Indentured Servants vs Black Slaves

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Indentured servants VS Black Slaves; The Masked Similarities With the popularity of Tobacco on the rise, the need for manual labor of this crop in the new world—what is now known as North America—was also on the rise. Manual labor started out as an opportunity in the eyes of many young, poor Englishmen and women hoping to make a new start in the glorious new world; however, the deception did not hold up for very long. When the availability of these workers known as indentured servants began to deteriorate, the need for human slavery became apparent in the new world. In some ways, these two groups of human laborers were similar, and in other ways they were nothing alike. The indentured servants of the new world and the black slaves of the growing colonies were different because indentured servants were promised a future of freedom, and slaves were the property of their owner for their entire life; the two groups were alike because they were both subject to unfair and cruel treatment from their owners, forced to do inhumane amounts of labor, and both could be punished for running away. Indentured servants had freedom in their futures. In the early 1600’s, after the new world was discovered, it became evident that more people were required to get the new English settlement to thrive. More people meant more workers. Young and poor Englishmen were drawn in by newspaper advertisements that promised a new beginning in the new world. Blinded by the dream of prosperity in this new land, men signed up to be shipped over to North America—paid for entirely by their new masters. The cost of this transportation was an average of four to seven years of servitude from the man who signed the contract. Of course there were many negative results of this contract, but the most positive difference between these indentured servants and black slaves was the promise of freedom granted
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