Compare and contrast slaves and indentured servants

William Moraley, servant in Pennsylvania, 1730s, memoir excerpt

Elizabeth Ashbridge, servant in New York, 1730s, memoir excerpt (PDF)

Elizabeth Sprigs, servant in Maryland, letter to her father in England, 1756

John Grimes, servant in middle colonies, statement before being hanged, 1765 (PDF)

As British America grew beyond a coastal slice of small farms and smaller towns (and a few "cities"), more workers were needed than its own population could provide, especially in the southern tobacco and rice fields. Poor English emigrants had filled most of the need in the 1600s, arriving as indentured servants to work under a "master" for a specified amount of time. But after 1680, the mainland colonists depended more on the slave trade. Indeed, if this section were part of an economic history, it would be titled "The Colonies' Labor Supply." (To learn more about the role of servants and slaves in the colonial economy, see Theme III: ECONOMIES).

We will consider servants and slaves together in this section, since both were laborers in bondage. Both would be sold upon arrival to "masters" who controlled them with little to no limits by the law. Most toiled in harsh degrading conditions. Many tried to escape; newspapers ran daily notices of runaway servants and slaves. The critical difference, of course, was that freedom was in the future of the servant, not the slave, a reality explored in Theme II: PEOPLES. (19 pages.)

European indentured servants. Impoverished men and women, many young and unemployed, took their chances on a better life by signing "indenture contracts," committing to work for a specified number of years in return for sea passage plus lodging and provisions in America. (Some also received provisions on being "freed" to help them begin their new lives.) Here we read two memoir excerpts and a letter written by English indentured servants, followed by an Irish servant's statement before being hanged for burglary.

• - William Moraley, having been "reduc'd to Poverty" in England, contracted in 1729 to go to America in "View of bettering my Condition of Life." He worked as a "voluntary slave" in Philadelphia for five years before returning to England and writing his memoir, titled The Infortunate.
• - Elizabeth Ashbridge arrived in New York City in 1732, a "Stranger in a Strange Land." Forced to sign an indenture to pay for her passage, she worked as a house servant in conditions that "would make the most strong heart pity the Misfortunes of a young creature as I was." After three years she bought out the remainder of her contract and supported herself as a seamstress.
• - Elizabeth Sprigs, a houseservant in Maryland, wrote an anguished letter in 1756 to her father in England, describing "what we unfortunate English people suffer here" and begging him to send her "some relief," especially clothes.
• - John Grimes was one of 50,000 convicts shipped to America by the British government to be "sold" as indentured servants (they cost about a third of the price of slaves). 1 He and two other Irish servants were convicted of burglary in 1765 and sentenced to death by hanging. Felons' final statements (often published as pamphlets during this time, partly as morality lessons), lay out their life histories that led them to crime and execution in America, a fate suffered by many convict-servants.

What aspects of indentured servitude do these four people share? How do their experiences differ? Why? Compare them with servants' journeys and experiences in the 1600s, in the toolbox American Beginnings.

• - William Moraley, The Infortunate: or, the Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley. Written by Himself, 1743, excerpt.
• - Elizabeth Ashbridge, Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge . . . Written by Herself, ca. 1746?, publ. 1774, excerpts.
• - Elizabeth Sprigs, Maryland, Letter to her father, John Sprigs, London, England, 22 September 1756.
• - John Grimes, statement before being hanged, in The Last Speech, Confession, Birth, Parentage and Education, of John Grimes, John Fagan, and John Johnson . . . who were executed at Gallows-Hill, in the City of Burlington [New Jersey], on Wednesday the 28th of August, 1765, for Burglary and Felony . . . , 1765, excerpt.

In contrast to the letters and journals of indentured servants, we have few first-person accounts of enslavement before 1800. Here we read from two of the rare accounts, both by elite west Africans who were captured in the 1730s and enslaved in America.

• - Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (named Job ben Solomon in England) was an educated Muslim from west Africa who was captured in 1730, enslaved for two years in Maryland, then freed through the efforts of attorney Thomas Bluett, who compiled and published Job's narrative in 1734. Bluett helped Job ben Solomon return to his homeland in Africa "where we hope he is safely arrived to the great joy of his friends, and the honour of the English nation."
• - Venture Smith (whose father's name was Saungm Furro) earned enough money as a slave in Rhode Island to free himself in the 1760s. After purchasing his wife and children, he bought land in New York and remained there until his death in 1809. Earlier, he narrated his memoir to Elisha Niles who published the Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture in 1798.

How are these narratives similar? different? How would they differ from the narrative of an African who died enslaved, if such existed? See also the texts in the toolbox The Making of African American Identity: Vol. I, 1500-1865, Themes I and II, FREEDOM and ENSLAVEMENT.

• - Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (Job ben Solomon), Some Memories of the Life of Job, the Son of the Solomon High Priest of Boonda in Africa . . . , as written by Thomas Bluett, 1734, excerpt.
• - Venture Smith, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa, But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself, compiled by Elisha Niles, 1798, Ch. II, excerpts.

2 Jon Butler, Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 38.

3 T. H. Breen & Timothy Hall, Colonial America in an Atlantic World: A Story of Creative Interaction (New York: Pearson/Longman, 2004), p. 259.