The story of Richard Pace illustrates the system whereby the original Jamestown settlers could get free passage to the Colony, and then work off an indenture and eventually own the land they worked. A decade into the life of the struggling colony the Virginia Company had settled on slavery—predominantly white slavery—though only Africans slavery is mention in this account as the preferred type of labor. Indians were given free reign and preferential treatment throughout the colony, as they were its police force and fugitive apprehension force, and worked directly for the governor up until the point they decided to wipe out the colony. They would be replaced by tribes further inland, near the Richmond site, as the governor’s right hand.

After lying to potential settlers about the fate of the marooned Roanoke colony, and losing most settlers to disease and malnutrition, the Virginia Company lost its charter. However, the governor and House of Burgesses expanded the practice of purchasing kidnapped orphans, poor, homeless and criminal chattel, that had been adopted by the mercantile company. Such slaves were rarely referred to at the time as indentures, but simply as servants.

The Indian boy that warned of the Indian Uprising described in this account was a slave, and was so named, even in this sanitized history.