Indentured Servants In The Sea Runner By Ivan Dog

Based on a true incident in 1853, Ivan Doig’s The Sea Runners tells about the escape of four Swedish indentured servants from a fur trade fort in Russian-America. In order to seek opportunity in the new world, many Europeans signed on to an indenture to the Russian-American company in Sitka, specifically, the fur trade. After two years, four Swedish described in the book servants could no longer take it and decide to escape. After stealing supplies and a native canoe, they set off for the U.S. city of Astoria, 1200 miles south.

The text explains that “Slaves are the Negroes, and their Posterity [children], following the condition of the Mother, according to the Maxim, partus sequitur ventrem.1 They are call’d Slaves, in Respect of the Time of their Servitude, because it is for LifeServants are those which serve only for a few Years, according to the time of their Indenture or the Custom of the Country [colony].”(Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia.). The tone of this text is very blunt and to the point that the reader knows precisely the difference between a slave and a servant and explains how long the terms are for each. Indentured servants were for a few years, and slaves for life.

Development of Slavery 1607-1750 From the time frame of 1607 to 1750, the development of slavery changed in many ways. Slavery, in the British colonies, changed drastically because of economics, social connotations, and geography. Economically, slavery fulfilled the need for different cash crops such as tobacco in the south, and rice in the Carolinas. Before the late 1670’s, indentured servants were relied on to carry out the labor needed to produce cash crops.

The Brirish relied completely on the indentured servitude in the 17th century. So, they hesitated at first to set slavery in the new American colonies. Indentured servants by definition are men and women who signed

Economic factors created an enormous market for African slaves. Slave traders found it very profitable to send slaves to the New World, where slaves were needed to work on the farms. Without laws in place to prevent this trade, slavery became crucial.

Most of history is seen through the eyes of those of privilege, education, and wealth: royalty, nobility, and merchants. There were those of less fortune or lower class that were educated enough to be able to record their experiences and points-of-view, but they were far and few between. Especially in early America, from immigrants, slaves, free blacks, natives, and indentured servants. “In Defense of the Indians” by Bartolome de La Casa, “An Indentured Servant’s Letter Home” by Richard Frethorne, “Ads for Runaway Servants and Slaves”, “The Irish in America” by John Francis Maguire, and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” by Frederick Douglass are by or about the natives, slaves, indentured servants, and immigrants in the early

Indentured servants sign a contract agreeing to work for a certain amount of years to get land, tools, and supplies to start of on their own. Which most of the time did not happen since they were treated so poorly that they either died or never got anything in return. The historical significance was that since there were not enough people in the colonies willing to work, indentured servants worked on the land. Also, the use of Indentured servants made people in the Chesapeake colonies accustomed to the use of free labor which turned to African slavery. This was tremendous significance for history.

I would move to Pennsylvania to become a indentured servant because even though you are being a slave and might not have any say in what you will be doing and what harsh treatment that they may be acting towards you .It will be worth the suffering because it will only be for a couple of years to be put to work until you pay for what you owe of them for bring you into the new world. After you are done paying your dues you get to leave free and you are offered a piece of land to live on and do as you please. I would feel like there would be more opportunities to become a slave than to just being a poor famer that has to live off his crops and build with what he has. In some of the sources it is talking about being a servant it is more convincing

In the novella the Old Man and the Sea an old man named Santiago taught a boy named Manolin how to fish when the boy was very young. In the book, Santiago and Manolin are usually referred to as “the old man,” and “the boy.” In their time together on and off the skiff they formed a father-son relationship, however, Manolin’s parents said the old man was unlucky, so they made him other fishing arrangements. He went to fish with another boat, and caught three fish in the first week.

Often people mistake indentured servants for slavery and though they do have some similarities they are still seen as two different concepts. People believe that indentured servants was a form of slavery and that they were one of the same and that is found to be not true. Indentured servants were given more rights and were seen as a human being (even if they were considered low standard) unlike the slaves in America. Slaves were given no rights at all. Slaves weren’t even considered by society as a human being they were strictly just property and a source of income.

In his letter he described his life as an indentured servant as one where he has nothing to comfort him but sickness and death. The life that he was living in colonial Virginia was one where you couldn’t escape or else you will be captured. Attempting it could of cause him to die, therefore he hoped his parents brought his escape but with his parents being poor there was no way of escaping the life of an indentured servant. Having no escape as an indentured servant, he wrote to his parents a letter asking that his parents bought out the indenture. In his letter, he wrote that he was trapped in a place filled of diseases that can make any body weak and leave you with lack of comfort and rattled with guilt.

Indentured servitude found it place in the New World due to the abolishment of slavery and they were in need of a new source of cheap labor. “ A clause was introduced at a public meeting setting forth in the Society of an ‘importation foreign labor’ … every succeeding year the demand for labor will increase in an almost geometrical ratio” (Doc 1,2) this means that the need for labor will only go up while the amount of work completed will increase exponentially and there will not be enough Indentured servants to complete the tasks that are needed to completed.

It is an obvious truth that in order to have a functioning society, there must be workers. In modern, first world countries, labors are paid well and are reasonably treated. However, some third world nations use an economic model harkening back to older times—slavery and serfdom. Between 1450 and 1750, European countries in the Caribbean and in the Old World utilized two forms of cheap labor—slavery and serfdom—to line their coffers and feed their populace. In the Caribbean, slavery was preferred; but in Russia, serfdom ruled.

Analysis of “The Seafarer” “The Seafarer” by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon scop, focuses on the themes of personal conflict and the desire to be on a journey. Have you ever experienced love and hate at the exact same time? This Anglo-Saxon elegy reveals the pain of isolation, desire, love, and confusion the sea causes the speaker to feel when he faces fate. The Seafarer has developed a love-hate relationship for his passion.

In the 1830s, indentured labourers were introduced into the British colonies to replace the freed slaves on the sugar plantation. The rise of wage labour within this period is often explored within the context of the decline of contracted labour, and the developing abolitionist movement that would slowly dismantle the transatlantic slave trade and transatlantic slavery. This was as a result of the depletion of the Taino race within the Caribbean and the need for cheap labour to carry out the manual labour needs in the sugar plantations. Over two million Asians, Africans, Indians and South Pacific islanders signed long-term labour contracts in return for free passage overseas, modest wages, and other benefits in hope of a better life (Craton 1997 p415). These indentured workers came to the West Indies with their different religious beliefs, culture, intellectual concepts and ways of life.