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Article: Indentured Servants
- Article from:
- Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
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INDENTURED SERVANTS
The arrival of indentured servants in the American colonies addressed a labor shortage that emerged in the early 1600s because of the success of a system of land distribution that was meant to encourage the establishment of farms. In 1618 the Virginia Company, a joint stock enterprise that wanted to settle and develop of Virginia, adopted a new charter based on the "headright system." Englishmen who could pay their own Atlantic crossing were granted fifty acres of land; each of their sons and servants were also granted an additional 50 acres. Other colonies were developed under the headright system in which the land amounts varied by colony. Soon there were more ...