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[[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 ((supposedly))for purported eventual compensation or [[debt]] repayment, or imposed involuntarily as a [[Sentence (law)|judicial punishment]]. Many came with forged or no contract they ever saw.
Many indentured servants were contracted for by American colonial Planters with the British government for so many men, women or children of various age groups. How these contracts were fulfilled wasn't important. Many quotas were met by kidnapping or duping such individuals into thinking they would have it easy in America, being promised gardens and orchards and houses, which were nonexistent, and what rewards they received at the end, little. ▼
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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.
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