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by billswift
6165 days ago
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I remember reading something (it was decades ago and I can't remember the source) that said indentured servants, especially short-term indentured, were treated worse than slaves. The slaves were an investment, as were their offspring, where indentured servants' children were free and short-term indentured (the more common kind) had to be freed at the end of their term, so their masters tended to use them up since they would shortly become valueless to the masters. That was also why Irish immigrants (free men) were used to build the railroads, the work was too dangerous for slaves, since they were a substantial investment of their owners. (The last part about the railroads is common in many libertarian books and I think, but am not sure, that it was in Fogel and Engerman's "Time on the Cross", an economic history of slavery. |
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