Give me a reason to believe an indentured servant was a slave.
Remember people didn’t live as long then as now. Your indenture could be extended for a whole host of infractions against your master\mistress. The legal system was not on your side to protect you from that. I remember reading about a female indentured servant who got her indenture extended (Don’t remember how long!) for spilling the wine.
“Give me a reason to believe an indentured servant was a slave.”
Hmmm, let me see. The Master could beat his servant for ANY reason. The master could sell the indenturement to anyone at any time. The indenture time could be extended for almost any reason, and if the paperwork of the registration of the indenturement was lost or destroyed the indentured person would AUTOMATICALLY become a permanent slave.
Take a look at serfdom sometime. Not much better.
Williamsburg has (or at least had) an exhibit that discussed how the first slaves in North America were the Irish and the Scotts. It was verrry dependent on who you were “indentured” to. They made it sound like most were never freed.
About 10-15 years ago a body was found buried in a basement of a very old house in Annapolis. Young male, signs of horrible physical abuse. They he assumed was a black slave. Testing showed he was from the British Isles, very probably an indentured servant.
It’s a silly comparison. Sure, indentured servitude was often bad. Many servants were abused and exploited. Some were petty criminals, street urchins and unwanteds sent to the colonies rather than spend the King’s money to keep and feed them in jail, while other were just paying off the passage. But it wasn’t slavery. They were not property to be kept in chains and bought or sold. Their children were not slaves by birth. A slave was a slave for life, as were his children and grandchildren. The typical indentured servitude was 4 to 7 years. That is not slavery by any stretch, and for many, indentured servitude was better than the life of an impoverished subject of the crown.
Our ancestors fought an ugly and bloody war over 150 years ago that ended slavery. Slave owners were not our parents, or even our grandparents. There is no reason for people today to feel guilt over slavery, nor to try to minimize it. It is not our burden unless we want to dig up the corpse of slavery and drag it around with us. Obviously some want that.