Essay On Indentured Servitude

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Slavery has become a popular discussion after the civil rights movement because it has been allowed and more socially accepted to deal with the issue. Before slavery was a popular discussion, Indentured Servitude is what used to be discussed and has now been replaced with the topic of slavery. Slavery is considered the owning of another human being. Being an indentured servant was kind of like a trade. What we do not know is that slavery and indentured servitude are very closely related on a continuum of coerced labor. There are many similarities between indentured servitude and slavery that make me believe that they were both almost exactly the same with different names. To get to America, slaves and indentured servants were both dragged…show more content…
While they were owned indentured servants had some legal rights that slaves did not have. Indentured servants were also given freedom dues, which means that they could be given land or anything to help them start their new life once their sentence was over. Sometimes instead of being given land they would only be given a horse for a man or a cow a woman. Indentured servants could have any rights that their owners would allow which could include, having a wife, having kids, or just having a normal life when they were not working. Indentured servants and slaves were not allowed to vote under any circumstances unless released by their masters. Unlike indentured servants, slaves had no rights unless they were released and then could have any rights of the normal citizen. The nature of slavery was really no different than the nature of indentured servant. The businessmen of the colonies needed labor. They saw both slaves and indentured servants as property and could abuse that power as they saw fit. Many slaves and indentured servants simply did not live- the rate of death seems horrific by today’s standard of living in the United States. Both could earn their freedom, but each individual case was as different as the masters they

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