Talk:Indentured servitude in British America

Whaling indentures
I came across this article whiel commenting on an AFD. I suspect that treating whaing indentures as "servitude" is a distortion. The agreement quoted reads to me like an ordinary agreement for crewing a ship, in this case with a share of the profits, not something exploitative. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Whether or not it's distorted, the discussion of the entire whaling adventures and Native Americans business is too long. I agree it should be mentioned, but since it seems to be something specific to one small area (southern New England) it's not worthy of a giant section in an article that's covering all of the Americas purportedly. TheBlinkster (talk) 01:02, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Is this covering the whole "Americas"?
I'm not an expert on this subject. I've seen this article once or twice while editing something else and it looked kind of interesting, so I happened to pick it as part of the lede contest and wrote a lede based on what's contained already in the article.

However, when I read this, I found it kind of weird that the article is called "Indentured servitude in the Americas" and then talks about basically the British colonies/ USA, and the Caribbean, only. The "Americas" to me would also include places like the western part of US (i.e. everything west of the 13 Colonies that was controlled by France and Spain during part of the time spanned by this article), Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America. I assume that maybe Canada is covered by all the discussions of British colonial activities in the 17th century, to the extent labor was needed there (not clear). As for the rest of the "Americas", are we to presume from this article that
 * there was no sort of indentured servitude going on in the Spanish or French colonies in the rest of the "Americas", i.e. "indentured servitude" is really a British concept (and later USA concept)? OR
 * there might have been some indentured servitude type activities going on in the Spanish and French colonies but the author was focused on/ only had sources for British (and later USA) indenture activities, so the Spanish and French stuff would need to be added?

If the former ("indenture" as within the scope of this article was really a creature of Britain primarily) then it should be made more clear somewhere. If the latter, then there definitely needs to be more sections added to this article, perhaps with "needs expansion" tags so people will realize stuff needs to be filled in. TheBlinkster (talk) 01:11, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Good points - my knowledge of American history on these points is not good. Worth circulating this request. Will look later today. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:00, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Chinese immigration under indentures
This article really needs to have a section on the immigration of Chinese laborers to USA under indentures in the 1800s. Cloud and Galenson as well as others have whole papers on this - there are some references at the Credit-ticket system article. It appears that Chinese were originally brought under indentures but this was legislatively abolished so they used the credit-ticket system instead. I would suggest cutting down the overly huge discussion of the "debt peonage system" used in one small area of the USA for a relatively small number of Native Americans and putting in a section on the Chinese, as the Chinese immigration was a huge issue particularly in areas such as California. TheBlinkster (talk) 11:55, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion, especially for the railroads.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 15:57, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

What About Scottish Prisoners?
My mother was into genealogy and she told me the original bearer of my surname came to America as an indentured servant. She said he and thousands of others were captured by the armies of Oliver Cromwell. With no way to care and feed the prisons, the Scottish prisoners were "decimated" meaning one in ten of the healthiest prisoners were gathered and transported to a British prison in London from which he was sold to Boston Iron Works where he was forced to work indentured for seven years. Mark The Droner (talk) 12:25, 30 May 2020 (UTC) Mark The Droner
 * It would unbalance this article to add much about that. However there is certainly scope for a WP article on this.  I have been told that Scots captured at the Battle of Worcester were transported, but I do not have a reliable source for this.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

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Suggested quote for the Caribbean section
To highlight the cruelty of masters of indentured servants in the Caribbean and their reputation, here's a nice quote from a primary source

"The lads are usually indentured for seven years, and when they have served for six they are ill-treated beyond endurance, so that they are driven to beg their master to sell them to someone else. This request is not refused, which means they are sold for another seven years, or for three at least. I have seen men who have been enslaved in this manner for fifteen, twenty, and twenty-eight years. Often these fellows are so simple they will sell themselves for a whole year for the sake of a good meal."

- The Buccaneers of America, author Alexander O. Exquemelin, translated by Alexis Brown, page 66.


 * PDF of the book and translation in question


 * Another website with the book and audio readings


 * Another one


 * Alternate translation

I would put it in, myself, but I'd rather have someone who is more familiar with Wikipedia's citation methods do it, hence why I provided multiple different resources to access the translation, as I don't know which one would be preferred. 38.65.90.83 (talk) 05:36, 19 February 2023 (UTC)