terms of indenture

Examples of terms of indenture in the following topics:

• Indentured Servants

  • Given the high death rate, many servants did not live to the end of their terms.
  • The servants were not paid wages, but were provided food, room, clothing, and training (also called the "terms of indenture").
  • At the end of their term they received a payment known as "freedom dues" and a new suit of clothes; they were then free members of society.
  • To ensure uninterrupted work by the female servants, the law lengthened the term of their indenture if they became pregnant.
  • The law required that the specific terms and conditions of servitude be approved by a magistrate in Great Britain and declared that any indentures not bearing a magistrate's seal were unenforceable in the colonies.

• Toward Free Labor

  • Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging, and other necessities during the term of indenture.
  • At the end of the indenture, the young person was given a new suit of clothes and was free to leave.
  • Many servants did not live to the end of their terms.
  • In modern terms, the shipowner was acting as an contractor, hiring out his laborers.
  • Several factors contributed to the decline of indentured servitude.

• Indenture

  • A bond indenture (also called a trust indenture or deed of trust) is a legal contract issued to lenders.
  • The specifications given within the bond indenture define the responsibilities and commitments of the seller as well as those of the buyer by describing key terms such as the interest rate, maturity date, repayment dates, convertibility, pledge, promises, representations, covenants, and other terms of the bond offering.
  • If the company fails to live up to the terms of the bond indenture, the trustee may bring legal action against the company on behalf of the bondholders.
  • In the United States, public debt offerings in excess of $10 million require the use of an indenture of trust under the Trust Indenture Act of 1939.
  • Bond indenture (also trust indenture or deed of trust) is a legal contract issued to lenders.

• Poverty in the Colonies

  • The poorest inhabitants of the American colonies tended to be subsistence farmers, day laborers, indentured servants, and slaves.
  • To meet the increasing labor demands of the colonies, many farmers, merchants, and planters relied on indentured servants.
  • If they committed a crime or disobeyed their masters, they found their terms of service lengthened, often by several years.
  • Nonetheless, those indentured servants who completed their term of service often began new lives as planters, farmers, or merchants themselves.
  • At the time of the rebellion, indentured servants made up the majority of laborers in the region.

• Advantages of Bonds

  • Bonds have some advantages over stocks, including relatively low volatility, high liquidity, legal protection, and a variety of term structures.
  • It is a debt security under which the issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay them interest (the coupon).
  • In addition, the issuer might have to repay the principal at a later date, which is termed the maturity.
  • Furthermore, bonds come with indentures (an indenture is a formal debt agreement that establishes the terms of a bond issue) and covenants (the clauses of such an agreement).
  • It is a debt security under which the issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay them interest (the coupon).

• Chesapeake Slavery

  • However, by the 1680s, fluctuating tobacco prices and the growing scarcity of land in the region made the Chesapeake less appealing to men and women willing to indenture themselves.
  • The scarcity of indentured servants meant that the price of their labor contracts increased, and Chesapeake farmers began to look for alternative, cheaper sources of bonded labor.
  • Although African chattel slavery was a more expensive investment that white indentured servitude, it guaranteed a lifetime service of free labor.
  • In the late 17th century, indentured servants made up the majority of laborers in the region.
  • Replacing indentured servitude with black slavery diminished these risks, alleviating the reliance on white indentured servants, who were often dissatisfied and troublesome, and creating a caste of racially defined laborers whose movements were strictly controlled.

• An Empire of Commerce

  • Many of these servants died before their indentures ended.
  • In 1676, indentured servants rebelled.
  • After Bacon's Rebellion, plantations began to rely on African slave labor instead of indentured servants.
  • During the same period, tens of thousands of British men and women were imported to the American colonies, especially to Virginia and the Carolinas, as indentured servants or as a punishment for criminals.
  • Even after release from indenture, many of these white people remained in the economic lower classes, though they were not subject to the slave codes.

• The Colonial Elite

  • British Americans’ reliance on indentured servitude and slavery to meet the demand for colonial labor helped give rise to a wealthy colonial class—the gentry—in the Chesapeake tobacco colonies and elsewhere.
  • To be “genteel,” that is, a member of the gentry, meant to be refined, free of all rudeness.
  • Large portions were usually given to men of higher social standing, but every white man—who wasn't indentured or criminally bonded—had enough land to support a family.
  • In terms of the white population of Virginia and Maryland in the mid-18th century, the top five percent were estimated to be planters who possessed growing wealth and increasing political power and social prestige.
  • Of the 650,000 inhabitants of the South in 1750, about 250,000 or 40 percent, were slaves.

• Women and Slavery

  • Children, free women, indentured servants, and black men also endured similar treatment from their masters, or even their masters' children or relatives.
  • Beginning in 1662, Southern colonies adopted into law the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, by which children of slave women took the status of their mothers regardless of the father's identity.
  • The law relieved men of the responsibility of supporting their children and confined the "secret" of miscegenation to the slave quarters.
  • Some female slaves called “fancy maids” were sold at auction into concubinage or prostitution, which was termed the “fancy trade”.
  • A considerable class of free people of color developed in and around New Orleans and Mobile.

• Multiracial Individuals

  • Many mixed race families dated back to colonial Virginia, when white women, generally indentured servants, produced children with men of African descent, both slave and free.
  • Because of the mother's status, those children were born free and often married other free people of color.
  • The children of white fathers and slave mothers were mixed race slaves whose appearance was generally classified as mulatto, a term that initially meant a person with white and black parents, but grew to encompass any apparently mixed race person.
  • Some planters freed both the children and the mothers of their children.
  • Free blacks in the Deep South were often mixed race children of planters and were sometimes the recipients of transfers of property and social capital.