During the 17th and 18th centuries over 300,000 thousand Britons travelled to the American colonies to become indentured servants. However, upon arrival in the New World many indentured servants found themselves to be slaves in all but name.

Indentured servants were individuals who willingly signed a legally binding contract, known as an indenture, with a merchant, promising to work for a specified number of years in the colonies. In exchange for their labour commitment they received their passage as well as food, drink, clothing and accommodation during their service. The servant was then transported to America, where the merchant or his representative sold his contract to the highest bidder. At the end of their indenture the servant was freed and typically received freedom dues, such as money, land, tools, clothes and food, from their employer.

The term of an indenture was usually between four and seven years for an adult and could be as high as fifteen years for a child. However, the terms and conditions of each contract could vary significantly. Skilled servants such as craftsmen were in great demand and having a trade could reduce the length of a servant’s indenture and improve the terms and conditions of their contract. Nevertheless, the majority of indentured servants arriving in the colonies were typically unskilled and were employed as domestic servants or agricultural labourers in the plantations.

Although many ventured to the New World voluntarily in the hope of finding a better life, there were many others who were sent unwillingly.

The insatiable demand for colonial labour led to gangs of kidnappers or ‘spirits’ supplying merchants with a steady stream of servants. The spirits’ usual tactic was to persuade naïve individuals aboard a ship through the promise of a more prosperous life in the New World as servants. Once on board, the unwary victim, even if they subsequently changed their mind, was not allowed to disembark until they had arrived in America. Charles Bayly, for example, lamented that he was deceived by a man named Bradstreet when he was 13. “He fell into discourse with me,““ recalled Bayly, “and I being tender in years, he did cunningly get me aboard a ship, and I being once aboard, could never get on shore until I came to America, where I was sold as a bond-slave for seven years.”"

In 1618 the City of London authorities agreed to send street children to the colonies in the belief that they were saving “poor souls from misery and ruin”“ and “putting them in a condition of use and service to the state”“. Despite these charitable intentions, most of the children sent to the colonies would never reach adulthood. Indeed, 300 children were transported between 1619 and 1622 but only 12 were still alive in 1624.

The government deported political prisoners from England’s wars and rebellions in the 17th century. It also sent other groups it deemed undesirable such as vagrants, prostitutes and convicts.

The Atlantic crossing was an arduous and dangerous eight-to-ten-week journey. Passengers had to frequently contend with sea sickness, infection, disease and death on board the overcrowded vessels.

American newspapers reported the arrival of new human cargo, highlighted their skills and informed readers when they would be sold off. Once aboard, prospective buyers would painstakingly examine the servants. James Revel, a transported convict sentenced to 14 years’ labour in Virginia in 1680, grumbled that they were inspected ‘like horses’ to see ‘if we’re sound’. Moreover, when his employer died two years before his term was due to expire, Revel and the other servants were once again put up for auction, ‘like sheep into a fold. There unto the best bidder to be sold.’

Those who survived the hazardous journey were still at risk. Newly arrived servants struggled to adjust to the climate and found the blazing heat intolerable. Small wonder, then, that mortality rates were extremely high, especially during the summer months. Indeed, Governor Berkeley stated in 1671 that in previous years four out of five servants died of disease soon after arriving in Virginia.

Work on the plantations was gruelling. Servants were expected to work long hours, six days a week through the growing season and spent the rest of the year preparing the ground for cultivation.

Employers viewed their servants as commodities – it’s not surprising that Abraham Coombs bequeathed ‘all my servants, being two boys and one woman servant together with all my stock of hogs’ to his wife in his will. Similarly, a newspaper advertisement for a property to be sold in Maryland in 1660 highlighted that it was, ‘stocked with servants, cattle, horses and mares, sheep and swine’.

Servants had few rights; they had no choice of location, occupation or employer and could be bought and sold or simply given away. As David Peterson DeVries, a visitor to Virginia in 1633, witnessed, ‘I was astonished to observe of the English people, that they lose their servants in gambling with each other.’

A servant also needed the consent of their employer to marry and the penalties for a clandestine marriage were severe. When James Hall and Margaret Ryan, for instance, absconded from their employer in Chester County, they evaded capture for 13 days, got married and were finally returned to their employer for £9. The court sentenced each to serve an additional 30 days for their runaway time, five months for the £9 and one extra year for marrying. Servants who gave birth would also have their term of service lengthened, as would the father of the child.

There were undoubtedly some humane employers who took care of their servants. However, there were many reports of servants being maltreated. In a touching letter to his parents, Richard Frethorne, a servant in Virginia, sorrowfully reported in 1633 that, ‘I had eaten more in a day at home than was allowed for a week in Virginia, and you had often given more than my present allowance to a beggar at your door. I have nothing at all, not even a shirt, only one poor suit, a pair of shoes and stockings.’ Frethorne goes on to say that, ‘I had thought no head had been able to hold so much water hath and doth daily flow from my eyes.’

In many cases the conditions of service for indentured servants were worse than for those labourers in England. ‘What we unfortunate English people suffer here,’ declared Elizabeth Sprigg in a letter to her father in 1756, ‘is beyond the probability of you in England to conceive.’

Servants received little protection from their employers from the legal system. In 1720, after a servant told the Anne Arundel County Court about the excessive punishment he was receiving he was sent back to his owner with a letter from the court, instructing his employer to be less abusive.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that many servants chose to flee their employer. All the colonies enacted legislation to discourage servants from running away and the most common penalty was extending the length of the servants’ contract.

The indentured servant system continued until American independence and provided the fledgling colonies with the labour supply it needed. However, the system condemned thousands of men, women and children to years of exploitation and mistreatment.

In 1740 James Thomson declared in Rule Britannia that ‘Britons never will be slaves’. This statement would have appeared remarkably hollow to those who had experienced the indignities brought about by the indentured servant system.