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To: FaultLine who wrote (3704)	12/5/2002 9:02:47 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6901

This is an interesting subject. A few pretty good links on the subject appears below. From these and other past reading I recall most "transported" convicts sold into indentured servitude ended up going to the Chesapeake Bay colonies - Virginia and Maryland, where there was a demand for labor on tobacco plantations. In fact, the vast majority of whites who came to these colonies came as servants. Many of the voluntary indentured servants were people in desparate circumstances- landless poor folks, people running from bad family situations, debts, etc. Some were tricked or duped into servitude. Many indentured servants were sent to British colonies in the Caribbean too and these were the most unlucky ones as the death rate from disease, hard labor, and malnutrition was very high there. Living conditions for servants were poor everywhere but those in the mainland colonies at least had a good chance to survive their term of indenture unlike in the Caribbean. The luckiest of all as I remember were the servants transported to Maryland as they received their headrights (a land warrant) themselves. In Virginia, the headright went to the person who paid for the transportation of the servant. When the Revolution started, the Brits began sending their convicts to Australia instead. Indentured servants are sometimes described as "white slaves". They weren't really slaves as they would receive their freedom someday and weren't slaves in perpetuity. And their children were free not slaves. Course this meant the owner had less incentive to provide care for them - they were a wasting asset. This link says that During the colonial era, some 200,000 to 300,000 servants came to British mainland North America, accounting for one-half to two-thirds of all European immigrants. This isn't the image of colonial settlers that most people have, of course. college.hmco.com A couple other links are below: stratfordhall.org home.clara.net This link discusses the headright system in Virginia which encouraged the importation of servants. A good way to turn a little capital into a fortune in land - buy a few servants, get 50 acres for each,set the servants to clearing the land and raising tobacco, use tobacco revenue to buy more servants, get more land, repeat - keep the choice land, sell some to freed servants. virginiaplaces.org