The Market for Moving People to America, 1610-1775

 

Outline

1. Indentured Servitude as a Contract - Servants sell labor for Transportation

2. Importance: in Colonial Period 75% of free immigrants came as indentures (150,000 whites)

3. Origins in America
   1. Jamestown - (1619) - Young women sent by Virginia Co. for purposes of entering into marriage; (1620) First regular shipment of indentures.

4. Characteristics

   	1680s	1770s
   Average Age (Men)	23	24
   Average Age (Women)	21	23
   % Male	81	91
   % Literate (Male)	41	69
   % Literate (Female)	11	35
   % Males Skilled	35	85
   % Mainland Destination (Males)	47	100
   % Mainland Destination (Females)	58	100

   1. Did these characteristics matter?
   2. How did this market work?

5. Years of Service: Varied with characteristics of servant
   1. For a 20-year-old illiterate male with no recorded occupation bound for Pennsylvania from London over the period 1718-1759: 4 years, 8 months

   2. Differential Value (in months of service) of Various Characteristics

   Under 15 years old	33 months
   15 years old	26 months
   16 years old	16 months
   17 years old	9 months
   18 years old	4 months
   19 years old	2 months
   Female	-2 months
   Literate	-1 months
   Farmer	-4 months
   Metal worker	-4 months
   Textile worker	-4 months
   Bound for Antigua	-5 months
   Other West Indies	-6 months
   Maryland	4 months
   Virginia	2 months

   1. Are these differences the result of demand by masters or supply by servants?

6. Time served stayed relatively constant (mode at 4 years) until 1760s when it began to fall just before the Revolutionary War (mode at 3 years through 1820)
   1. Cost of passage relatively constant 1600s (6-10 Lbs.); late 1700s (8-10 Lbs.) - includes recruitment costs and risk.
      1. average per capita income in England in 17^th and 18^th centuries between 12 and 22 pounds.
      2. Wages for English servants in husbandry - 6-7 lbs.

   2. Wages in England stayed relatively constant.

   3. Labor value rising in colonies
      1. rise in African slave prices in 1760s
      2. movement to reduce slavery, especially in Pennsylvania
      3. some evidence of rising wages in mid-Atlantic region

   4. Implications of looking at indentured system as a market:
      1. High value of labor would encourage indentures to run away; many did.
      2. Shirking Problems
      3. Convicts (typically 7 years)
      4. Co-existence of slave market and indenture market: by latter half of 1700s most indentured servants went to the Northern mainland.