Indentured Servants in the Chesapeake Colonies Essay Example for Free

Indentured Servants in the Chesapeake Colonies EssayThe life of the bandaged servant was at best hazardous and full of pitfalls. There was non one sole calculate that would determine the life success or failure of this class of people, but a instead it was resolved be a series of random qualities and assures. For example, as we will see with John Harrower, hands who were dig outious and educated had a much better chance of surviving being indentured than a human beings who was weak in health or had no formal education. As we will see with Elizabeth Sprigs, women were toughened with little or no respect, and they were generally subjugated to a hard and grueling service. Status, education, gender, and health were anchor factors in how lucrative the life of the indentured servant would be, but these would only come in to exercise if you made it across the sea in a grueling s so far to eight week journey. pop offlihood as an indentured servant was hard, but so was life in a poverty taken with(p) Europe. Europeans from all over the continent were starving and looking for food.Family men were looking for ways to provide for their family and to escape valve an oppressive government that provided little in the answers for the common man and woman. The prospect of being indentured was sell to the people as a utopia to remove themselves from their present misery and hardships. Indentured servant hood had despotic attributes for twain the government and the common man. For the government, an overstressed system was seeing relief as thousands of people sold themselves into labor in the new colonies.For the people, the promise of a new and better life was presented to them in exchange for a couple of years of service. However, was this labor arraignment truly beneficial to the poor emigrants who indentured themselves to the ship captains for passage to the States? The question is an important one, but it is one that doesnt need to be asked if the pers on never rattling makes it to America. Gollich Mitttelberger noned in a letter to his father the deplorable conditions that accompanied his trip to America.Mittelberger states, But even with the best wind the voyage lasts 7 weeks. On board there is terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea barfness, fever, dysentery, headaches, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like which comes from the spoiled food and foul water that they are forced to consume (Document 6, page 18). Mittelberger went on to say that he missed his poverty stricken home and wished to return. He talked about how the ships were so overcrowded, that live squirtren were thrown overboard when their mother would die.He recanted once that, One day a women who was about to kick down birth and could not give birth under the circumstances, was pushed through a port hole in the ship and was dropped to the sea, because she was far in the rear of the ship and could no t be brought forward (Document 6, page 19). The letter was ended by telling his father that the horrors of the trip did not end once they arrived in America. Those who could not pay for their passage were held to be sold. They were not allowed off the ship until they had been purchased and could be escorted by the purchaser.Mittelberger noted that the sick suffered the most because they were chosen last, after the healthy ones had been purchased. Once an indentured servant arrived and had been purchased, there life rarely improved. In a letter from Elizabeth Sprigs to her father, she begs for him to forgive her and to send her clothes. She explains that her life is hard and that she is worked hard day and night. When they complain, they are whipped. She tells her father that their diet in is restricted to Indian corn and salt.Elizabeth begs her father, We are almost naked, neither position nor a stocking to wear, and what rest we get is a blanket and some ground to lie upon (Docu ment 5, page 17). She goes on to plead for forgiveness from her father, and for him to send her some relief. This is in contrast to the story of John Harrower. John Harrower is both educated and seems to have a variety of connections. John uses his education to acquire work as a school outstrip for a private family. His journal entries are of a more common experience of looking for work. Harrower came in search of becoming a loudness keeper.His journal follows him until he is offered the position as a school master, and he is encouraged to accept it because it is with a private family. His experience is very diametrical and could go a long way in supporting the outrageous claims of George Alsop. George Alsop, in a book published in the Americas regaled would be indentured servants with tales of how wonderful their experience would be. He stated, Now those that commit themselves to the business organisation of the Merchant to carry them over, they need not trouble themselves wit h any inquisitive search touching their voyage for there is such honest care and provision made (Document 6, page 6).This is a drastic diametrical statement than Mittelberger made about the horrible conditions caused by overcrowding and the consumption of rotten food and foul water. Alsop goes on to say, The women that go over into this Province as Servants, have the best luck here as in any place of the world for they are no sooner on shore, but they are courted into a Copulative Matrimony, for some of them (Document 6, page 7). This again contrasts greatly with Mittelberger who wrote about the women who were being thrown overboard because they were having complications with child birth.This also contrasts with Elizabeth Sprigs who wrote about being whipped for complaining, and given nothing to eat but Indian corn and salt. Alsop was manifestly using false claims to help ensure that the cheap labor would flow steadily into the American Colonies. In July of 1640, there is an acco unt of some indentured servants that are caught trying plot their escape. The courts decided that this was dangerous grounds, the men were whipped severely, and had the letter R burned into the side of their face.They suffered other abuses before being given back to the master (Document 8, page 23). The life of the indentured servant was hard, and did little good to better the life the people involved. The conditions in which many were forced to work in were sub-human, and they were generally treated no better than animals. While there were no doubt a select few that profited from this, on the average this labor arrangement did not benefit the poor emigrants who came over from Europe looking for a better life.