Indentured With Meaning In Virginia
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Duties. Some indentured servants served as cooks, gardeners, housekeepers, field workers, or general laborers, while others learned specific trades such as blacksmithing, plastering, and bricklaying, which they often parlayed into future careers.
The labor of indentured servants and, to a much smaller degree, enslaved Africans made the tobacco economy of early Virginia possible. Servants signed contracts, or indentures, binding them to work for a number of years, usually four to seven, and in return received passage to Virginia.
Indentured servants at Hampton in the colonial period were all white, and therefore legal persons with legal rights. Many used the court system to argue that they were being held beyond their term.
The labor of indentured servants and, to a much smaller degree, enslaved Africans made the tobacco economy of early Virginia possible. Servants signed contracts, or indentures, binding them to work for a number of years, usually four to seven, and in return received passage to Virginia.
The indentured servants were immigrants who traveled to North America but could not afford the costs. Instead, they signed contracts to work for four to seven years in exchange for transportation.
Indentured servants 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.
Indentured labour was a system of bonded labour that was instituted following the abolition of slavery. Indentured labour were recruited to work on sugar, cotton and tea plantations, and rail construction projects in British colonies in West Indies, Africa and South East Asia.
On the completion of his indenture, he continued to attend night school. The apprenticeship indentures were signed by the guild master and the apprentice's guardian.
Bound by or occurring under a written contract or formal agreement, especially to work for another: The five indentured electrical apprentices of the second-year class were sworn into the union on Thursday. Born in Belfast in 1949, he studied art while serving an indentured apprenticeship at a shipyard.
Another factor creating a need for new servants was the rapidly expanding tobacco market. It created substantial opportunities for would-be planters, but because tobacco was a demanding, labor-intensive crop, it also required a large number of laborers.
