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Introduction Indentured servitude was a major contract labor system in early colonial America, especially in the Chesapeake, before declining in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as African slavery expanded. Servants worked for a fixed term in exchange for passage, food, shelter, and freedom dues. The system was common in English North American colonies from the early seventeenth century. It was not slavery, but a form of unfree labor that limited autonomy and tied labor to debt repayment and migration costs. Indentured servitude developed because the colonies needed labor, and passage to America was expensive. English promoters saw colonies as a solution to social and economic problems at home. The labor shortage after settlement, especially in Virginia, made indentured labor attractive to planters and colonial companies. In 1717, the British Parliament adopted a policy of transportation which banished convicts to the American colonies, usually for seven years. This policy allowed...