Indentured Servants and First English Colony

1.Indentured servitude was a common practice in the 18^th Century when a person entered into a contractual slavery for a fixed period of time in lieu of something, in this case in lieu of passage from Old England to the United States for a search of a better life (Shaw, 2018). North America was mainly a British dominated region and this was a way how Europeans suffering from extreme poverty and without any dreams and opportunities of a better life travelled to colonies in America. The historical context is important as the world was not yet ordered with democratic governments and concepts of individualism. Imperialistic forces were ruling most of the earth and Britain was one of the leaders in imperialist ambitions. Most of the people left England through the ports of London and Liverpool and arrived at Pennsylvania, Barbados and Virginia. In the places they arrived at, the buyers would wait for the arrivals and bought healthy and young slaves for contractual period from the shippers (Schneider & Schneider, 2014).

The first batch of the indentured servants probably arrived in 1607, this after the Virginia Company had caused the settlement of Jamestown, presently which is known as Virginia, the town was the first permanent English Colony. It is noteworthy, in what critically bad conditions the indentured slaves were shipped to the Americas, they got food infested with worms and water that was not drinkable. Many of them died on way, however the kith and kin of the dead ha to pay for their transportation by serving longer time in slavery.

Economically America was colonized by the British and the market was dominated by the imperial authorities. In the 1750’s almost one in 4 people of America was a slave, that amounts 25% of the population. Slave business was one of the primary ways of earning by the Europeans. The American economy of the time was not industrialized and mainly dominated by peasantry, whereas Britain had been the greatest forerunner in Industrial Revolution and was leading the world in economic perspective. It is unfortunate that in spite of such economic prosperity and educational advancement such cruel practices were not abolished and continued unhindered.

2.African countries were the largest source of slaves to America and the European slave traders use to ship the slaves to American colonies. The author Olaudah Equiano was one such slave who was enslaved in his childhood in Nigeria and was then transported to the plantations in Virginia. Large cargo ships were specially altered with chains and cells to transport slaves (Childs, 2015). These ships were known as the Slave ships or the “Guineamen”. The 18^th and the 19^th Centuries saw rapid developments of plantations in America by the imperial countries of Europe, these plantations required a large number of human workers and hence the demand for slaves increased to considerable extent during that time.

Economic Domination and the Rise of Slave Trade

As it is evident from the writing the slave ships were designed in inhuman setups and the slaves transported were terribly treated. Often they were beaten mercilessly for not eating as the buyers would not buy slaves if they were not healthy, for this purpose eating sufficiently was required. The ships were designed to accommodate maximum number of slaves at one go therefore there were little cells with almost no head rooms which accommodated the individual slaves.

The economic activity of slave trade was growing at a large rate and historically it is known as the “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade” as the process required the slaves to be transported from the African nations to the Americas through the Atlantic. The time period of this activity was from 16^th to 19^th Century. There were a number of European countries like England, France, Portugal and Spain competing for increasing their imperial control and trade, this required acquiring larger number of slaves who were engaged in the plantations, industries and various other sectors of manual labor. The slave traders treated the slaves as cargos and ensured the cheapest and quickest possible way to transport them.

The experience that was shared by Olaudah Equiano was different than the account of Gottlieb Mittelberger, in whose case the most evident crisis was worm infested and rotten food along with sickness of worst kind. In Equiano’s case the situation was much worse where the slaves were flogged, beaten, tortured and often killed. The difference was mainly because in Mittelberger’s case they were indenture slaves who wanted to escape from Europe for a better life in the Americas and voluntarily went. However, in Equiano’s case the slaves were kidnapped or forced to be shipped.

3.The author in this piece of writing has excellently and sarcastically described the stark contrast of the mindset and lifestyle of the native people of America and that of the Europeans. The colonial Europeans had been travelling to all the American, African and Asian countries to colonize and establish their market control in these countries.

The imperialistic forces completely destroyed the balance of the world and ignored all ethical standards like human rights, fraternity and sovereignty, to economically and politically establish control all over the world. The European countries like England, France, Spain and Portugal were competing against each other to increase the number of colonies. Torturing of the native inhabitants of the colonized countries and selling people as slaves to the newly established colonies to work in the factories and plantations became normal practice.

The author has excellently contrasted this cruel and inhuman mindset of the imperial countries with that of the native Americans, where people lived a simple life of brotherhood and no one seemed to control the rest. Small villages and towns featuring peaceful people living and coexisting was what American style of population was. Before the imperial people came here and killed hundreds of native Americans, the land was beautiful, peaceful and sufficiently fertile to feed everyone living on it. It was beautiful and people had emotions and love for each other.

The pre-imperial economy of America was not industrialized but rather dependent on agricultural activities. People lived closed to nature and closed to each other as well. Emotion and care for each other was the dominating factor of the society, more than fierce competition to gain monetary profits. In this background the European settlers came in to establish their political and economic control on this fertile land which completely changed the situation, people were killed, enslaved and their rights of their own land was snatched away (Ziegler-McPherson, 2017).

The author very rightly points out that these imperial people who came in and their successors will regard America more as their motherland than from the land they came from, because the land they came from did not provide them enough which forced them to intrude  in a different country.

References

Childs, D. (2015). Slaves of the state: Black incarceration from the chain gang to the penitentiary. University of Minnesota Press.

Schneider, D., & Schneider, C. J. (2014). Slavery in America. Infobase Publishing.

Shaw, J. (2018). Indentured Migration and the Servant Trade from London to America, 1618–1718:“There is Great Want of Servants.”.

Ziegler-McPherson, C. A. (2017). Selling America: Immigration Promotion and the Settlement of the American Continent, 1607–1914. ABC-CLIO

Crèvecoeur, J. (1782). Hector St. John de. Letters from an American farmer, 1784, 1787.

Equiano, O. (2001). The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano. Broadview Press.

Mittelberger, G. (1960). Journey to Pennsylvania. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.