[wqaatwt]

> it was a good deal for everyone involved

It wasn’t, though. There were no immigration limits and those immigrants could come to the Americas freely. They just couldn’t afford the trip due to the extreme poverty in England.

In the 1740s one way trip to America cost around £8. An entirely unskilled laborer could hope to make at least £10-15 per year in England and about double that in Massachusetts.

The standard contract for indentured servitude was 4-6 years. That is an extremely bad and exploitative deal. About 40% APR especially considering that the maximum legally allowed interest rate on loans was 5% (which might have been a part of the problem; if 20% loans were legal maybe someone would have offered them to immigrants).

However unfortunately with no disposable income and no credit facilities you didn’t really have a choice so in that sense working for food and board for 5 years and possibly getting some land afterwards (though it became somewhat uncommon by the 1700s unless you wanted to move to the frontier) might not have been such a bad deal.

[e40]

You left of the most important part of the quote: wink wink. Your entire comment is just based on the opposite meaning of the gp.