Southern Historical Association
British Servants and the Colonial Indenture System in the Eighteenth Century
Author(s): David W. Galenson
Source: The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Feb., 1978), pp. 41-66
Published by: Southern Historical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2208243
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British Servants and the Colonial
Indenture System in the Eighteenth
Century
By
THE
PAST
DECADE
DAVID W.
HAS SEEN
GALENSON
A MAJOR
RESURGENCE
OF INTEREST
IN
the study of the American institution of slavery. But despite the
intensive research devoted to that system, another system of forced
labor that looms large in American history has been curiously
neglected. Inextricably intertwined with the origins and progress of
slavery in the American colonies, indentured servitude initiated the
colonies' use of bound labor. Its quantitative importance is of the
first order: one authority has estimated that "More than half of all
persons who came to the [North American] colonies south of New
England were [white] servants"; another, "that nearly half of the
total white immigration to the thirteen colonies came over under
... [indenture]."' As is the case with slavery, much is known of the
functioning of the system, but, also as with slavery, less is known of
those who worked under the system. The main focus of this paper
will be on these people, the servants. The evidence used will be
from eighteenth-century British records. The specific questions
asked will concern the personal characteristics of the servants and
the choices they made within the constraints imposed by the system. Where did they go? What were their skills? How long did they
serve, and what determined the length of service? All these will aim
toward constructing composite answers to two more general questions: who were these early immigrants and how did they fare in
' Abbot E. Smith, Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America,
1607-1776 (Chapel Hill, 1947), 3-4; Carter Goodrich, "Indenture," in Encyclopaedia of the
Social Sciences (15 vols., New York, 1930-1935), VII, 646.
MR. GALENSON is a graduate student in economics at Harvard University.
He wishes to express his gratitude to Stanley L. Engerman for bringing
the data to his attention and for many helpful comments. He also wishes
to thank Richard S. Dunn and Russell R. Menard for comments on an
earlier draft and the participants in the Harvard Labor Seminar and the
1976 Cliometrics Conference for comments on the sections of the paper
delivered at those meetings.
THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY
Vol. XLIV, No. 1, February 1978
42
THE
JOURNAL
OF SOUTHERN
HISTORY
America'sfirstsystemof forcedservitude?2
No definitive answers are possible at present because of the
scarcityof informationaboutthe indenturedservantsof the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Anonymousto most contemporaries,few recordswere kept eitherof theirdeparturefromEurope
or their arrival in the New World, and fewer survive today.3 Since
the lack of a large numberof sourcesrules out the possibilityof a
trulyquantitativestudy of the servantsfromavailableinformation,
this paperwill insteadattemptto infermoregeneralanswersfroma
close study of one particular source, a collection of over three
thousand indenturerecordsfor the years from 1718 to 1759 preserved at the Guildhallin London.4
This set of indenturepapersowes its existenceto a clause of an
act of Parliamentof 1717designedto protectthe Englishmerchants
who signed servantsto indentures.The clause made it lawful for
merchantsto transportminorsprovidedthe potentialservantswere
brought before a magistrateof London, or two magistrateselsewhere, in orderto acknowledgethat they went of theirown accord.
A contractwas to be signed and a recordof it kept; when this had
been completed the merchantwas then safe from prosecutionfor
kidnapping.'As a result of this act registrationof servantsof all
ages, previously done only sporadically, became more systematic
for some time. Many of the recordedcontractshave apparently
been lost, but over 2,800 survivefor the yearsfrom 1718 to 1739,
then, after a gap from 1740 to 1748, more than 100 remainfrom
1749 to 1759. These form the sourcefor this inquiry.
The indentureswere writtenon printed forms. In blank spaces
were written the date of issue, the name of the servant,his parish
and county of origin, his age, the name of the agent, the length of
the indenture,the servant'sdestination,the signature(or mark)of
the servant, as well as the signatureof the magistrate.About half
the contractsalso recordedthe servant'soccupation.A few failedto
give the length of the contract,while over 150 failed to recordthe
2
The first of these questions was raised by Mildred Campbell in her two articles, "English
Emigration on the Eve of the American Revolution," American Historical Review, LXI
(October 1955), 1-20, and "Social Origins of Some Early Americans," in James M. Smith,
ed., Seventeenth-Century America: Essays in Colonial History (Chapel Hill, 1959), 63-89.
Her answers were suggestive but not definitive,, and her important lead has not been
followed. Both questions remain pertinent.
3 Probably the best survey of surviving records is contained in Smith, Colonists in Bondage, appendix, 307-37; also ibid., 340, n. 21, and 355, n. 30. Many of the records Smith refers
to have been published in some form since he wrote.
4 These have been transcribed and published by Jack and Marion Kaminkow, A List of
Emigrants from England to America, 1718-1759 (Baltimore, 1964). The actual data used in
this investigation are from this source.
5 Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 80.
COLONIAL
Table 1:
INDENTURE
Women
43
Age of Emigration of Servants
Number of servants aged:
Under 15 15-19 20-24 25-29
Men
SYSTEM
30-34
35-39
39
35
1391
938
274
98
3
106
41
9
3
40-44
45-49
Total
4
2792
1
163
13
Source:
This and all other tables in this paper, except where noted,
are based on indenture records in the Guildhall,
London,
transcribed by Jack and Marion Kaminkow, A List of Emigrants
From England to America, 1718-1759 (Baltimore, 19(6).
Table 2:
Age of Emigration of Servants
Less than 21 years Old
Number of servants aged:
Under 13
13
14
15
Men
% of total
men
Women
% of total
women
4
3
0.1
0.1
1
1
0.6
0.6
28
1.0
1
0.6
16
17
18
19
20
135
207
243
365
441
457
4.8
7.4
8.7
13.1
15.8
16.4
12
26
24
40
27
14.7
24.5
4
2.5
7.4
16.0
16.6
age of the servant. Only those which did contain these last two
pieces of informationwere used in this investigation;the total
numberof cases consideredwas 2,955. Of these, 2,792 were men,
163 women.
All the indentureswere entered in London, and apparentlyall
the servantsthus registeredsailed from London. The fewer than
three thousandrecordsinvolved representonly a small fractionof
the hundredsof thousandsof servantswho traveledto the colonies
between the initiationof indenturesin the early seventeenthcenturyand the AmericanRevolution.They arestudiedhereforlackof
more comprehensivesourcesand for the unusuallycompleteinformationthey give for those individualscovered.Sincelittle is known
of the overallpopulationof servants,no realargumentcan be made
of this sample,asidefromthe observaaboutthe representativeness
tion that there is no obvious reasonfor systematicbias when the
origin of the recordsis considered.They representonly English
servants,for all sailedfrom Englandand all but a few were English
by birth.
Almost95 percentof the sampleconsistedof men. Table 1 shows
the age of emigration of the servants, separatelyfor men and
44
THE
Table
3:
Destination
JOURNAL
of Male Servants
OF SOUTHERN
HISTORY
by Date
Destination
Date
Antigua
Jamaica
--
1718-19
Other
islands
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Other
mainland
Virginia
Other
Total
11
11
116
3
15
40
3
199
697
1720-24
6
132
122
264
37
84
48
4
1725-29
28
125
10
143
80
31
24
2
443
1730-34
18
470
18
120
62
25
35
5
.753
1735-39*
16
341
8
109
49
9
45
2
579
1749*
1
12
1
3
--
-
17
1750-54
2
30
9
21
1
93
1755-59
1
3
72
Trtal
*
No records
Table
4:
of
--1
26
---
---
1124
170
778
indentures
remain
Destination
of
Female
from the years
Servants
3
--
--
--
241
188
195
7
11
24
2792
1740-48.
by Date
Destination
Date
Other
islands
Other
mainland
Total
Antigua
Jamaica
1718-19
---
---
2
10
5
6
4
1720-24
1
2
5
16
7
13
8
52
1725-29
---
---
---
3
11
4
3
21
1730-34
---
13
1
9
6
---
4
33
1735-39
---
6
---
5
5
1
6
23
---
1749-56
1
2
Total
2
23
8
Maryland
---
43
Pennsylvania
---
34
Virginia
3
1
27
26
27
7
163
women. The relative youth of the servants is clear: 94 percent of the
men were under thirty years old, as were 98 percent of the women.
About two-thirds of the men and four-fifths of the women were
minors; Table 2 gives a more complete breakdown of their ages. It
shows a heavy concentration of both men and women in ages
fifteen to twenty, with 66 percent of all male servants and 82
percent of all the women in that age group.
Tables 3 and 4 show the number of men and women sent to each
destination in the colonies, broken down by five-year periods.6The
principal destinations in the Caribbean during the period were
6 For comparison to servants' destinations in an earlier period, Richard S. Dunn gives a
similar table for servants shipped from Bristol to the colonies from 1654 to 1686 in Sugar and
Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 (Chapel Hill,
1972), 70.
Table
5:
Destination
COLONIAL
INDENTURE
of
by Age
Male
Servants
SYSTEM
45
Destination
Age
Under
Antigua
15
1
Jamaica
7
Other
islands
2
Maryland
12
Pennsylvania
2
Virginia
4
Other
mainland
7
Other
--
15 -
19
38
424
105
438
136
112
123
15
20 -
24
19
448
45
249
75
52
46
4
25 -
29
9
152
12
54
23
12
9
3
30-
34
3
59
4
15
5
3
8
1
35 -
39
1
27
-
6
-
4
-
1
40-
44
-
5
2
3
-
1
2
45 -
49
Total
1
72
2
1124
-
1
-
-
-
170
778
241
188
195
24
Antigua and Jamaica, and these are enumerated separately; the
principal mainland destinations, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, are also listed separately. No other single destination received
more than thirty-five servants from the sample in the period.
The two tables contrast sharply. While the men divided almost
evenly between the Caribbean islands and the mainland colonies49 percent to the former, 50 percent to the latter-the few women
in the sample overwhelmingly went to the mainland; 80 percent
went there against 20 percent to the islands. It is likely that relatively high mainland demand for women was reinforced by the
female servants' own preferences. Similarly, in the case of the men
the breakdowns cannot be taken strictly to represent the patterns of
colonial demand; they also reflect to some extent the preferences of
the servants themselves.7
Table 5 shows a breakdown of the male servants' destinations by
age. The servants emigrating to the mainland colonies were generally younger than those emigrating to the islands: 60 percent of
those who went to the mainland were less than twenty years old,
and 90 percent were under twenty-five, compared to 42 percent and
80 percent, respectively, of those who went to the Caribbean.
Relatively, Jamaica received the fewest servants under twenty; only
38 percent of the men who went there were nineteen or less. All the
I The role of the servants in choice of destination is minimized by Smith, who
concluded
that the migration patterns of servants "rested primarily on the demand for their labor in the
plantations." Colonists in Bondage, 42. For a criticism of this view see Oscar Handlin's
review of Colonists in Bondage in William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., V (January 1948),
110; also see conflicting evidence cited by Smith himself. Colonists in Bondage, 57, 297. This
paper will present evidence of the British servants' preference for the mainland over the
island colonies.
46
Table 6:
THE
OF SOUTHERN
JOURNAL
Number of Male Servants
HISTORY
Recording Occupations
by Age
As % of total servants
in each age group
Age
Number of servants
14
1
4
15
4
3
16
16
8
17
56
23
18
119
33
19
240
54
20
308
67
Over 20
812
89
mainland colonies received substantiallyhigher proportionsof
young servants;Pennsylvaniahad the lowest proportion,with 57
percent of its male servants under twenty, while 58 percent of
Maryland'sand 62 percentof Virginia'sindenturedmen were in
that age group.
A similartabulationfor women, not shown, indicatesa similar
pattern, but with a smaller difference.While 55 percent of the
female servantswho went to the islandswere less thantwentyyears
old, 70 percent of those who emigratedto the mainlandcolonies
were under twenty.
Unfortunately,the informationgiven on the indenturerecords
tells little of the servants'personalcharacteristics.Two pieces of
informationare directly relevant:the trade of the servant,if entered, and the literacyof the servant,measuredapproximatelyby
whether the servant signed or marked the paper. Trades were
entered in only about half the cases:56 percentof the men's and
none of the women's indentureslisted occupations.The occupations listed are extremelydiverse,runningfrom the morecommon
trades of smith, cooper, and cordwainerto schoolmastersand
apothecaries,and even one dancing master. Table 6 shows the
numberof servantswho recordedoccupationson their indentures,
brokendown by age. The numbersrise sharplyas a percentageof
all male servantsin the appropriateage group after the age of
sixteen: 23 percent of the seventeen-year-oldservants recorded
occupations,rising steadily to 67 percent of the twenty-year-olds
and 89 percentof those twenty-oneand over. Unfortunately,it is
COLONIAL
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
47
not clear exactly what this implies about the age at which the
servantsentered occupations,for there is no indication of how
much experiencewas necessarybefore men consideredthemselves
to have a trade.
It is difficultto assessthe significanceof the occupationalentries,
for the informationseems to have been optional.Therefore,it does
not seem to be a fair conclusionthat if a man recordedno occupation he necessarilyhad no trade.Rather,it appearsthe numberthat
recordedtradesshould be taken as a lower-boundestimateof the
numberthat actuallyhad occupations.8MarcusWilsonJernegan's
judgment that "Most of the servantswere unskilledlaborers. . .
does not seem apt forthissample.9In fact, only another6 percentof
the men were describedas "laborers"on the forms.MildredCampbell noted that to contemporaries"the laborers'status was the
lowest in the social hierarchy";10clearly, laborersplayed a small
part in the Guildhallsample.
A tentative conclusionfrom the foregoingdiscussionmight be
that at least 62 percentof the men were in the Britishlaborforceat
the time they were indentured.Whetherthey were currentlyemployed cannot be determined.Nonetheless,62 percentof the men
is equivalent to the number of male servants in the Guildhall
sampleover the age of eighteen. Less than one tenth of these men
were laborers. If this tentative conclusion is warrantedand the
enteringof occupationson the paperswas meaningful,it wouldcast
significantdoubt on Abbot EmersonSmith'scontention that the
servantswere drawn "mainly from the lower strataof the population, the most ignorantandidle of the inhabitantsof the metropolis....
11
Though an imperfectmeasureof literacy, the ability to write
one's name is the measuremost often used by historians.Tables7
8 This would not be the case if servants had claimed skills they did not actually possess in
order to receive the preferential treatment given to artisans (see the discussion below on the
length of indenture). Mildred Campbell gives several reasons why this deception was
probably not common; "Social Origins of Some Early Americans," 71-72. In addition to
Campbell's arguments, it should he remembered that indentures were legal documents,
enforceable by colonial courts. As fraud on the part of the master could render the contract
invalid, it seems likely that fraud by the servant could have been punished, for example, by
extension of the term of servitude. Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early
America (New York, 1946), 312.
9Jernegan, Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America, 1607-1783 (Chicago,
1931), 51.
10 Campbell, "Social Origins of Some Early Americans," 72.
"Smith, "Indentured Servants: New Light on Some of America's 'First' Families,"
Journal of Economic History, II (May 1942), 46. Smith took the same position in "The
Indentured Servant and Land Speculation in Seventeenth Century Maryland," American
Historical Review, XL (April 1935), 472.
THE
48
Table
7:
Age
OF SOUTHERN
JOURNAL
Literacy
Rates
Marked
for
HISTORY
Male Servants
Signed
by Age
% Signed
Under 13
3
1
25
13
2
1
33
14
17
11
39
15
71
64
47
16
101
106
51
17
97
146
60
18
127
238
65
19
158
283
64
20
145
312
68
Over 20
155
754
83
Total
876
1916
69
and 8 show the numbers of servants who signed their indentures,
broken down by age and sex. The men's literacy rates rise steadily
up to the age of eighteen, then level off until twenty; those over the
age of twenty-one had a considerably higher rate. The overall
literacy rate for men was 69 percent. The women's table shows no
such progression: no major increase in literacy seems to have occurred after the age of seventeen, and the overall rate is a much
lower 34 percent.
The patterns of literacy found here have some interest for their
implications concerning English education in the early eighteenth
century. The results tell something quite concrete about how late
many boys and girls learned to write, and perhaps to read. By
Table
8:
Rates
Marked
Age
Under
Literacy
13
SYSTEM
INDENTURE
COLONIAL
for
Female
Signed
49
Servants
by Age
% Signed
1
--
13
1
-
--
14
1
-
--
15
4
-
-
16
9
3
25
17
17
9
35
18
16
8
33
19
26
14
35
20
17
10
37
Over 20
16
11
41
107
56
34
Total
contrast, in a recent study Kenneth Alan Lockridge assumes that in
colonial New England male children learned to write by age ten. 12
The evidence of large increases in the literacy rate, particularly
among the men in the sample, between the ages of fourteen and
twenty-one begs the question of the mechanism involved. If many
boys were learning to write beyond school age, how were they
learning?
12 Lockridge, Literacy in Colonial New England: An Enquiry into the Social Context of
Literacy in the Early Modern West (New York, 1974), 142, n. 66. For a discussion of the
ability to sign one's name in the period, its relation to other aspects of literacy, and the
consequent usefulness of the signing of document's as a measure of literacy see Roger S.
Schofield, "The Measurement of Literacy in Pre-Industrial England," in Jack Goody, ed.,
Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, Eng., 1968), 311-25. Schofield concludes (p.
324) that for England in "the early nineteenth century ... a measure based on the ability to
sign probably overestimates the number able to write, underestimates the number able to
read at an elementary level, and gives a fair indication of the number able to read fluently."
THE
50
Table 9:
JOURNAL
Literacy
OF SOUTHERN
Rates for Male Servants
HISTORY
by Age and Occupation
(% signed)
Age
Laborers
Tradesmen
Others
14
--
--
37
15
--
(75)
47
16
(22)
62
52
17
(57)
73
56
18
68
73
61
19
58
71
56
20
50
71
66
21
82
82
100
22-5
72
83
100
26-9
83
80
(100)
30-4
(60)
84
(100)
35-9
(66)
91
--
40-9
--
87
--
Totals
61
77
57
(Note:
percentages recorded for minimum of 3 cases;
10 cases, percentages in parentheses.)
for less
than
While these data contain no conclusive answer, breaking down
the data on men's literacy offers some evidence. In Table 9 literacy
rates are given separately by age for laborers, men with trades, and
others. The highest literacy rates are for men with trades: the
majority were literate at every age. Some increase occurred between ages sixteen and twenty-one. Thus, apprentices might have
been taught to write by their masters in the course of training.
There is no apparent trend in the rates for laborers. However, the
strongest and steadiest trend appears for the men in the third
category, those with no occupational entry. While only about onethird of the fourteen-year-olds were literate, two-thirds of the
twenty-year-olds signed, and all of the adults. The source of education of these men cannot be determined, though the trend suggests
the existence of one for men in their teens; it appears possible that
for many Englishmen of the eighteenth century who had not received formal training or education as children the passage into
COLONIAL
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
51
adulthoodmay nonethelesshave been accompaniedby the acquisition of skills, such as literacy, that helped them cope with an
increasinglycomplexsociety.
What do these rates tell us of the servants?Were the servants
"the most ignorantand idle," as Smithwouldhave it? The servants
whose indenturesare recordedin the Guildhallrecordswere not.
Two separatestudies of English marriageregistersfor the years
from 1754 to 1760 and from1754 to 1762 "foundthat about51 per
cent of those who contractedmarriagewere able to sign their
If the Guildhallsamplehad been evenlydividedbetween
names."''3
the sexes and the literacyratesby sex had remainedthe same, its
overallliteracyratewould have been 51.5 percent.The literacyrate
for all men in the Guildhallsample,69 percent,waswell abovethe
64 percentand 48 percentfound by the two studiesfor adultmales
in ruralareas.14The mean age of the men in the Guildhallsample
was 20.48 years, that of the women 19.29. The mean age of those
marryingin Englandwas apparentlyconsiderablyhigher. In one
study of parishregisters,E. A. Wrigleyfoundthe mean age of men
at firstmarriagefrom 1720 to 1749 to be 26.2 years, and that of
women 27.2.'5 The mean ages for all marriagesare obviously
higher. In addition,the Guildhallsampleincludesa higherproportion of very young people than the marriagerolls.16Thus, it would
appear that literacy rates among the servants in the Guildhall
samplewere considerablyhigherthan for the Englishpopulationat
large.
The evidence of occupationand literacytogetherpointstowarda
higherlevel of skillsandeducationamongindenturedservantsthan
many historiansin the past have believed. While the Guildhall
servantswere a small proportionof the total, they do not generally
seem to have been Smith's"ignorantand idle," nor ThomasJefferson Wertenbaker's"poorwretches. .. willingto sell theirlibertyto
go to the New World"in order to save themselvesfrom "lives of
drudgeryand misery"at home.17 They seem ratherto have been
the young, the "middlingpeople" of MildredCampbelland "the
restless,skilled men and women" of WarrenM. Billings,anxious
for a new life and better opportunityin the colonies.18Seen in this
Cited in Carlo M. Cipolla, Literacy and Development in the West (Baltimore, 1969), 62.
Cited in Lawrence Stone, "Literacy and Education in England, 1640-1900," Past and
Present, No. 42 (February 1969), 104, Table II.
15 Wrigley, "Family Limitation in Pre-Industrial England," in Michael Drake, ed., Population in Industrialization (London, 1969), 164.
16
For an indication of the distribution of women's ages at first marriage see ibid., 165.
17
Wertenbaker, Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia (New York, 1959), 162-63.
" Campbell, "Social Origins of Some Early Americans," 81; Billings, ed., The Old
Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History of Virginia, 1606-1689
(Chapel Hill, 1975), 128.
13
14
THE
52
Table
10:
OF SOUTHERN
JOURNAL
ength of Indenture
of Male Servants,
(Number of servants
Years
Age
2
3
4
HISTORY
5
by Age
by age)
indentured
6
7
8
9
Mean years
1
(7.5)*
Under 13
3
13
1
2
(7.66)
13
13
7.29
14
1
1
15
8
17
15
68
27
6.65
16
1
28
51
61
59
7
5.82
17
4
79
79
52
28
1
5.10
18
4
198
112
27
22
2
4.65
4
299
107
28
2
4.37
3
382
65
3
4
4.18
4
865
33
4
1
19
1
20
21 and
over
*
1
in this table and elsewhere
Parentheses
on less than ten observations.
1
indicate
4.05
means based
light, the active role of the servants in shaping the system of
indentured servitude is less likely to be overlooked, and a more
fruitful reinterpretation of the institution is possible. The next
section of this paper will offer one part of a larger reinterpretation,
specifically considering the determinants of the length of the period
for which the servants were bound.
Many historians have noted the existence of an inverse relationship between the length of a servant's indenture and his age, but no
precise formulation of this relationship and its causes has yet been
made. The contention here is that the length varied systematically
according to age and other factors, including the destination of the
servant and the servant's personal characteristics.
The first point to be noted is that adults were treated differently
than minors in issuing indentures. In the Guildhall sample, two
separate types of printed forms were used, one for persons over
twenty-one and the other for minors.19In the eighteenth century
19 Kaminkow and
Kaminkow, A List of Emigrants, x.
COLONIAL
Table 11:
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
53
of Female Servants
Length of Indenture
(Number of servants
by Age
by age)
Years indentured
Age
3
4
5
6
7
8
1
Under 13
Mean years
(5)
13
1
(7)
14
1
(7)
3
(6.25)
5.17
15
1
2
4
4
1
11
8
5
1
9
10
3
1
19
18
18
4
4.65
20
14
12
1
4.52
18
8
16
1
17
18
21 and
over
1
1
1
4.96
4.75
4.26
the term given to adults was generally four years. Of 939 Guildhall
servants above the age of majority only 53 received terms of either
more or less than four years.
The terms given to minors varied much more. The longest indenture in the Guildhall sample was nine years, though longer
terms were recorded in documents from earlier periods.20Tables 10
and I i show for the Guildhall servants the relationship between the
age of the servant and the length of indenture for men and women;
the mean length of the indentures for each age is given at the end
of the row. There is clearly a strong inverse relation between age
and length of indenture for both sexes. For men, the first age with
over ten cases is fourteen, with a mean indenture of 7.29 years. For
20 For example, see Elizabeth French, List of Emigrants to America from Liverpool, 16971707 (Baltimore, 1962).
54
THE JOURNAL
OF SOUTHERN
HISTORY
each of the succeeding three years the shorteningof the mean
indentureis more than .6 years (that is, over seven months);after
seventeenthe declinein indenturelength foreach yeardecreasesin
size, finallyreachinga minimumof .13 between twenty and over
twenty-one.The patternis similarfor women, though all parameters are modified.The meanindenturesareshorterforwomenup to
the age of eighteen and longer than men's thereafter. As this
implies, the decline of the mean for women each year is smaller.
The evidence has indicatedthat a relationshipdid exist between
the age of the servantand the length of indenture.It is necessary
now to inquire why this should have been the case and to what
extent it can be explainedas a logical outcome of the actions of
individuals involved in the indenture system. This requires an
examinationof the operation of the system from the time the
servantpresentedhimself to the agent in Londonto his arrivalin
the colonies.
The incentivesthat made the indenturesystemworkwere economic. For the servant the indenture was signed in return for
passageto the coloniesas well as for certainspecifiedfreedomdues
to be paid him at the end of his term of indenture.2' The agent in
Londonto whomthe servantboundhimselfwas usuallya merchant
or sea captainwho plannedto transportthe servantto the colonies,
where he would sell him to the highest bidder.22Finally, the
plantersin the colonies bought the servantsas a sourceof labor,
which they used mainlyto producecash crops,sugarin the Caribbean islands or tobacco on the mainland. In this analysis the
indenturesystemis consideredas an industrywith a dual purpose:
to provide labor to colonial plantersand to provide a means by
which poor Englishmencould migrateto the colonies.It comprised
two separatemarkets,one at the servant'spoint of origin,the other
in the colonies.
The servantfaced the agent in the Englishmarket.Agentsmade
their profitsfrom transportingservantsand thereforerecruitedas
manyas they could-the strengthof the incentivecan perhapsbest
be illustratedby the extent of the illicit "spiriting,"in connection
with which the word "kidnapping"was firstintroducedinto the
Englishlanguage.23In each portfromwhichservantswere shipped
to the coloniesa numberof merchants,
competedamongthemselves
for recruits-the names of over 170 differentmerchantsappearin
the Guildhallindenturepapers.The maximumlength of any ser21 Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 16-17.
Ibid., 19, 39.
See ibid., 67-86; The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2 vols.,
Oxford, 1933), 1, 1084.
22
23
COLONIAL
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
55
vant's indenture would be fixed by competition among the agents. A
servant would not accept a long indenture from one agent if he
could get a shorter term from another. There is evidence that
servants were sufficiently well informed about the terms available
that they refused to accept inferior offers.2' Thus, the servants
exerted their influence on the outcome through bargaining with
agents both about the length of the term and their destination.
The minimum length of the indenture for a potential servant
would effectively be set by the profit the agent desired to make. For
this, the market in the colonies was the relevant one. The agent
clothed and fed the servant after the indenture was signed, paid for
his passage, then sold him in the colonies. At the time of making the
indenture, the agent normally had to anticipate the price he would
get for the servant. He knew the transportationcosts, which varied
little during the entire colonial period.25 The cost of outfitting,
maintenance, and passage, plus a profit which was a proportion of
the sum of the three (that is, a percentage of the agent's investment), would be the minimum price he would want to receive. He
therefore had to estimate the minimum number of years' indenture
for a servant which would guarantee a colonial price equal to the
sum of the costs and the agent's desired profit.26
Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 57.
Ibid., 35.
28
The length of the indenture was not the only variable dimension of the bargain
described in the preceding model. Lewis C. Gray, in his History of Agriculture in the
Southern United States to 1860 (2 vols., Washington, 1933), I, 364-65, has described the
variables more completely in discussing the cost of servants: "A practice probably widely
pursued is described in an early account of Marylandas follows: 'The usuall terme of binding
a servant, is for five yeers; but for any artificer,or one that shall deserve more than ordinary,
the Adventurer shall doe well to shorten that time and adde encouragements of another
nature.' In so far as competition influenced the contract, it was manifested mainly in the
length of term of service, in agreements with respect to advances of food and clothing, and in
amount of freedom dues."
A total of 129 of the Guildhall indenture agreements contain amendments to the standard
printed form. These amendments, which usually provided for an annual salary to be paid to
the servant, were omitted by the Kaminkows from their published abstracts. For reasons
apparently having solely to do with the form of the documents used, payments made to
adults were very rarely recorded. However, the incidence of the payments made to minors
makes it virtually certain that payments were frequently made to adults in lieu of reduction
of their terms of service below four years. For a discussion of this point see my paper,
"Agreements to Serve in America and the West Indies, 1727-1731," forthcoming in Genealogists' Magazine. Inspection of the original records at the Guildhall confirms that the amendments made for minors reinforce the analysis outlined above. Gray, History of Agriculture, I,
364, wrote that "It was rarely customary to pay wages to the servant or to advance him a sum
of money, although occasionally skilled artisans or tutors and clerks stipulated in the
indenture for wage payments." In the Guildhall sample amendments to the normal contract
were additional incentives given to the more productive and skilled servants: 84 percent of
the payments made to minors whose ages can be determined were made to servants of ages
nineteen and twenty. The amendments, while an important indication of the way in which
the market for servants worked, are not of great quantitative significance for this sample, as
24
25
56
THE
JOURNAL
OF SOUTHERN
HISTORY
Using this conceptual framework, it is possible to explain the
inverse relationship observed in Tables 10 and 11 between age and
length of indenture. Younger workers were less productive on the
colonial plantations than older workers. Since their output per year
was lower, if their indentures had been for the same length as those
of older workers, planters would not have been willing to pay as
much for them. However, the cost of transporting younger servants
to the colonies was the same as for shipping adults, as charges were
made on a per head basis.27Therefore, in order to cover their costs
the agents had to receive approximately the same price for them as
for adults. The answer to this problem was simple, and the agents
adjusted the length of the indenture according to the age of the
servant-the younger, and usually less productive, the servant, the
longer the indenture.
This is not meant to suggest that all servants sold for precisely the
same price in the colonies. In fact, there was considerable variation
in price.28The essential point is that the agents must have aimed at
a minimum price for all servants in the colonies. The actual price
received could have been higher, increasing their profits, or in the
case of miscalculation by the agent or a slump in colonial demand,
lower, depressing their profits.
This analysis also points to the reason why Tables 10 and 11 show
that there was considerable variation in the length of indenture for
individuals of the same age and sex. For the contracts were made
with individual servants. The general rule that younger servants
were less productive explains the basic inverse relationship between
age and years indentured, but it was not universally valid. Particularly strong or able younger workers, who could be expected to
bring higher prices in the colonies, would receive shorter terms of
indenture.
Two other factors that could have influenced colonial demand for
servants are occupational training and literacy. Most servants were
used in the colonies as agriculturallaborers. If a servant possessed a
skill which made him potentially more productive as a craftsman in
they were provided for in less than 6 percent of the indentures of minors. The original
records referred to above are held in the Corporation of London Records Office, London
Guildhall, as "Memoranda of Agreements to Serve in America and the West Indies."
27 Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 35-36. There are many contemporary references to shipping charges being made on a per head basis. For example, Susan M. Kingsbury, ed., The
Records of the Virginia Company of London (2 vols., Washington, 1906), I, 277-78; William
Bullock, Virginia Impartially Examined, and Left to Publick View ... (London, 1649), 47;
and John C. Jeaffreson, ed., A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century From the Papers
(A.D. 1676-1686) of ChristopherJeaffreson ... (2 vols., London, 1878), II, 102. Reduced
fares were charged for children under thirteen, but few servants qualified. Smith, Colonists
in Bondage, 210-11.
28 For an indication of the extent of variation in price see Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 38.
COLONIAL
Table
12:
Age
Average
Selected
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
57
for Male Servants
Length of Indenture
and Occupation
by Literacy
Illiterate
Mean Indenture
(years)
Literate
Laborers
Trades
by Age
All
men
Under 13
(7.67)
(7)
(7.5)
13
(8)
(7)
(7.66)
14
7.41
7.09
(7)
7.29
15
6.76
6.55
(6)
(5.25)
6.65
16
5.78
5.86
(6.33)
4.88
5.82
17
5.26
4.99
(4.71)
4.57
5.10
18
4.85
4.54
4.53
4.39
4.65
4.42
4.34
4.47
4.23
4.37
20
4.24
4.14
4.18
4.10
4.18
21 and over
4.05
4.05
4.05
4.04
4.05
the coloniesthan as an agriculturallaborer,he would have brought
a higher price than a servantalike in other respectswho did not
possess that skill. Similarly,it is possible that a literate servant
might have been more valuableas a bookkeeperor schoolmaster
than as a field worker.Both these qualifications,skill and literacy,
thus could have reducedthe length of the servant'sindenture.
Thereis no evidencein the Guildhallsampleon women'strades,
and there were too few literate women in the sample to make
analysisworthwhile,but the evidence on the relationshipbetween
literacy,occupation,and the length of indenturefor men is shown
in Table 12. This shows the mean length of indentureby age for
illiteratemen, literatemen, thosewho listedthemselvesas laborers,
and those who gave occupationsof any kind. For purposes of
comparison,the mean lengths for all men are reproducedfrom
Table 10.
The table indicates two basic points. First, at every age the
shortestmean indentureswere for the men with trades.Second,for
all ages except sixteen, literate men had shorter mean indentures
than illiterates, though the size of the difference was in most cases
58
THE
JOURNAL
OF SOUTHERN
HISTORY
quite small. The maximum difference was about four months for
those fourteen and eighteen years of age, while it was much less for
most others.
These results must be interpreted with caution, for they are
averages. They suggest, however, that at least some skills were
valued highly and that some servants must have received substantially shorter indentures because of their occupational skills. It
is clear why this was true. Skilled artisans were at a premium in all
the colonies to the end of the colonial period. Contemporariesknew
this well: in a letter to England asking for carpenters and masons,
Christopher Jeaffreson wrote from St. Christopher in 1677 that
"Suche servants are as golde in these parts."'29Apparently, there
was less advantage in the possession of literacy. This is probably a
consequence of the fact noted above, that a high proportion of the
servants were literate. Only a few bookkeepers and schoolteachers
were needed, while the demand for agricultural laborers was the
basis of the indenture system. Skills are valuable only if scarce;
literacy was apparently so prevalent as to be virtually a free good.
As Smith wrote, "work in the fields was generally required of all
servants.'"30 Jeaffreson wrote that educated men received less
money than artisans, explaining that "For one that can handle his
pen,-he may deserve as much, but wee seldome give it, because
"31
such men are more plenty.
Turning briefly back to women's indentures, the fact that relatively few women received the longest indentures given to menover six years-was probably due to the shortage of women in the
colonies. As was seen above, most of the women servants went to
the mainland colonies, where the colonizing activities of the residents made the shortage of women for marriage an acute problem.
However, that women may not have been sought for reasons completely unrelated to economic production is indicated by the observation that women under eighteen served shorter indentures than
men, while women eighteen or over served longer indentures on
the average. Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman found
that among American slaves "prior to age eighteen, female earnings exceeded those of males.... The early advantage in female
earnings appears to have been due primarily to a more rapid rate of
maturity among women than among men."32 Thus, it is possible
that the shorter indentures of young women may have been due to
Jeaffreson, ed., A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, I, 186.
Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 257.
31
Jeaffreson,ed., A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, I, 257.
32
Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery
(Boston and Toronto, 1974), 77.
29
30
COLONIAL
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
59
the economic rationality of colonial planters. However, while slave
women worked in the fields, white women usually did not.33Therefore, it is more likely that the relatively short indentures of young
women were due rather to their productiveness in performing
household duties.
It was stated above that the sample on which this analysis is
based has no obvious bias as a characterization of the total population of indentured servants. This statement must now be reexamined in light of the foregoing conclusions. Clearly, the sample can
have no claim to represent servants coming to the colonies from
countries other than England or British convicts coming to serve
penal sentences as servants in the colonies. But beyond these qualifications, at least one author would dispute the claim that the
sample represents even those servants who entered the system in
England as free men. The distinction he draws, and its implications, must be considered if the above analysis is to have a claim to
general validity. The author, Morris Talpalar, wrote as follows:
Virginia's white laboring people came and were brought over under two
categories: voluntary servants under contract; and coerced or "spirited"
involuntary servants indentured by the "custom of the country." There
was a qualitative difference in the status of these two categories. The
voluntary servants were "under papers": they were skilled workers who
bound themselves out to a master, usually for from three to five years;
some were fairly literate, and the papers of agreement-which seem like a
contract, rather than strictly indenture-were drawn up at the place of
origin; they entered the country as prospective freemen, and they enjoyed
a privileged labor status throughout the history of the colony. But Virginia's agricultural economy-especially from 1660-required overwhelmingly the brute laborer or "those that worke in the ground," and
they were brought over as coerced or involuntary servants indentured by
the "custom."34
Philip Alexander Bruce wrote in his authoritative Economic His-
tory of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century that "The principal
labor in which the servant was engaged was the cultivation of
tobacco and the removal of the forest for the opening up of new
grounds."35 Thus, Bruce made no distinction between the principal
labor of two types of servant. However, Talpalar's claim is so
fundamental that it must be tested directly. One way would be to
compare the total number of servants coming to the colonies with
33 Philip A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols., New
Yorkand London, 1907), II, 15; Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes
Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill, 1968), 130.
34 Talpalar, The Sociology of Colonial Virginia (2d rev. ed., New York, 1968), 359.
35 Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, II, 14-15.
THE
60
JOURNAL
OF SOUTHERN
HISTORY
indentures to the number brought and indentured by the custom of
the country upon arrivalin order to test Talpalar'sassertion that the
latter predominated.36However, the lack of quantitative evidence
on the movement of servants makes this impossible at present.
What can be tested directly is the implication of Talpalar's
suggestion that servants indentured by the custom of the country
were exploited as compared to those who arrived in the colonies
with indenture papers. The theoretical basis of his argument is
simple and can be seen by a consideration of how the model
presented above would apply to the servants who came without
previous indentures. According to Smith many servants came on
board ship with only a verbal agreement with a merchant or the
captain, "not realizing the agreements had no legal validity and
would not be enforced in the colony."37 On arrival, they were sold
as servants because they had not paid for their passage. Since these
servants made no binding agreement in England, the first of the
model's two markets was eliminated. Therefore, no upper bound
was set to the length of the indenture. Freed of the constraint of
competition with the other agents because the servant was already
in his debt, the agent could set the length arbitrarilywhen he sold
the servant in the colonial market.
It was because of the potential for serious abuses by agents
implicit in this situation that each colony eventually came to the
conclusion that statutory regulation was necessary. The laws they
made were intended primarily to protect servants against severe
exploitation in order to encourage immigration. Their goal was
simply to transform the usual custom of the country concerning
indentures, both as to normal length and freedom dues, into legal
requirement. The first such law was enacted by Maryland in 1638/
39, and by the end of the seventeenth century nearly all the
colonies had similar statutes.38
Thus, the colonial governments' actions were essentially intended to impose the upper-bound length of indenture for the
servants who arrived without papers, supposedly according to the
norm determined by the indentures of those servants who negotiated them in the English market. But how fairly did they do this?
38
All servants who arrived in the colonies without prior indentures were indentured upon
arrival by the custom of the country, that is, the standard indenture used by each colony.
This custom was ultimately set down in statutory law by almost all the colonies. Smith,
Colonists in Bondage, 19.
37
Ibid.
Oscar and Mary Handlin, "Origins of the Southern Labor System," William and Mary
Quarterly, 3d Ser., VII (April 1950), 210; Eugene I. McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland, 1634-1820 (Baltimore, 1904), 44. For references to many of the statutes see Morris,
Government and Labor in Early America, 390-91, especially 390, n. 5.
38
COLONIAL
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
61
The implication of Talpalar's argument is that these servants,
coerced into emigrating, were treated in a systematically different
way than the qualitatively superior servants indentured in England
and that colonial discrimination against them took the form of
harsher conditions of indenture. Talpalar himself draws this implication. Continuing his argument, he asserts that the Virginia government condoned and colluded with the kidnappers: "The overwhelming bulk of Virginia's white laborers were of the coerced and
'spirited' class who, on arrival, were placed on auction blocks and
sold to the highest bidders. They were without contracts previously
drawn up, and the Virginia government cooperated with the man
hunters by officially regulating the status of people so imported as
'the custom of the country.' 3" Thus, in Talpalar's view the custom-of-the-country statutes were evidence of complicity by the
colonial government in the exploitation of servants.
Talpalar's argument implies a modified version of Abbot Emerson Smith's view of the servants. Smith, among others, took the
position that most of the indentured servants were more acted upon
than actors, their emigration governed more by colonial demands
for labor, agents' desires for profit, and the need for a commodity to
fill British merchant ships on their voyages to the colonies to pick
up sugar and tobacco than by their own ambitions and desires.40
Talpalar modifies this view by making a distinction between servants indentured in England and those indentured by the custom of
the country. The former, seen as contract laborers, came to the
colonies as "prospective freemen" and enjoyed privileged status,
while only the latter are seen as human cargo, with the discrimination that implies in the colonies.
The issue of discrimination hinges on the statutes specifying the
custom of the country in each colony. Were these codified vehicles
of discrimination, or were they legal protection offered by benevolent colonial governments?
This question can be answered by comparing the length of actual
indentures with the length of indentures specified by the laws. In
Table 13 indentures specified by the laws giving the custom of the
country are shown by age for each of the five major destinations in
the Guildhall sample. Table 14 shows the average length of the
indentures in the sample by age for each of the same colonies. Both
tables begin with age fifteen, the lowest age for which any colony
received at least ten male servants from the Guildhall sample.
Talpalar, Sociology of Colonial Virginia, 362.
Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 22, 39. More recently, essentially the same position was
taken by Richard Hofstadter, America at 1750: A Social Portrait (New York, 1973), 33-35.
39
40
THE
62
Table
OF SOUTHERN
JOURNAL
HISTORY
by Age According to the Custom
Length of Indenture
of the Country for Laws in Effect During 1718-59
13:
(years)
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Age
Antigua
Jamaica
Maryland
15
6
7
7
7
9
16
5
7
7
6
8
17
4
7
7
5
7
18
4
4
6
5
6
19
4
4
6
5
5
20 and over
4
4
6
5
5
Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America
(New York, 1946), 390, n. 5.
Source:
Table
14:
Average Length of Indenture
for Five Major Destinations
for Male Servants
by Age
(years)
Age
Antigua
Jamaica
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Virginia
15
(4.5)
6.37
7.08
6.32
6.27
16
(5)
5.39
6.19
5.86
5.69
17
(4.5)
4.63
5.62
5.33
5.35
18
4.21
4.30
5.10
4.84
4.86
19
4.13
4.14
4.65
4.44
4.57
20
4.1
4.04
4.38
4.14
4.19
Over 20
4
4
4.17
4
4.05
Several interesting features of Table 14 might be pointed out
before comparing the two tables. Maryland had the longest average
indentures at every age, while Antigua and Jamaica generally had
shorter terms of indenture by age than did the three mainland
colonies. A variety of factors probably combined to cause these
differentials, chief among them the British servants' fear of the
COLONIAL
Table 15:
INDENTURE
63
SYSTEM
Between Length of Custom of the Country
Differences
Indentures and Average Length of Actual Indentures of
by Age for Major Destinations
British Servants
(years)
Age
Antigua
Jamaica
Maryland
Pennsylvania
Virginia
15
1.5
0.63
-0.08
0.68
2.73
16
1
1.61
0.81
0.14
2.31
17
0.5
2.37
1.38
-0.33
1.65
18
0.21
-0.30
0.90
0.16
1.14
19
0.13
-0.14
1.35
0.56
0.43
20
0.1
-0.04
1.62
0.86
0.81
Over 20
0
0
1.83
1
0.95
Note:
Negative terms appear where average length of actual indentures
in the Guildhall sample was longer than custom of the country
indentures.
islands,the desireof the islandsto attractwhite settlersto balance
the high proportionsof blackslavesthere, and the higherfreedom
dues of the mainlandcolonies.4'
In orderto facilitatecomparisonof the termsof the two types of
indentureTable 15 recordsthe differencesbetween the lengths of
the two by age for each colony.Positivenumbersindicatethe more
usual case where the custom-of-the-countryindentures were
longer,while negativenumbersshow that the averagelengthof the
indenturesin the Guildhallsamplefor that age was greater.Of the
total of thirty-fiveentriesin the table, twenty-twoareless thanone
41 For the fear of the islands by British servants see Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 57. A
series of laws was passed by the governments of the island colonies to encourage the
importation of white servants in order to raise the proportion of whites in the population.
Various types of legislation were tried, including guaranteed minimum prices per servant to
merchants and fines on planters who failed to maintain a fixed minimum ratio of whites to
blacks. While many planters chose simply to pay the fines, for those who bought servants in
compliance the price (opportunity cost) of the servants was effectively lowered by the
existence of the laws. For a brief account of the various laws see ibid., 30-34. Although
freedom dues varied both over time and between colonies, Smith concluded that while "the
continental colonies intended to equip the servant for life as a hired man .... The scanty
rewards given in the West Indies were practically useless." Ibid., 241. The servants' general
preference for the mainland colonies was well known to contemporaries. Thus, in London in
1683 Jeaffresonwrote that "It is very difficult to procure servants [for St. Christopher's] ...
Carolina and Pennsylvania are the refuge of the sectaries, and are in such repute, that men
are more easily induced to be transported thither than to the Islands." Jeaffreson, ed., A
Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century, II, 61.
64
THE
JOURNAL
OF
SOUTHERN
HISTORY
year, ten more are from one to two years, and three are over two
years. Five of the entries are negative. Thus, in a few cases the
average length of the indentures in the Guildhall sample was
slightly longer than the statutorylength, while in over 60 percent
the laws specified terms less than a year longer than the actual
averages.Eight of the thirteencases where the excess of the legal
over the actual length was a year or more occur in two of the
colonies, Marylandand Virginia.
One caveat in assessing the tabulated results is that the age
distributionof servantsindenturedby customof the countryis not
known.Thus, it is possiblethat there would be morechildrenthan
in the Guildhallsampleif kidnappingof the youngwaswidespread;
in that case Virginia'shigher legally specifiedterms would weigh
more heavily. On the otherhand, if therewere a largerproportion
of adults, Maryland'slonger terms stipulated by law for older
servantswould be more important.42
How severe was discriminationagainst servantsarrivingin the
colonies without indentures;in other words, what is the significance of these figures?The purposeof the legal specificationof the
custom of the country was to protect servantsagainst excessive
terms of indenture. Clearly, the laws should not have specified
terms shorterthan most of the actual indenturesagreed upon by
servantsand agents, for this would have providedan incentivefor
servantsto try to destroytheircontractsuponarrivalin the colonies
and appealto the colonialcourtsfor new indentures.Therefore,it is
not only the average lengths of actual indenturesto which the
custom-of-the-countrytermsshouldbe comparedbut also the dis42
One additional heuristic device might be used to interpret these results. If we make the
assumption that servants coming to the colonies without indentures from 1718 to 1759 had
the same age distribution as those of the Guildhall sample who had indentures, we can
calculate hypothetical "average exploitation rates" by colony. The rates are obtained by
weighting the differences of Table 14 by the number of male servants of each age going to
each colony, then averaging according to the total number of male servants going to the
colony. This calculation yields the following conjectural average exploitation rates for
servants indentured by the custom of the country:
Rate (average years
per servant)
Colony
Antigua
0.207
Jamaica
0.190
Maryland
0.964
Pennsylvania
0.579
Virginia
1.181
Deviations of these conjectural rates from the true rates would result from differences in the
age distributions of servants who emigrated with and without previous indentures. Nonetheless, the results clearly indicate higher discrimination rates by the mainland colonies: while
the rates for Antigua and Jamaica are on the order of an additional two months per servant,
Maryland's was nearly a year, Virginia's more than a year.
COLONIAL
INDENTURE
SYSTEM
65
tributionsof the lengths of the actual indentures.In this light the
discriminationof the laws appearseven smaller.Examiningwhat
was apparentlythe most severe law, that of Virginia,the longest
actual indenturegiven to a fifteen-year-oldwas eight years, the
longest to a sixteen-year-oldwas seven, and the longestto a seventeen-year-oldwas alsoseven. The firsttwo werebelowthe statutory
term, while the third was equal to it. However,11 percentof the
eighteen-year-oldsin the Guildhallsamplehad termsof morethan
the law'ssix years,and 8 percentof the nineteen-year-olds
got more
than the law's five years. While the patternin the other colonies
was similar, some governmentswere clearly more lenient. For
example, more than 20 percent of the eighteen-year-oldmen indenturedfor Jamaicareceivedcontractslonger than the four years
the governmentrecognizedas the custom.
Thus,in specifyingthe customof the countryto protectpotential
servants from excessive exploitation colonial governmentswere
under the constraintof makingthe legal termslong enough not to
provideincentivesfor servantsto try to evade the originalcontracts
they had agreed to. Judgingby the Guildhallsample,their efforts
appearto have been judicious.The differencesbetweenthe custom
and the actual average indentures,which measure the average
discriminationagainst those indenturedby the custom, seem to
have been held to the minimum consistent with the longest indentures given to a substantialnumber of servantsof each age.
From this perspective,Talpalar'scharacterizationof the servants'
indenturesappearsno moreapt than Smith's.Furtherresearchinto
the particularsof the servantsindenturedby the customis neededif
his view of the servantsthemselvesis to be discredited.
This investigationhas raisedtwo sets of questionsin relationto
the system of indentured servants. First, it has asked who the
servantswere. For the nearly three thousandservantswhose indentureswere examined,it has establishedcertaincharacteristics.
Their literacyrate was apparentlyhigher than that of the English
populationat large. Theirrate of entryinto occupationsappearsto
have been high. This partial evidence clearly cannot provide a
conclusiveanswerto the question,but the tentativeanswersit has
given for the servantsin the sampleconstitutechallengesto much
of the received knowledgeon the issue and providea stimulusto
furtherresearchon the whole populationof servants.
The second set of questionsconcerned the functioningof the
indenturesystem. Generally,the analysisof the Guildhallsample
points away from the view that the servantswere human cargo,
shipped and sold by othersaccordingonly to the profitmotivation
66
THE
JOURNAL
OF SOUTHERN
HISTORY
of merchants and planters. A disproportionate number of young
servants emigrated to the mainland colonies, where opportunities
were known to be better, despite generally longer indentures there.
The lengths of the indenture contracts negotiated by servants in
England varied systematically not only by age but also according to
the training and skills of the servants. Thus, servants were apparently able to capture at least some part of the economic return from
their investment in their own education in contrast to those in the
system depicted by writers who view the servants as contributing
only to the profit of others. And finally, an examination of the
colonial laws passed to protect servants arriving in the colonies
without indentures failed to substantiate claims that these servants
were discriminated against relative to other servants. If this finding
is correct, the system must be judged as a whole rather than
separately for each category of servant.
The analysis in this paper has provided answers to some questions for a small number of servants. It has further suggested some
possible characteristics of this population and a model to explain
the functioning of the system of indentured servitude. Extension of
these findings and the analysis of the qualities of the servants and
their treatment to the much larger number involved during the
more than one and a half centuries of the existence of the indenture
system would require the use of more data than are available at
present.
The data that are available have not yet been thoroughly analyzed. To do so is an obvious first step in approaching the economic
history of indentured servitude. But it is likely that data currently
available will not yield conclusive answers. More data are needed.
Both effort and ingenuity will be needed to find and interpret them.
The data generated by the current controversy over slavery illustrate both what is possible in data collection and how seriously
many view the issue of the economic exploitation of our nation's
forebears. The colonial system of indentured servitude deserves to
be studied no less seriously as another important link in our understanding of how America's colonists worked and lived.