Men and women with little active interest in a new
life in America were often induced to make the move to the New World
by the skillful persuasion of promoters. William Penn, for example,
publicized the opportunities awaiting newcomers to the Pennsylvania
colony. Judges and prison authorities offered convicts a chance
to migrate to colonies like Georgia instead of serving prison sentences.
But few colonists could finance the cost of passage
for themselves and their families to make a start in the new land.
In some cases, ships' captains received large rewards from the sale
of service contracts for poor migrants, called indentured servants,
and every method from extravagant promises to actual kidnapping
was used to take on as many passengers as their vessels could hold.
In other cases, the expenses of transportation and
maintenance were paid by colonizing agencies like the Virginia or
Massachusetts Bay Companies. In return, indentured servants agreed
to work for the agencies as contract laborers, usually for four
to seven years. Free at the end of this term, they would be given
"freedom dues," sometimes including a small tract of land.
It has been estimated that half the settlers living
in the colonies south of New England came to America under this
system. Although most of them fulfilled their obligations faithfully,
some ran away from their employers. Nevertheless, many of them were
eventually able to secure land and set up homesteads, either in
the colonies in which they had originally settled or in neighboring
ones. No social stigma was attached to a family that had its beginning
in America under this semi-bondage. Every colony had its share of
leaders who were former indentured servants.
There was one very important exception to this pattern:
African slaves. The first blacks were brought to Virginia in 1619,
just 12 years after the founding of Jamestown. Initially, many were
regarded as indentured servants who could earn their freedom. By
the 1660s, however, as the demand for plantation labor in the Southern
colonies grew, the institution of slavery began to harden around
them, and Africans were brought to America in shackles for a lifetime
of involuntary servitude.