BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude

Subject: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 06:44 AM

At Azizi's suggestion I have started a topic on this.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 07:03 AM

"Allen-

You wrote:
"I would respectfully suggest you pick up a book on indentured servitude."

My response is:

If you have one or two titles {or more} of books that you would recommend that I {and anyone else} read on this subject, I would appeciate your posting them.

You also wrote: "There really was no significant difference between a bonded servant and a slave."

My response is:

It seems to me that the one of the most significant differences between systems of bonded servitude and slavery, especially chattel slavery, was that one was time limited, {or, at least, supposed to be time limited [servitude] and one was for perpetuity-not only for the person branded as a slave, but also for their descendants {slavery}.

Furthermore, as I understand it, bonded servants were considered to be human {though a lower 'class' of humans} and in chattel slavery {the form of slavery in the Western world including the USA, South America, and the Caribbean}, slaves were considered to be less than human with no possiblility of evolving {say througn intelligence testing, material accomplishments, or religious conversion} to the 'level' of human}.

****

Allen, while I consider this conversation interesting, I believe that it is a digression from the purpose of this thread which is to provide examples & commentary of secular slave songs that are of {or may be of} African American origin.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I would be interested in you posting in this thread the titles of books that you recommend on this subject.

However, if you feel strongly about engaging in a conversation about the differences-if any- between the institutions of indentured servitude and slavery, may I suggest that you start a thread on the subject.

Perhaps Catters & Guests reading this thread as well as Catters & Guest who may not be interested in the subject of African American secular folk songs will have some comments to make on that subject.


Thank you.


Azizi"

Apologies for the rambling nature of these remarks.
Indentured servitude theoretically was ment to last a few years, but there were plenty of offences (including pregnancy) which could lengthen it.
Criminals were often transported for what in effect was their entire lives. Quite frequently the master would change the contract, leaving the servant with the short end of the stick.
Plenty of people also finished their servitude but had nowhere to go, so things remained much the same.
If you ran you could be picked up and resold, even if you didn't run it sometimes happened.
Kidnapping was a thriving trade in England of the time, children would be stolen and sold to the Colonies.
As to how human or not they were considered, it depends on what period.
The defining point generaly was Christian nad class, not race so much.

Try some of these online to begin with:
http://www.questia.com/library/sociology-and-anthropology/indentured-labor.jsp

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Azizi
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 07:46 AM

The excerpts from my post that Allen quoted above are from this music thread African American secular folk songs

I suggested to Allen that since he had posted a couple of comments on the topic of servitude and slavery in that thread and since I felt that continued discussion on that topic would be a digression from that thread's purpose [which is to provide examples of non-religious songs that are from African American cultures during slavery or shortly thereafter], HE might want to start a new thread on servitude and slavery.

Some folks could read Allen's latest post on the Secular Folk song thread and the first post in this thread to mean that he and I agreed to start this thread. That is not the case.

Though I did suggest that he start this thread if he wanted to,
I wasn't aware that it had been started until I saw it on the front page of thread listings.

While I will read any books recommended on this topic {eventually}, and have visited the website given, I will not commit to posting on this thread again.

In other words, this is not MY thread. I will only post here again if the spirit moves me to do so.

The clicky for the URL that Allen recommended is Servitude

Peace,

Azizi

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 09:43 AM

Alimony

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 10:19 AM

Azizi, there is no such thing at Mudcat as MY THREAD unless you're managing a permathread. Thread drift is inevitable, and you cannot control a thread. Mudcatters particularly don't appreciate efforts to control.   

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 11:57 AM

To those interested in what I meant by my comment that this was not my thread:

If I start a thread, I feel responsible for monitoring that thread and posting responses and comments to that thread.

If I don't start a thread, then I don't feel that level of responsibility.

Allen mentioned my name in his initial post to this thread.

I therefore felt the need to clarify although I suggested to Allen that he could start a thread if he wanted to engage folks in a discussion on this topic, this was not a topic that I feel called upon to discuss.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 12:09 PM

My understanding of the reason slavery of Africans and the descendants of Africans became more widespread than other forms of forced labor, such as indentured servitude, is because it was much harder for Africans to blend into the rest of the population if they tried to escape, and in the case of American Indians, to go hide amongst other American Indians, and for this reason, the practice of enslaving Indians (this did happen for a while) and indentured servitude of people of European ancestry was replaced by the institution of slavery exclusively of Africans and people of African ancestry. They were easier to keep enslaved in the colonies and in the fledgling United States than any other group.

I tend to doubt (although I could be wrong) that if an indentured servant in what is now the United States tried to escape and was captured, he or she would have his or her foot cut off as was often the case with escaped African/African American slaves. And, although I could be wrong about this (but I think I am not), indentured servants weren't subjected to having their spouses and children sold to other locations where they would not be able to see them (or even sold at all).

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 12:32 PM

Azizi, you made a concerted effort to control the thread this one sprang from. If you keep escorting people to the door when you throw a party, pretty soon you'll find that few bother to come at all.

A thread is not a moderated panel discussion, nor is it an individual's blog (podium, pulpit, soapbox, radio program, or newspaper column). This is the internet. I hope you'll learn to use it for what it is, because you have a lot to contribute, but whether you know your subject or not, internet credibility has a lot to do with how you conduct yourself in the environment. In the internet, if one intends to ignore something, one doesn't proclaim it, one just DOES IT.

Your words are civil, but your effort to control is what comes through the words quite clearly. If this is not what you intend, I hope you'll show us something else.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:08 PM

Don't care one way or the other if you don't post here. I wanted to reply and you said please not on the Secular thread so opened this.

I believe runaway servants were brutally punished, and if their family was indentured as well, they could be beaten and sold, especially if got pregnant without permission.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:22 PM

Does "severely punished" mean brutally mutilated in the case of the servants, Allen? And for the African slave, it didn't really matter whether or not they tried to run away, or if they were the best workers and most obedient of slaves. Their families were sold away from them for economic reasons, and the decision to sell spouses and offspring did not need to have any reason other than that.

Also, I don't think there was anything in the experience of indentured servants that could even come close to the horrors the African slaves experienced on board the slave ships, even considering how bad the conditions were on ships for Europeans who were extremely poor. The appallingly high percentage of slaves who didn't survive the crossing is ample testament to that fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:24 PM

My grandmother came from Scotland to Canada in the 1800's as an indentured servant at around the age of 12 or 13. She was expected to work for the family that paid for her passage by ship until the debt was cleared. It was a fairly common practice at that time.

I don't know if she fully cleared her debt prior to becoming pregnant and marrying my grandfather, but her poverty and servitude didn't end with her marriage. It continued unabated for most of her life.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:29 PM

Also, all family of African slaves were, by definition, slaves. There was no "if they were slaves as well". The offspring of slaves were always slaves. Even when the father of the offspring was the white slaveowner himself, as was often the case (witness the many Black descendants of Thomas Jefferson).

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Metchosin
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:35 PM

But....her ocean passage in steerage and lifelong poverty was a darned sight better that experienced by most African Americans of the time.


oops, the grandmother reference was me.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:38 PM

Indentured servants were sold for economic reasons too you know. Yes slavery got worse as the years went by, but it doesn't mean indentured labour was an Arcadia or that non-Africans had it very much better.
Some people never cleared the debt in their life and it passed on to the next of kin, so in effect your descendents could be slaves.
If I'm not mistaken yes indentured servants were beaten and mutilated and abused.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:48 PM

"Furthermore, as I understand it, bonded servants were considered to be human {though a lower 'class' of humans} and in chattel slavery {the form of slavery in the Western world including the USA, South America, and the Caribbean}, slaves were considered to be less than human with no possiblility of evolving {say througn intelligence testing, material accomplishments, or religious conversion} to the 'level' of human}.

To me, that's the key point. And a terrifying one. And one that has been very hard (for me) to get across to other people. Modern people seem to reject the social definition of "human." Jews, Gypsies, blacks, retardeds in Nazi Germany could not be slaughtered without even trumped-up "justifications" until they were legally redefined as sub-human. In ancient Greece, all humans had legal status but this was restricted to Greek adult males. The principle is very widespread but usually applies to the whole tribe/ethnos. That is, the name for almost all African & American tribes ultimately is defined as "people" or "human." Thus, generally, you cannot kill tribe members but you can kill others freely. Etc.

But it is my understanding that the US experience was nearly unique in its barbarity and disfunctionality. Slaves in most other societies (eg, Greek or Hebrew or first American) had most of the same rights as free. They could appeal to society at large on ill-treatment and society would sternly sanction the owner. Eventually they could usually become full citizens. In Jamaica, slaves could own property, even real property, had a day off and could (with difficulty) purchase their own freedom. I don't know about the rest of the Caribbean.

No?"

Nowhere near as bad as how Russian serfs had it.
How slaves were treated really depends on the society, but in practice the niceties of the law did not always work. In Jamaica IIRC things were truly horrid for generations and those reforms didn't take place until the mid 1800s.
Now in the medieval islamic world they had a curious form of slavery which was more like an aprenticeship. Children were kidnapped and sold from Central Asia and the Caucasus, had their names changed, were taught a rudimentary Islam, and spent their lives in learning war. This is the system the Mamelukes rose from ,and interesting enough, were very grateful for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:53 PM

Maybe someone should start a thread about this whole thing of how far people carry some kind of ownership or responsibility for threads they start, or that they become heavily involved in.

It might be an interesting enough thing to discuss - but I think it'd be better if it didn't cut short exploration of the primary topic of this thread.
....................

The essential difference between chattel slavery and indentured servitude is surely the position of children. If an indentured servant has a child, that child is not in any sense the legal property of the person to whom the servant was indentured. I'm sure that if you hunted around (more especially in other parts of the world) you could find cases of indentured servants being given treatment as bad as any slave, and even cases of favoured slaves living in relative luxury - but that's beside the main point.

There have been, and continue to be, a wide variety of systems of slavery and near slavery - but the peculiarly horrible thing about the American was that it operated within a modern system of property ownership and capitalist enterprise, in an society that saw itself as founded in liberty and with a politics that was aggressively "democratic".   

Is there any reason to feel confident that our society could never reinvent the system, or something very close to it, perhaps involving some sophisticated version of debt bondage? More especially if the incidental - and inefficient - cruelties and excesses of chattel slavery could be eliminated?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: Peace
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:57 PM

"Azizi, you made a concerted effort to control the thread this one sprang from. If you keep escorting people to the door when you throw a party, pretty soon you'll find that few bother to come at all."

The above is bologna IMO.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 01:57 PM

BTW, Africans initially were indentured as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 02:03 PM

Very good points, McGrath.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 03:03 PM

Yes, we have had slavery and indentured servitude. Now we have human trafficing. They are all wrong but seem to be different forms of the same thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 03:07 PM

BTW Susan - Its not so wrong to suggest another thread when you want to stick to the subject. Its called thread drift and occurs all the time. Your remarks to Azizi are far more controlling and you come across as an authoritarian with a need to put her down.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 05:23 PM

Some things here may be of interest, at least as far as the 18th Century goes.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 07:27 PM

Wage slavery makes much more economic sense than chattel slavery. It's far easier to just sack people and forget all about them, when you don't need them any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: harpgirl
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 08:25 PM

hey dianavan...she's in "church lady " mode today.... back off, Susan!!!!!!
(sound of cracking whip)......

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: fretless
Date: 06 Jun 05 - 01:06 PM

Ronald Takaki, in his book A Different Mirror, suggested that one of the reasons for the shift that takes place during the later 17th century in the North American colonies from predominant reliance on indentured servants to chattel slavery was that the indentures were Euro-whites, and therefore could "threaten" the ruling elites with assimilation, while the chattel slaves were Afro-black, which thereby provided a physical demonstration of their separation from the gentry. I don't know if this is, in fact the reason; but the shift during the 1600s from indentures to chattels is certainly clear. As to the treatment of enslaved workers, there were significant differences in the way they were treated depending on the region of colonial North America they occupied and the tasks to which they were assigned. This doesn't mean that anyone in his or her right mind would chose to be a chattel slave, but it is the case that an enslaved worker in Dutch Nieuw Amsterdam or on a small farm in British Colonial New England would have had a very different experience from a tobacco plantation worker in the Virginia Tidewater, a rice plantation worker in the Carolina Low Country, or, in the later US Federal era, a cotton plantation worker in Mississippi or Alabama. There was, in other words, no single, generalized U.S. experience of slavery that can be contrasted, for example, with a generalized experience of slaves in other parts of the New World; not that many authors haven't tried to do exactly this. There's been lots written about all this. A good synthesis is Ira Berlin's award-winning Many Thousands Gone, which traces the history of slavery in the US through its various centuries and regions.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: Charmion
Date: 06 Jun 05 - 03:02 PM

In this context, it is worth considering also how assets are valued in a developing society. In the early settlement period, Adam Smith's famous trio -- land, labour and capital -- were far from equal, as only labour had immediate liquidity -- land could be had for free and required labour to become productive, and there was little to buy with any capital (i.e., money) one might have.

A service indenture made labour liquid, for the servant could sell it to the master (for food, housing, education, trade training, ship-passage, etc), and the master could sell the servant's indenture to another master or even back to the servant. At no time did the servant's person become saleable, only his or her indenture, or labour contract. The 17th-century workweek was 24/7 (with time off for church in devout households), so this was mostly legal theory until the end of the contract, when the servant's labour once again reverted to the servant.

As land and capital acquired liquidity, the trade in labour gradually moved away from human beings, who have rights that reduce the liquidity of their labour and, thus, its usefulness as an asset. The fact that even a bondservant had rights can be established by what I call the "Donner Party test": In desperate straits, could you get away with killing and eating your bondservant? Incidentally, the Donner Party test establishes that, in the United States, even black slaves were understood at some level to be human, or at least not un-human -- unless, of course, there are cases of white-on-black cannibalism that have escaped my persistent curiosity!

The crucial difference between indentured servitude and chattel slavery is that in the latter situation the asset is the bondsman's body, not just his labour.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: LilyFestre
Date: 06 Jun 05 - 03:07 PM

Takaki's A Different Mirror takes a VERY interesting look at history and explores many different groups of people and their "welcome" into the United States. It certainly provides information that is not taught in the public schools. Glad that you mentioned the book, Fretless!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Jun 05 - 03:18 PM

I long wondered why it is that there is no more outcry than there is about slavery today. Don't we care anymore?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:06 AM

Well, Allen, if you have indeed, as you assert, read all of Douglass' works, and Litwack's "Been in the Storm So Long" & etc [by the by, you appear to have read the only one of Foner's several dozen works that has nothing to do with the issues under discussion] and can STILL maintain the points you do in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary that these authors present and document, I can make but two suggestions:

1. RE-read the volumes, this time for comprehension & retention,

or

2. Take up Holocaust denial as a cause- you seem uniquely intellectually and tempermentally suited to it.

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 08:14 AM

Greg, it's quite obvious what the f stands for. Why don't you come back when you can act like a human being.
Anyway, most of the books in question don't have much to do with it either.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,~GiSSELE~
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 05:21 PM

Well i think(in my own opinion)that well if u know more about Slavery then I.S. then u should read about it more then slavery so you can learn more and tell a difference about them.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: GUEST,Lisa Null
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 11:36 AM

This is a really interesting thread to me. When I stopped performing in the early 1980s and went back to college as a folkie, I kept wanting to know more about impressment as so many of the songs I sang had to do with the loss of liberty for men plucked up to serve in ships at His or Her Majesty's pleasure. While not slavery, this was certainly a temporarily or prolonged loss of freedom often accompanied by cruel treatment.

I later went on into grad school with an avowed and declared mission of demonstrating to academics that "ordinary people were capable of abstract thought." Luckily there were enough masochists in academia for them to take me on, and I worked with some magnificent scholars of slavery and freedom -- looking at these states as part of a continuum with apprenticeship, indentured servitude, impressment, marriage for women (!), and childhood falling somewhere along that continuum, though all these institutions changed over time, not always for the better (imprressment, slavery).

Ultimately, I wanted to show that rather than the concept of freedom being a matter of abstraction for philosophers or self-interested elites (tobacco-merchants, capitalists) around the time of the American Revolution -- it was a deeply held construct and value about which poor people, slaves, sailors, apprentices, servants, women had done a lot of serious thinking and that one way of digging into this thought would be through the folksongs.

Folksongs are slippery historical evidence. Even when one can trace a song to its first broadisde appearance, it is still difficult to figure out the circumstances of its composition, who sung it etc. Still, they do provide incredible insights into the heart of a people.....

Can't say I ever wrote my dissertation -- maybe I stayed too busy singing and opted for a different sort of life, though I taught happily at Georgetown for several years.

The questions still hang out there though about Slavery and indentured servitude snd other forms of unfree labor.

And, yes, race and its automatically identifiable characteristics were essential to the chattel slavery that developed in seeming perpetuity on American soil. My favorite books on the subject are:

Edmund Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom which looks at how black slaves and white servants were treated (in Virginia) quite similarly until the need for a permanent caste of laborers made race a useful tool for social control.

David Brion Davis Slavery and Human Progress The intertwined nature of our idea of progress with the realities of slavery        .

Also there are two books by a writer/historian I love that show the connections between maritime life and slavery:

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic         
        
Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker
The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic

And a brand new book I have yet to read:

Marcus Rediker: The Slave Ship: A Human History

Rediker has also written terrific stuff on pirates.

As for impressment, there are two recent scholarly works:        

Daniel James Ennis Enter the Press-Gang: Naval Impressment in Eighteenth-Century British Literature         

Nicholas Rogers: Press Gang: Naval Impressment and Its Opponents in Georgian Britain

And the ultimate book at defining slavery in all its different forms

Orlando Patterson Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study         

For someone who knew all too well how slavery and oppressions were connected to the struggle for freedom ( a great read)        try:

C.L.R. James The Black Jacobins (Penguin History)

---

Guess I should put my name behind so many opinions. 'Twas I that posted the long message and bibliography about slavery. impressment, pirates. etc. just now.

Lisa

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 11:49 AM

In response to some of the older posts--

Is there really any point in trying to define who had it worse, or who has it better, or which system was more or less immoral?

Isn't it more useful to agree that what is bad is bad, that what is good is good, and that what is bad needs to be moved toward what is good as fast as practicably possible?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 01:51 PM

Not too much point in league tables of historical atrocities, but I think it's important to be aware of the different forms that servitude can take,in the way that Lisa's post there reminded us.

There is a real danger of falling into the way of thinking that, just because one particularly unpleasant variety of servitude is gone, that means slavery is all ancient history. It isn't - human beings are quite capable of dreaming up some new version. (After all, look what happened in the States in the century following Abolition.)

And it is very clear that many aspects of the globalised economy is built on various forms of servitude which in many cases amount to a more economically efficient version of slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 02:38 PM

Why does this thread show up as having 113 posts when it hasn't?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 02:44 PM

Mmmmm, UK employers generally operate a certain kind of slavery!!

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 03:05 PM

I think it's important to be aware of the different forms that servitude can take, in the way that Lisa's post there reminded us.
Of course, I agree.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 07:25 PM

For example, on BBC TV tonight: "An investigation for tonight's Newsnight on BBC Two has found that the government of Uzbekistan uses schoolchildren to pick cotton â€" and that cotton often finds its way into clothes sold in British stores such as Asda, Matalan and Burton."

See here for press release on this; and here for video preview

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery and Indentured Servitude
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Oct 07 - 08:02 AM

That last link I gave now takes you to the whole 18 minute Newsnight feature, for the being anyway (these vids are time limited). It's well worth having a look at it.