AIH205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Unfree Labour, Atlantic Slave Trade, Indentured Servant
Tahlia Ramsay Week 6 April 16-20
UNFREE LABOUR
Unfree Labour: A collective term for types of work and work relationships in which people are
employed against their will or under the threat of detention, violence, death or destitution. Unfree
labour is an umbrella term for main types of labour. Encompassing slavery, indentured servitude,
convict labour and in some cases apprenticeship labour
Slavery and Chattel Slavery: A slave is the legal property of another person. A Chattel Slave is an
enslaved person who is owned forever, and whose children and further descendants are
automatically enslaved, and they can be bought and sold. Chattel Slavery was widely practised by
European governments throughout their colonies from the sixteenth century onwards.
Indentured Servant: Most commonly refers to people who agreed to work for a set period of time
for a landowner in a colony for free, in exchange for passage to that colony. Common in British
North America. Usually worked for 4-7 years. Around half of the british colonies that came to the
states, came as indentured colonies. While they endured difficult conditions and often harsh
masters, they were not enslaved and they did have some legal protection. Sometimes their contract
included a piece of land, some crop seeds or animals, which they got once they finished their years
of work.
Convict Labour: The second cousin of slavery. Convicts sent to British colonies, including the
Americas and the Australias, as indentured, free labourers from the beginning of British overseas
penal colonies. They worked on public projects, such as road building, and were also assigned to
priate idiiduals as doesti orkers, far laourers ad so o. Ke part of Australias earl
economy. In terms of slavery, the colonies tended to take both men and women, although men were
preferred.
Apprenticeships: Refers to the way formally enslaved people were transitioned to be non-slaves
during the period between 1834 and 1838, after slavery was abolished in England. The slaves would
become apprentices to their previous owners for a period of up to 6 years. Apprenticeships also
refer to the unpaid, indentured labour of, usually white, men or women who were in training for a
profession.
Differences and similarities between various forms of unfree labour in the British Empire
The Atlantic Slave Trade: For every woman, there were two men. It seemed men were more
vulnerable to disease than women. Any child born to an enslaved mother was guaranteed to be
eslaed, ut slae oers usuall eret aeptig of eslaed oe reproduing. They
preferred to buy newly enslaved people from Africa, rather than the costs of raising children.
Eslaed oes eperiees of prega ad otherhood ere rooted i loss ad traua. B
the late 18th century, women made up more than half of agricultural slave labourers in the Americas.
Prealee of eslaed oe i agriultural ork reflets the ifluee of raist eliefs, that o-
hite oe ere essetiall differet to hite oa.
Abolition: After the revolutionary war of 1783, more people became aware of the issue, and a
growing African population in England also propelled the movement. Campaigning led to the 1807
Banning th Slave Trade Act, which abolished the trade among British colonies and made carrying
slaves on ship illegal. Howeer it didt aolish it all together. Illegal trades ere still ade to people
in the British West Indies. But finally, in 1833, the Abolition Act was passed that abolished slavery
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Document Summary
Unfree labour: a collective term for types of work and work relationships in which people are employed against their will or under the threat of detention, violence, death or destitution. Unfree labour is an umbrella term for main types of labour. Encompassing slavery, indentured servitude, convict labour and in some cases apprenticeship labour. Slavery and chattel slavery: a slave is the legal property of another person. A chattel slave is an enslaved person who is owned forever, and whose children and further descendants are automatically enslaved, and they can be bought and sold. European governments throughout their colonies from the sixteenth century onwards. Indentured servant: most commonly refers to people who agreed to work for a set period of time for a landowner in a colony for free, in exchange for passage to that colony. Around half of the british colonies that came to the states, came as indentured colonies.
