The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Living Edition
| Editors: Palgrave Macmillan

Indentured Servitude

  • Farley Grubb
Living reference work entry
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_2600-1
How to cite

Abstract

Indentured servants were workers – mostly unmarried young adult males – who voluntarily entered alienable forward-labour contracts typically lasting between three and five years in exchange for passage to an overseas destination.

Keywords

Auctions Colonialism Incomplete contracts Indentured servitude International migration Labour contracts Redemption Slavery 

JEL Classifications

N30 N31 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Bibliography

  1. Emmer, P., ed. 1986. Colonialism and migration; indentured labour before and after slavery. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
  2. Galenson, D. 1981. White servitude in colonial America. New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  3. Grubb, F. 1985. The market for indentured immigrants: Evidence on the efficiency of forwardcontracting in Philadelphia, 1745–1773. Journal of Economic History 45: 855–868.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Grubb, F. 1994. The end of European immigrant servitude in the United States: An economic analysis of market collapse, 1772–1835. Journal of Economic History 54: 794–824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Grubb, F. 2000. The statutory regulation of colonial servitude: An incomplete-contract approach. Explorations in Economic History 37: 42–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Grubb, F., and T. Stitt. 1994. The Liverpool emigrant servant trade and the transition to slave labor in the Chesapeake, 1697–1707: Market adjustments to war. Explorations in Economic History 31: 376–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Northrup, D. 1995. Indentured labor in the age of imperialism, 1834–1922. New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  • Farley Grubb
    • 1
  1. 1.