User:Isa.katheryn/Indentured servitude

Indentured servitude
Despite Irish slave myths stating otherwise, indentured servitude of Irish and other European peoples occurred in seventeenth-century Barbados, and was fundamentally different than enslavement: an enslaved African’s body was owned, as were the bodies of their children, while the labour of indentured servants was under contractual ownership of another person. Laws and racial hierarchy would allow for the “indentured” and “slaves” to be treated differently, as well as their identities to be defined differently.

Barbados is an example of a colony in which the separation between enslaved Africans and “servants” was codified into law. Distinct legal “acts” were created in 1661 treating each party as a separate group.

The British ruling class anxieties over Irish loyalties would lead to harsh policing of Irish servants' movements, for instance, needing “reason” to leave the plantations from which they were employed. Similarly, the laws regarding slavery would prevent enslaved Africans from doing the same. While enslaved Africans - and for a period, free Africans - were not allowed to use the court system in any manner, even to act as a witness, Barbados would allow “white servants” to go to court if they felt that they had received poor treatment. Additionally, children of African descent were offered no supplementary protection, while children of English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh extraction who were sent to Barbados as indentured servants could not work without a parent’s consent.

Such differences in social classes would ensure that alliances between the two groups would not lead to revolts towards plantation owners and managers.

As well, during periods of mass indentured servitude of Irish peoples in the Caribbean, certain Irish individuals would use enslaved labour to profit financially and climb the ladder of social class. Historians Kristen Block and Jenny Shaw write that: “Irish - by virtue of their European heritage - gained […] greater social and economic mobility.” An example is a former indentured servant in Barbados, Cornelius Bryan, would go on to own land and enslaved people himself, demonstrating the tiers between servant and slave classes.