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{{Short description|Consensual or punitive unpaid labor}}
[[File:Indenturecertificate.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|An indenture signed by Henry Mayer, with an "X", in 1738. This contract bound Mayer to Abraham Hestant of [[Bucks County, Pennsylvania]], who had paid for Mayer to travel from Europe.]]
'''Indentured servitude''' is a form of [[Work (human activity)|labor]] in which a person is contracted to work without [[salary]] for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "[[indenture]]", may be entered voluntarily for purported eventual compensation or [[debt]] repayment, or imposed involuntarily as a [[Sentence (law)|judicial punishment]].
Historically,
Like any [[loan]], an indenture could be sold
▲Like any [[loan]], an indenture could be sold; most masters had to depend on middlemen or ships masters to recruit and transport the workers, so indentureships were commonly sold by such men to planters or others upon the ships arrival. Like slaves, their price went up or down, depending on supply and demand. When the indenture (loan) was paid off, the worker was free but not always in good health or sound of body. Sometimes they might be given a plot of land or a small sum to buy it, but the land was usually poor.
==The Americas==
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The terms of an indenture were not always enforced by American courts, although runaways were usually sought out and returned to their employer.
Between one-half and two-thirds of European immigrants to the [[Thirteen Colonies|American Colonies]] between the 1630s and the American Revolution came under [[indenture]]s.{{sfn|Galenson|1984|p=1}} However, while almost half the European immigrants to the [[Thirteen Colonies]] were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Donoghue |first1=John |title=Indentured Servitude in the 17th Century English Atlantic: A Brief Survey of the Literature: Indentured Servitude in the 17th Century English Atlantic |journal=History Compass |date=October 2013 |volume=11 |issue=10 |pages=893–902 |doi=10.1111/hic3.12088 }}</ref> Indentured people were numerically important mostly in the region from
Several instances of [[kidnapping]]<ref>"trepan | trapan, n.2". OED Online. June 2017. Oxford University Press</ref> for transportation to the Americas are recorded, such as that of [[Peter Williamson (Indian Peter)|Peter Williamson]] (1730–1799). Historian [[Richard Hofstadter]] pointed out that "Although efforts were made to regulate or check their activities, and they diminished in importance in the eighteenth century, it remains true that a certain small part of the European colonial population of America was brought by force, and a much larger portion came in response to deceit and misrepresentation on the part of the spirits [recruiting agents]."<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard Hofstadter|title=America at 1750: A Social Portrait|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zO4ulIkeKX8C&pg=PA36|year=1971|publisher=Knopf Doubleday |page=36|isbn=9780307809650}}</ref> One "spirit" named William Thiene was known to have spirited away<ref>{{cite book|first=Lerone|last=Bennett Jr.|title=White Servitude in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZFDqAUi7h-QC&pg=PA31|date=November 1969|publisher=Ebony Magazine |pages=31–40|author-link=Lerone Bennett Jr.}}</ref> 840 people from Britain to the colonies in a single year.<ref>{{cite book|title=Calendar of State Papers: Colonial series|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F68MAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA521|year=1893|publisher=Great Britain. Public Record Office |page=521}}</ref> Historian [[Lerone Bennett Jr.]] notes that "Masters given to flogging often did not care whether their victims were black or white."<ref>{{cite book|title=Calendar of State Papers: Colonial series|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F68MAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA521|year=1893|publisher=Great Britain. Public Record Office |page=36}}</ref>
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Indentured servants [[Barbados Servant Code|could not marry]] without the permission of their master, were frequently subject to physical punishment and did not receive legal favor from the courts. Female indentured servants in particular might be raped and/or sexually abused by their masters. If children were produced the labour would be extended by two years.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Race, gender, and power in America : the legacy of the Hill-Thomas hearings|date=1995|publisher=Oxford University Press|others=Hill, Anita., Jordan, Emma Coleman.|isbn=0-19-508774-7|location=New York|oclc=32891709}}</ref> Cases of successful prosecution for these crimes were very uncommon, as indentured servants were unlikely to have access to a magistrate, and social pressure to avoid such brutality could vary by geography and cultural norm. The situation was particularly difficult for indentured women, because in both low social class and gender,{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}} they were believed to be particularly prone to vice, making legal redress unusual.
The [[American Revolution]] severely limited immigration to the United States, but economic historians dispute its long-term impact. Sharon Salinger argues that the economic crisis that followed the war made long-term labor contracts unattractive. Her analysis of [[Philadelphia]]'s population shows that the percentage of bound citizens fell from 17% to 6.4% over the course of the war.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Salinger|first=Sharon V.|title=Colonial Labor in Transition: The Decline of Indentured Servitude in Late
Indentured servitude began its decline after [[Bacon's Rebellion]], a servant uprising against the government of Colonial Virginia.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Schmidt |first=Ethan |title=The Divided Dominion:Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia |publisher=University Press of Colorado |year=2015 |isbn=9781607323082 |pages=149–176}}</ref> This was due to multiple factors, such as the treatment of servants, support of native tribes in the surrounding area, a refusal to expand the amount of land an indentured servant could work by the colonial government, and inequality between the upper and lower class in colonial society.<ref name=":02" /> Indentured servitude was the primary source of labor for early American colonists until the rebellion.<ref>McCurdy, J. G. Bacon's rebellion{{full citation needed|date=March 2023}}</ref> Little changed in the immediate aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion; however, the rebellion did cause a general distrust of servant labor and fear of future rebellion.<ref name=":1">Riggs, Thomas (2015) Bacon's Rebellion{{full citation needed|date=March 2023}}</ref> The fear of indentured servitude eventually cemented itself into the hearts of Americans, leading towards the reliance on enslaved Africans.<ref>Stevenson, K. Bacon's Rebellion{{full citation needed|date=March 2023}}</ref> This helped to ingrain the idea of racial segregation and unite white Americans under race rather than economic or social class.<ref name=":1" /> Doing so prevented the potential for future rebellion and changed the way that agriculture was approached.
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