“Ran away last night, A Servant Man named William Steuphenson, a Scotchman ; he is about Six Feet High, smooth faced, has black Hair, a pleasant Countenance, and is very talkative. Had on when he went away, a light colour’d Duffel Coat, Osnabrigg Shirt, Yarn Stockings, and good Shoes. Whoever delivers the said servant to me, shall have Two Pistoles Reward, and reasonable Charges, paid by”

Here is to hoping that Philemon Young never got his “good Shoes” back.

Nowhere is the word “indenture” used to describe William. The term indenture is not often found in 18th, 17th and 16th century documents, but in 19th Century recollections of white slavery, which attempted to paint the practice as a type of limited apprenticeship. In reality, there were many ways by which the owner of a servant or indentured servant working out a term of from 3-31 years might have his term extended, simply by claiming that he was not working well, by failing to heed his master, by eating food not given, etc. In current Arab states workers from India are similarly held as unpaid slaves under the supervision of an Arab citizen who owns their paperwork and has powers similar to a parent over child in the west. Such systems work well to extract value from imported slave labor.

The term of a servant in Colonial America was similar to the modern prison term in how it was managed, only that person was a servant or slave, wholly owned by an individual who had more latitude in his treatment of his chattel than a modern pet owner has in the treatment of his dog, with the latitude given the farmer in the treatment of his livestock serving as a better analogy.

Also, the common belief that white servants voluntarily sought to bond themselves to a master as an apprentice to learn a trade is wholly false, with indentures signed under duress, bought by plantation owners, when they did exist, and stipulating manual labor—usually in land clearance and tobacco farming—for the most part. The fact remains that most of the Colonial Era people now termed indentured servants were not held under terms of indenture, but were held as chattel, having been sold on the auction block.

The link to the document fragment is here:

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The link to the modern location listings, in Maryland, known as a “cruel” slave state, is here: