ervants.=--That at least tens of thousands of immigrants
were unable to pay for their passage is established beyond the shadow of
a doubt by the shipping records that have come down to us. The great
barrier in the way of the poor who wanted to go to America was the cost
of the sea voyage. To overcome this difficulty a plan was worked out
whereby shipowners and other persons of means furnished the passage
money to immigrants in return for their promise, or bond, to work for a
term of years to repay the sum advanced. This system was called
indentured servitude.

It is probable that the number of bond servants exceeded the original
twenty thousand Puritans, the yeomen, the Virginia gentlemen, and the
Huguenots combined. All the way down the coast from Massachusetts to
Georgia were to be found in the fields, kitchens, and workshops, men,
women, and children serving out terms of bondage generally ranging from
five to seven years. In the proprietary colonies the proportion of bond
servants was very high. The Baltimores, Penns, Carterets, and other
promoters anxiously sought for workers of every nationality to till
their fields, for land without labor was worth no more than land in the
moon. Hence the gates of the proprietary colonies were flung wide open.
Every inducement was offered to immigrants in the form of cheap land,
and special efforts were made to increase the population by importing
servants. In Pennsylvania, it was not uncommon to find a master with
fifty bond servants on his estate. It has been estimated that two-thirds
of all the immigrants into Pennsylvania between the opening of the
eighteenth century and the outbreak of the Revolution were in bondage.
In the other Middle colonies the number was doubtless not so large; but
it formed a considerable part of the population.

The story of this traffic in white servants is one of the most striking
things in the history of labor. Bondmen differed from the serfs of the
feudal age in that they were not bound to the soil but to the master.
They likewise differed from the negro slaves in that their servitude had
a time limit. Still they were subject to many special disabilities. It
was, for instance, a common practice to impose on them penalties far
heavier than were imposed upon freemen for the same offense. A free
citizen of Pennsylvania who indulged in horse racing and gambling was
let off with a fine; a white servant guilty of the same unlawful conduct
was whipped a