[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Indentured Servitude in the 1640s
The United States of America was populated by many new immigrants from England in the 1640s. They arrived in the colonies as indentured servants, serving for a number of years in exchange for the passage and a chance to start a new life. Amongst these immigrants was Jane, a fictitious English woman, who arrived in the Americas in her early twenties, with dreams of building a new life and starting a farm of her own. She escaped the desperate poverty and hopelessness in her native country.
The Virginia Company had devised the system of indentured servitude in order to finance the recruitment of workers from England to the Colony and apart from the English, other nationalities including Scotts, Irish, Welshmen and Germans also availed themselves of the offer. England in the 1600’s had become a difficult society in which to live. Jane was born in the relatively poorer society of England in the 1630s when life had become really difficult for those who were not fortunate enough to have an affluent family background. England had witnessed a near doubling of its population in the period from 1520 to 1630 and there had been a decline in real wages with prices of everything going up and beyond the reach of many poor families.
Jane was most probably born in Bristol or a number of localities nearby, perhaps London or its suburbs, southern and central England, the West Country or perhaps in the northern counties. In her era, there had been a serious decline in the living standards of many in England and there was no social security to assist the unfortunate members of the society. By the early seventeenth century, the third world of the poor had risen dramatically in some regions, particularly in woodlands and forests, manufacturing districts, and the country's burgeoning towns, cities, and ports.......
