Indentured Servitude Term Analysis

Indentured servitude was a practice by which people would provide free or underpaid labor to their employers in exchange for financial aid or learning a trade. Many poor Europeans came to North American colonies via indentured servitude, agreeing to work for a certain number of years for the wealthier people who sponsored their passage across the Atlantic Ocean. Apprentices, who worked closely and often lived with craftspeople to learn a trade, were often indentured as well, in exchange for room and board. Amos Fortune takes on two indentured servants—one of whom, Charlie Toothaker, is white—to learn the leather tanning trade during his time in Jaffrey. Indentured servitude differed from chattel slavery primarily in the fact that indentured servants entered contracts of their own free will and had a clear path to freedom after a period of service, whereas enslaved people were forced into service against their will. Additionally, the children of indentured servants, unlike the children of enslaved people, were born free.