Webster defines an indenture (or indentures) as “a contract binding one person to work for another for a given period of time”. Hutchinson’s encyclopedia explains that “Indentured labour was the means by which many British people emigrated to North America during the colonial era”, and adds that “in the 19th- early 20th centuries it was used to recruit Asian workers for employment elsewhere in European colonial empires.” European indentured labour existed mainly in the 17th century and affected either convicted criminals who were not given a choice or poor young men ready to forfeit their freedom for some years in order to be taken to the “New World” where they hoped to find …
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