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Why is this important piece of America's history not so well known? I never learned of it in school; it was in fact only recently that I was made aware of this.
You should not confuse not known to yourself, with not known to the public at large.
I learned in high school history about indentured service and the role it played during America's colonial days. Later I took a course in Colonial history at San Francisco State and recall that one of the essay choices on the final exam was one where you were asked to compare indentured servants to slaves, explain the differences and explain how slavery came to be exclusively race based.
Your school apparently didn't cover it, but no curriculum can cover everything that there is to know, so my hearing about indentured servants was probably at the cost of not hearing about something which was covered in your school.
I was reading a book recently about the history of US Foreign Policy towards the Middle East. Remember the Barbary States of north Africa? We had our first overseas conflict with them in the first 15 years of the 19th century. Many of the American sailors that were captured, and were not returned due to ransom, we made as slaves to their Arab owners.
Indentured servants were not slaves. While many of them did suffer from abuses of the system by being lied to and manipulated into service and some may have been treated poorly, there are distinct differences between indentured servitude and slavery which should not be overlooked. Most importantly, indentured servants only worked for a set amount of years (usually 4 to 7), to pay off a debt. Once that period was over, they were free to go.
Also, while many Europeans did suffer from abuses of the system, British law protected it's citizens from such manipulations, mostly by requiring the terms of service be set before one left Britain and approved by a magistrate. Other Europeans often negotiated the terms of their service upon arrival in the colonies, which obviously left them at a severe negotiating disadvantage and suffered because of it.
While it's true that indentured servants could suffer physical abuses during their servitude and lacked many rights, that does not make them slaves. After all, during this time, women didn't have many rights either and a man could beat his wife. Did that make a wife a slave? No.
This article takes the worst and most extreme examples and paints them to be the norm. Just because it says so in an internet article, even one based on a published books, doesn't mean it's accurate or doesn't have an agenda.
I have the diaries of my Great,great,great Grandmother who came to this country [from Ireland] as an indentured servant. the horrors and assualts she endured [as well as her sister] would make you all cringe. She had an 11 yr contract bu was lucky to meet a man who fell in love with her and bought her and her sister's contracts and married her after 5 yrs into the contract. She endured beatings, rapes, hard long hours working, and short night sleeps, and lousy food [Probably the blacks ate better then she did]
From what I have read.. in early colonial days indentured servitude was not that uncommon. But please don't compare it to slavery... Many men would indenture themselves to a craftsman for x amount of years in order to learn a trade and make a living.
I believe that I read in Ben Franklins Autobiography that he did just that. He signed a contract with his older brother to teach him the Printing trade.. After a few year, Ben abondoned his apprenticeship but still owed his brother money... Of course he had learned enough about the printing business to start his own printing shop in Philadelphia.. he eventually paid off the debt to his brother..
Why is this important piece of America's history not so well known? I never learned of it in school; it was in fact only recently that I was made aware of this.
Interesting. I went to public school in the 1950's and this same topic was mentioned then in our study of early American history.
In any case, American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan might interest you. It studies colonial Virginia and the roles of indentured servants and chattel slaves, their social interaction while laboring together, changing roles in the economy and society over time, etc. Very interesting work with much on the topic that concerns you.
I did some family genealogy for a cousin, and discovered the rather shocking story of their first ancestor to land in the American colonies. Lacking enough money to pay his passage, this Scots-Irish man had signed an indentureship for its cost with the captain. During the voyage the skimpily provisioned ship ran out of food, and the passengers and crew began to eat the corpses of the dead. However, when they ran out of corpses they chose lots, and the loser was to be killed and eaten. My cousin's ancestor got the short straw, but he was saved by the fact that a distant ship was sighted and hailed, and it provided enough subsistence rations for the boat to reach Boston.
Upon reaching Boston, the captain - despite the horrors of the voyage, without pity auctioned off the young man and he served two years until his term of indentureship expired.
Why is this important piece of America's history not so well known?
It's part and parcel of an agenda, and an integral part of indoctrination (brain-washing). By omitting information, you have nothing to question and the point is to accept what is spoon-fed to you without question.
Some facts that are generally omitted from high school history text books:
1] Indian tribes owned slaves, before Europeans arrived.
2] Before the Civil War there were free Blacks living in the South in their own communities, with Black mayors, Black city council members etc
3] There were free Black plantation owners who had Black slaves.
4] There were White slaves, and I don't mean indentured servants, I mean slaves, although to my knowledge, I'm not aware of any Black plantation owners owning white slaves.
5] Slavery was practiced in both North and sub-Saharan Africa before contact with Europeans. The Blacks who were brought to the Colonies as slaves would have been slaves whether they lived in Africa or the Americas.
The last point is sort of paradoxical. Why pay reparations for slavery to people who were destined to be slaves?
I mean you were either born as a slave living among the Yao or Yoruba or any number of other African tribes, or you were captured and enslaved by those or other tribes, and the point is you would have lived and died as a slave.
Okay, so you get sold to traders who take you to the Americas, and you are still a slave. Does it make a difference as to where you are a slave?
Slavery by non-White races and ethnic groups is down-played or never mentioned. The impression one gets is that only White people enslave others, but that is simply not true.
For example, in high school, you would never discuss the French at Fort Detroit and how slave raids by the various Indian tribes living there was so disruptive that the French called a meeting and forced representatives from the various Indian tribes to attend, in an attempt to put an end to slavery, because it was counter-productive and as it happens, it interfered with the ability of the French to trade with the Indian tribes. Even at university, it is unlikely that you would read and discuss the treaties the French drew up to end slavery among the several Indian tribes, unless you happened to have a professor who wasn't a Liberal.
Another good example of failed historical treatment is serfs. Serfs were slaves, but the impression that you get from history text books is that they were just poor people.
So the overall impression that one gets is that only Whites enslave others.
Is that really the message you want to send?
If you understand that historically, slavery was common to all races and ethnic groups, then you come to the realization that historically, the Strong enslave the Weak.
That's a completely different message, and it is not bound by race or ethnicity, because if you are weak, or poor or disenfranchised, then you are at risk to being enslaved by the Strong or Powerful, and it doesn't matter what your race or ethnicity is.
And that is a more powerful message; one that rings true.
Which then begs the question, why are we not being taught the true message?
Knowing...
Mircea
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