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__** Indentured Servitude **__

** In 1607 three English ships arrived safely at Jamestown, Virginia, to found the first permanent English colony in the New World. Most of the passengers, other than the officers and gentlemen, were indentured to work for the Virginia Company for seven years. At the end of that period they could either return to England or take up land for themselves in Virginia and work for the company as free laborers. The Virginia Company devised this system of indentured servitude to finance the recruitment and transport of workers from England to the colony. Those unable to afford an Atlantic passage could borrow the needed funds. In return for their passage, maintenance during their service, and certain freedom dues at the end of the term, servants signed contracts or indentures to work for their masters for a fixed number of years. Servitude played a major role in the settlement of the colonies. During the colonial era, some 200,000 to 300,000 servants came to British North America, accounting for one-half to two-thirds of all European immigrants. Indentured Servants became commonplace throughout the colonies even Paul Revere's father was an indentured servant. **

**Indentured servitude is sometimes thought of as an adaptation of apprenticeship, but it more closely resembled service in husbandry, a major source of agricultural labor in early modern England. Typically, farm servants were boys and girls from poor families who left home in their early teens to work for more prosperous farmers until they married. They usually lived in their master's household, agreed to annual contracts for wages, food, and lodging, and changed places frequently, often every year. Given the pervasiveness of this form of life-cycle service, it is a likely antecedent for the indenture system and was a major source of recruits for American plantations.** Slavery **The slavery issue began to grow as time went on. Many Southerners felt that the North** **was simply trying to antagonize the South with this issue. The fact was that more than 90%** **of Southerners never owned slaves. Several plantations in the South were actually owned** **by citizens of northern states and some Northerners owned slave operated** **plantations on Caribbean islands.** **What the South did not have was financial freedom. Southerners were economic and political slaves to the industrial demands of the north, just as blacks were slaves to the agricultural demands of the South. Growth potential was severely limited in the South, so long as the north continued to levy heavy tariffs on things that Southerners needed to purchase and heavy taxes on those things that Southerners produced. In the words of South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun in 1850, "//The north has adopted a system of revenue and disbursements, in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed on the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the north ... The South as the great exporting portion of the Union has, in reality, paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue,".// Unfair taxation drove Americans to war with Britain in 1775 and against each other in 1861.** __** Abolitionism **__ **For 35 years, 1830-1865, William Lloyd Garrison published a newspaper, //The Liberator//, the foremost voice for Abolitionism. Garrison gained a reputation for being the most radical of abolitionists. He alienated almost all Southerners and many Northerners with his ravenous, hate-filled vendetta against the white South. The key point made by abolitionists of the antebellum period, which remained a minority in the North throughout the entire pre-war period, was that the fight against slavery was //"not only a struggle to free the Negro from bondage, but one to remove as a dominant force in American life the threat of a well-organized, aggressive, threatening slave power conspiracy"//** **They charged, a secret agreement among Southern slave-holders not only to maintain slavery but to impose it on the nation by extending it to the territories and free states and even possibly to whites, to destroy civil liberties, control the policies of the Federal government and complete the formation of a nation-wide ruling aristocracy based on a slave economy.** **In 1839 the National Convention of Abolitionists, meeting at Albany, resolved that //"the events of the last five or six years leave no room for doubt that the slave power is now waging a deliberate and determined war against the liberties of the free states,"// and by 1845 repetitions of the charge became common. After 1850, when they began to publicize the charge in earnest, they pointed to congressional compromises as proof of its existence. Since slavery, reasoned the abolitionists was founded upon a violation of the principles of liberty and free government, it followed that by the simple fact of its existence slavery was a constant threat to those principles. Most in the North were relatively uninterested in the Negro's freedom, but the emotional appeal of the charge of slave power conspiracy was strong for immigrants, laborers, farmers and lower and middleclass workmen. They were suspect of the motives of the rich and powerful having seen the northern greed, corruption and economic oppression first hand. The abolitionist movement failed to develop a feasible plan to emancipate blacks in the north or south. Their call for the immediate emancipation with no concern to financial, social, education or vocational considerations were ludicrous. All their efforts further infuriated the people of the South, of which 93% were non-slave holders. It was another example of the Northern Yankees trying to tell everyone how to live and think. On the other hand, it incited some of the mentally less stable in the north, such as John Brown and his followers. **
 * But indentured servitude was harsher and more restrictive than apprenticeship or service in husbandry. Servants entered into their labor contracts voluntarily, although arguments could be raised that there were no other alternatives. They could not marry without their master's consent, and they had little control over the terms or conditions of their labor and living standards, although custom and local law did set limits and provide for certain minimums. Terms varied substantially, from four years for skilled adults to a decade or more for unskilled minors. And all could find their terms extended if they ran away or became pregnant. Servants could be sold without their consent, a necessity given the distance and terms involved.** **In addition to these voluntary systems, penal servitude became an important source of labor in the eighteenth century when some fifty thousand convicts were shipped to the colonies.**
 * As the colony grew and prospered, the number of indentured servants continually** **increased. Out of almost 5,000 settlers in 1635, about half had arrived indentured to** **furnish the necessary labor to tame the wilderness turning it into farms and plantations. By 1671 the** **number had grown to 6,000 and ten years later there were 15,000 indentured workers in** **Virginia alone. With the gradual development of the other colonies the demand increased** **proportionately, and it is generally estimated that indentured servants comprised over 60** **percent of all immigrants into the colonies up to 1776.**
 * Indentured servants played an important role in the British colonial economy. They worked in all regions in a variety of tasks throughout the colonial period. Initially, servants were concentrated in the staple-producing colonies, working as field hands to produce labor intensive crops. As demand for labor grew and servant prices rose, planters found that they could employ African slaves more profitably in their fields but continued to use servants as plantation craftsmen and domestics and in supervisory positions. As slaves learned English and plantation work routines, they eventually displaced servants in those positions as well. The establishment of the Royal African Company in 1662 with its encouragement and official support of slavery, doomed the indentured servant system in the southern colonies. The tobacco and cotton crops demanded a huge supply of cheap** **labor which the indenture system could not supply. Slavery also had other major economic** **advantages for entrepreneurs of the era. The slave was owned for life, not just a few years, so he would not have to be** **continually replaced. Consequently, by 1800 there were virtually no indentured servants** **in the South.**
 * In the Middle and New England colonies, however, where slavery was not** **economically feasible, there was a strong [[image:http://www.scv674.org/Coin%20Graphics/colonialworkers.gif width="340" height="209" align="left"]]demand for indentured servants, particularly** **during the first half of the 18th century.**
 * As westward expansion continued, the slavery issue was brought up as each new state** **entered into the union. The abolitionists of the North representing an extremely small number of** **people, said that slavery should not be allowed in the new western states. The South felt** **that the decision should be left up to the people of those states, once again referring to the belief of state** **sovereignty as expressed in the Constitution.**
 * [[image:http://www.scv674.org/Coin%20Graphics/fieldhands2.jpg width="373" height="225" align="left"]]The South was in favor of gradual emancipation of the slaves whereas northern****abolitionists demanded immediate emancipation. The South knew that a sudden****emancipation of several million slaves could not be possible without a disastrous impact** **on the region economically. This impact would affect both the white and black populations. The South also favored gradual emancipation so that the slaves themselves** **would be prepared to support themselves once freed.** **Southerners knew that as the South became more mechanized slavery would die a natural death. At that point, slavery in the South would become a** **financial liability as had become earlier in the North, as new technologies were introduced.** **Late in the struggle for its independence, the Confederacy expressed its willingness to** **abolish slavery in exchange for recognition by European powers, and the South adopted** **its own emancipation plans.**
 * There are those who will tell you the War Between the States had everything to do with slavery and those who will say it had nothing to do with slavery. Issues of slavery were involved, but were certainly not the only reason for hostilities. Many of the large Southern plantation owners did not favor secession. Under the existing U.S. Constitution slavery was protected and could not be infringed upon unless a 2/3'rds majority vote could be reached, which would have been extremely difficult to achieve. The Supreme Court had ruled favorably on the legality and constitutionality of slavery. Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln both promised many times, that they would not interfere with the practice of slavery. New laws were recently put on the books protecting slave owners from loss of slave property due to theft or runaways. Add to that, the fact that the Confederate states constituted the fifth wealthiest region in the world. The slave owning states had all of these things and more. So why on earth would Southern states secede from the United States? Surely, no one believes that the South would have left the security of the Union and gone to fight a war for something they already had! Countries do not fight wars for the things they have, they fight wars to obtain the things they do not have. **
 * Slavery was not an exclusively Southern institution. Almost 400,000 slaves lived in Northern states at the start of the war. Many of those slaves were not freed until the 13th Amendment was passed. In fact, it is commonly accepted that the last slaves freed were in Delaware, a staunchly Union state. The 13th Amendment, passed after the war ended, was approved by Southern states who had already seen their capital assets stripped away without compensation and who were considered occupied enemy territory by the Northern States at that time.** **North had slavery after the war at least until 1866 due to some holdouts.**
 * Union General Ulysses S. Grant was a slaveholder of record. He refused to give up his slaves until the passage of the 13th Amendment.**

__** Books That Inflame Tensions. **__ **There was a book written and published in 1852 that must be reckoned with as a factor in the many causes that started the War Between The States. That book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly " was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a novel, a fictional story that greatly exaggerated the slavery system of the South.** **Stowe, an ardent abolitionist, came from a deeply religious New England family that included several Protestant ministers. Her novel was meant to show that slaveholding was a deep moral wrong, inconsistent with Christian practice, a view that was by no means universally accepted at the time. Her long, winding story first appeared as a magazine serial published in forty serial issues of the abolitionist weekly the "National Era" beginning in June of 1851. It was published as a two-volume book by John Punchard Jewett in March of 1852. In her story, even kind Southern whites who care about Uncle Tom and other slaves suffer the ill effects of being slave owners. The novel was an instant bestseller and by year's end had sold an astonishing 1.5 million copies worldwide. Forty different publishers printed it in England alone, and it was quickly translated into 20 languages. Harriet Beecher Stowe had never been to the South nor seen slave holders, slave operations, or even met with non-slave holding Southerners, but that did not stop her from conjuring images of slavery for the book that would further her abolitionist agenda. Besides her own imagination, she could only rely on other writings and word of mouth anecdotes to draw from when writing her story. Stowe’s opponents argued that her portrayal of slavery was misleading and exaggerated. Her critics began publishing books and articles to refute the facts presented in the novel. Stowe responded by releasing her own book, The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which provided alleged documentation on the assumed facts in her novel, naming books and people that served as her sources of information. Stowe’s sources remain controversial, since she conducted her research on slavery to support her novel only after the book was published. The novel was made into a number of touring theatrical shows. Stowe held no copyright to prevent stage adaptations, which were done without her approval and without compensation. Of course as much theatrical license as needed was used by the showmen to exaggerate the characterizations even further distort the image of the Southern people. It has been estimated that nearly 500 "Uncle Tom traveling shows" were performing around the country, including one by showman P.T. Barnum. These shows removed some characters in the book, enlarged the roles of others, and added song and dance, even comedy, to conform the story to the elements popular in the minstrel shows of the day. Entertainment for profit, rather than accurate historical information was the motive for these shows. ** **In 1857 a book was published that had a greater effect in fueling the fire, leading** **to war, than did any other book. The book, "The Impending Crisis of the South and How to Meet It.," written by Hinton** **Rowan Helper, an anti-slavery North Carolinian, has been called "//one of the most//** **//diabolical books ever published."// In this book Helper declared //"Never were the poorer//** //**classes of a people, and these classes so largely in the majority, and all inhabiting the same**// **//country, so basely duped, so adroitly swindled, or so damnably outraged."// Then again,** //"**Except among the non-slaveholders, who besides being kept in the grossest ignorance,** **are under the restraints of iniquitous laws, patriotism has ceased to exist within her** **border."**// ** The Nat Turner rebellion was also on the minds of Southerners. Early in the morning of August 22, 1831, a band of eight Black slaves, led by a lay preacher named Nat Turner, entered the Travis house in Southampton County, Virginia and killed five members of the Travis family. This was the beginning of a slave uprising that was to become known as Nat Turner's rebellion. Over a thirty-six hour period, this band of slaves grew to sixty or seventy in number and slew fifty-eight White persons in and around Jerusalem, Virginia before the local community could act to stop them. This rebellion raised southern fears of a general slave uprising and had a profound influence on the attitude of Southerners towards slavery.** **Helper threatened such an event when he wrote "//Henceforth, Sirs, we are//** //**demandants, not supplicants. It is for you to decide whether we are to have justice** **peaceably or by violence, for whatever consequences may follow, we are determined to** **have it one way or another." "Do you aspire to become the victims of white non-slaveholders vengeance by day and of barbarous massacre by Negroes at night?" "Would** **you be instrumental in bringing upon yourselves, your wives, and your children, a fate too**// // **terrible to contemplate? Shall history cease to cite, as an instance of unexplained cruelty,** **the massacre of St. Bartholomew, because the World - the South - shall have furnished a** **more direful scene of atrocity and carnage?"** // **The Republican party used his book. They titled a copy "A Manifesto of the Impending** **Crisis," distributing it throughout the North and West in batches of 100,000 copies. Sixty-four Republican members of Congress officially endorsed Helper's book.** **Helper's suggestion of a slave insurrection may very well have encouraged John Brown** **to make his attempt to overtake Harper's Ferry and lead a slave revolt against Southern** **slave-owners.** **Helper's book inflamed both the slaveholder and non-slaveholder of the South.** **8. What was the significance of the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry?** **9. Knowing what we do today, what would have been a solution to elimination of slavery without warfare or extreme economic hardship?** **10. It has been documented that about 7% of Southerners owned slaves. How would some of the abolitionist charges, the slave rebellions, and the anti-Southern books published in the era effected you as a non slave holder? What would your reaction to the north be?**
 * In this statement Helper ascribed to the Southern slaveholder a virtual superiority, and** **that there were millions of non-slaveholders across the South who had no sense.** **Helper, in his book, stated "//We contend that slaveholders are more criminal than//** //**common murderers." "...Were it possible for the whole number to be gathered together**// // **and transformed into four equal gangs of licensed robbers, ruffians, thieves, and** **murderers, society would suffer less from the atrocities than it does now."** //
 * But the most crucial part of Helper's book that fed the fire of coming secession was in threatening violence and insurrection. The South was well aware of the slave insurrections that had taken place in Haiti. S ince the 1790's when slaves rebelled in Santo Domingo and slaughtered 60,000 people, Southerners realized that their own slaves might rise up against them. A number of slave revolt conspiracies were uncovered in the South between 1820 and 1831 but none frightened Southerners as much as Nat Turner's rebellion.**
 * 1. How would books like** **" Types of Mankind" and newspaper commentators such as Horace Greeley have influence an average citizen in their thinking about ethnic, racial and societal in the 1850's? **
 * 2. Why was the indentured servant system considered so important to the formation of the colonies? **
 * 3. What factors caused African slave trade to begin in America? **
 * 4. If most Northern slave owners were allowed to recoup their investment by selling slaves south, what plan could have been implement to allow the Southern slave owners the same opportunity? **
 * 5. Why would common people of the North be concerned with the abolitionist slave power conspiracy?**
 * 6. How valid was the use of Uncle Tom's Cabin as an instrument of abolition? **
 * 7. How did ** **Hinton** **Rowan Helper's book incite further tensions in the South?**