What alternatives to slavery do you think the colonists could have used to solve the labor shortage?

Well, the most obvious alternative would be to simply pay the laborers to work, though this would've crashed our economy. The best alternative, would be to not pay in money, but to pay in returned services, and goods to the laborers (i.e., providing some food, or ale to the laborers, potentially a place to sleep, etc.)

Alternatives to slavery include allowing women to work and using the labor system that we have in place today.  Women made up about half of the colonial population and usually did chores at home and raised the children, but we know that women can work too. This would have been one way to reduce the labor shortage. The colonists could have just done the work themselves or they could have hired people and paid them for their work.

Explanation:

These are possible alternatives to slave labor during the colonial time period. This does not mean that it necessarilty would have been 100% viable, however they are possible ideas.

what are the options?