were much easier for that harsh work, as they were expendable and very populous there. Black outnumbered whites by three to one on the island of Barbados. (Plantation Life. Chapter 2.) Throughout the seventeenth century tobacco prices in Virginia fell, going from four pounds in 1620 to less than one in 1690.("Evidence 11: Price of Tobacco in Virginia, 1620-1690." "U.S. History Website.") This caused plantation owners to purchase African slaves as they had fewer rights and required less upkeep than indentured servants, so they were less expensive. A Virginia-based planter Nicholas Spencer declared, “low price of Tobacco requires it should bee made as cheap as possible,” and “blacks can make it cheaper than whites.” ("Plantation Life."...
Words: 538 - Pages: 3
...slavery (Tindal & Shi 2012). Due to the Southern colonies climate advantage it enabled them to grow exotic staples which demanded the need for more labor. Indentured servants, person promised to work for a fixed number of years in return for land or freedom, were either voluntary or forced to serve for a master. Indentured servants were used as a solution to the agricultural labor problem within the colonies. Their rights were limited and engaging in trade was prohibited which enabled slavery to later be enforced. Changes and problems aided to indentured servants’ beginning and decline within colonies. Colonies faces unintended consequences of using indentured servants such as weather conditions or...
Words: 812 - Pages: 4
...Slaves and Indentured Servants (91) During the 17th and 18th centuries throughout the English colonies, indentured servants and slaves made up the main workforce for land-owning colonists. For a long period of time, both indentured servants and slaves seemed to stand on the same status and were treated about the same. However, as time progressed, changes in the colonies also brought changes between these two different groups. The path to the Revolution brought about new ideologies concerning freedom and liberty, causing colonists to question their own ideas of freedom and liberty, as well as the idea of what freedom and liberty should mean to slaves and indentured servants. Indentured servants and slaves were similar in many ways in both their lifestyles, the way they were treated themselves, and the way their children were treated; however, their differences become very evident when discussing their progression into slavery or servitude, and their progression to freedom. Throughout the majority of time during the 17th and 18th century, indentured servants and slaves were considered to be of the same rank and were treated fairly the same. For a while, most colonists adhered to English common law, which did not acknowledge chattel slavery or the ownership of a human being as property. While indentured servants had to bind themselves in writing to their owner for about three to seven years, many of the early African slaves worked for their masters for life, although they were...
Words: 338 - Pages: 2
...Unfree labor was an important presence in colonial America. Because native birth rates in the colonies were low, laborers for the plantations had to come from elsewhere. Indentured servants from Europe were the first unfree laborers introduced to the colonies. After Bacon’s rebellion, planters sought another form of unfree labor, slavery. Indentured servants and slaves were the backbone of colonial America’s economy. Indentured servitude was fundamental to the development of the economy of early colonial America. The practice was introduced to the colonies by the Virginia Company to solve the labor shortage issue on the tobacco plantations, and because of the high cost of slaves and England’s surplus of displaced workers and farmers, indentured servants were preferable. By 1700, approximately three quarters of the population in the Chesapeake colonies were indentured servants. This was the first time the English colonies had implemented unfree labor on a large scale showing the region’s reliance on it. After Bacon’s Rebellion, planters sought to replace their malcontent servants for slaves....
Words: 485 - Pages: 2
...The Differences between Indentured Servants and Slaves Jabrehia Smith May 15, 2014 HIS/110 Professor Frank Bird Introduction Prior to the Civil War, slaves and indentured servants were human chattel that were sold and considered personal property. One system consisted of laws to protect certain rights for laborers, while another system provided no protection from the law to protect laborer’s rights because they were simply considered a piece of property. This brief essay explains the differences between an indentured servant and a slave. In addition, readers will learn when and why masters began to choose slaves over indentured servants. Indentured Servants In 1607, the Virginia Company of London landed and settled in Jamestown. Early settlers realized they had an abundant amount of land to care for; however, there was no one to tend to the land. The Virginia Company developed a system known as the indentured servitude that would attract workers needed for cheap labor and a decade later, the first indentured servants arrived in America ("History Detectives Special Investigations", 2011). The indentured servitude system benefited both the masters and the servants. Masters were awarded 50 acres of land for every laborer brought across the Atlantic as well as the services of the laborers and servants worked under what was typically a five to seven years contract in exchange for freedom dues, lodging, room, board, and passage ("U.S. History Pre- Columbian...
Words: 748 - Pages: 3
...Question 1 you are an indentured servant in Virginia colony 1650, describe your background, current conditions, and future prospects As an indentured servant in Virginia colony 1650. I am a man originally from England. There are not many women living here in Virginia at this time. I left England due to all of the religious and political turmoil that was happening there I felt that it would be better for me to start over someplace different. A second chance, I could have a good life open a business, have a family. I was wrong, life is horrible. I and many of the others I know are beaten with whips or canes for the slightest cause. We servants are forbidden from marrying or from having sexual relationships while being indentured, because bearing a child would diminish the woman’ s work capability. This does not prevent many masters from raping their female servants. Many families were separated a member of one such family wrote the members of their family back home "Whoever is well off in Europe better remain there. Here is misery and distress, same as everywhere, and for certain persons and conditions incomparably more than in Europe." (Zinn, Persons…Conditions)...
Words: 563 - Pages: 3
...The black slaves fulfilled the demand for labor in the South by the British Colonists since they had an agriculturally based economy. They grew cotton on vast tracks of land that was very labor intensive for planting and picking. What were the major differences between African slaves and indentured servants the early colonies? We see that there was little difference between the slave and the indentured servant. Indentured servants came from England. They had no chance at owning land in England and were very poor. The only way they could get to the colonies was to come as indentured servants. They passage was paid for and they worked for a "master" for a specified amount of time then they were freed. In fact, black slaves and indentured servants were treated virtually the same and worked in the fields together. But after 1680, the mainland colonists depended more on the slave trade because there was less indentured servants. More land was freed...
Words: 505 - Pages: 3
...There were a number of things that made this “terrible transformation” take place. The factors involved as we look at them were a sad evolution of the slave trade and a demonstration of how profit took precedence over human life and dignity. When taking a look at the role of indentured servants in the new world the process was a simple one a person would agree to work for a set number of years to a “master” and then gain their freedom. The transformation into pure race based slavery grew from a need for more labor and as reports of poor conditions reached back to Europe the role as an indentured servant became less appealing to those who would travel to the colonies and participate. With indentured servants being able to earn freedom through a number of means such as time, religious conversion, this also became a concern to the planters in the Caribbean because of the threatened loss of cheap labor. So the distinguishing feature of skin color became a factor for identifying slave labor. In doing this the ability to have a slave and then have any of their children continue the cycle without the offer or...
Words: 508 - Pages: 3
...Indentured servants are people who, still treated as a human, works for another person for free for a long-period and later be free. A person who is a prisoner of war is one that has been captured and imprisoned by the enemy in war. However, prisoners of war still had rights. These indentured servants or prisoners of war could work their way out, could marry, gain education, your children were not born into slavery and more. The practices of long term indentured servants were being used by the whites who avaricious grew and then allowed human rights to decline drastically. Next, If your parents were an enslaved, then you were automatically a slave. This act of slavery would not even be considered by other tribes to wish against each. Many whites treated Africans as animals because they did not look like them or speak the same language. For example, the famous racist captain John Newton, who later wrote the “Amazing Grace.” After years of participating in the slave trade, John...
Words: 823 - Pages: 4
...The impact Bacon’s Rebellion had on indentured servitude and African slavery begaing When the settlers came to the New World they came looking for gold and riches, they soon discovered that there was not much gold in this new land but did discovered that the soil here was extremely fertile and could grow a lot of different kinds of crops. With this new source of revenue in the southern colonies these cash crops required a lot of labor and manpower to grow, maintain and harvest the crops, because the land owners were wealthy aristocrats and political leaders they came up with an idea called indentured servitude because they didn’t have the time or the means to do the labor. when the newly freed indentured servants, who had been granted land...
Words: 329 - Pages: 2
...Two big colonial societies in the 1700’s were the New England and Chesapeake Bay societies. These societies varied in community and family life, but some similarities arose. In this time indentured servants were also widely used. This led to tension and conflict. This conflict though initiated a flourish of slave use in the in the Chesapeake Bay. The New England colonies consisted of what is now Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. These New England societies were very highly involved with educated their colonists. Education began at an early age. Massachusetts even made it a rule that if a town had more than 50 houses a teacher was required to teach the children. They were so involved in education they even founded Harvard in 1636. Harvard originally started as a ministry school to train men to be ministers. This stress on education was very important and had a huge impact on the literacy in New England. Compared to other colonies they had a high rate of individuals who could sign their names. 90% of white males could and 40% of females compared to a 50% rate in other colonies. THey even beat out England where only 33% of white males could read and write. Community life was also very important to New England societies and was set up in a unique way. All the towns were organized in the same way. In the center of each community there was a meeting house. The meeting house was...
Words: 1264 - Pages: 6
...materials back to Britain. One of the raw materials in great demand from the new world was tobacco. Tobacco basically made family farms and large plantations wealthy and brought the new world into the global market (Brown, 2001). As tobacco became more and more popular, money made from the tobacco was put back into more land in order to grow more tobacco. The primary labor for this came from indentured servants. Due to the demand for tobacco the indentured servants were worked extremely hard and Brown (2001) writes “…the misery of indentured laborers who complained of being bought and sold like slaves” would only increase as farmers and plantation owners continue to expand their lands. Towards the end of the 17th century indentured servants would dwindle and the labor force would be largely met with African slaves. As the English empire grew slavery expanded gradually, Britain’s role in the slave trade matured, and enslaved Africans became more available throughout Virginia. By the end of the 1600s slaves had begun to replace white indentured servants among the Virginia’s large plantation owners. By the late 1600s, slaves accounted for nearly all of a plantations workforce but only 25 to 40 percent of smaller farms (McCartney and Wolf, 2015). McCartney and Wolf (2015) also...
Words: 452 - Pages: 2
...Camilo Quintero Professor Hopkins History 1376 9/27/2015 Colony Letter Dear parents, as you know, I came to Virginia to find a better life as an indentured servant but I have only found distress and discomfort; there is a great level of adversity where I live. I am writing this letter to dissuade you from ever coming here! I came from Europe, leaving a broken country in order to find one in an even worse shape than the one I came from- well, actually, the economic situation around here is going pretty well for the ones who are taking advantage of us; John Rolfe was the founder of the idea of tobacco seeds, and shortly after he exported them out quite efficiently. But for us indentured servants, the game is completely different. I am resentful...
Words: 934 - Pages: 4
