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Explanation:
Indentured servants were men and women who signed a contract (also known as an indenture or a covenant) by which they agreed to work for a certain number of years in exchange for transportation to Virginia and, once they arrived, food, clothing, and shelter. Adults usually served for four to seven years and children sometimes for much longer, with most working in the colony’s tobacco fields. With a long history in England, indentured servitude became, during most of the seventeenth century, the primary means by which Virginia planters filled their nearly inexhaustible need for labor. At first, the Virginia Company of London paid to transport servants across the Atlantic, but with the institution of the headright system in 1618, the company enticed planters and merchants to incur the cost with the promise of land. As a result, servants flooded into the colony, where they were greeted by deadly diseases and often-harsh conditions that killed a majority of newcomers and left the rest to the mercy of sometimes-cruel masters. The General Assembly passed laws regulating contract terms, as well as the behavior and treatment of servants. Besides benefiting masters with long indentures, these laws limited servant rights while still allowing servants to present any complaints in court. By the end of the seventeenth century, the number of new servants in Virginia had dwindled, and the colony’s labor needs were largely met by enslaved
