English colonization and the rise of indentured servitude in Virginia

American History

Northwest Passage- 1492-1600 when Europeans encountered the new world

After the Portuguese and Spanish took control of the South's sea pathways, the English and French began seeking a northwestern route to Asia. However, by the 17th century, they lost hope of ever making their way across North America's northern part after many generations of sailors failed to find a way. Nevertheless, early 15th and 16th century explorations and colonization increased knowledge regarding the world by a significant amount. Cornelius Wytfliet, the cartographer from Flanders created a world map that continued to depict the mythical "Straits of Anian" -- a province in China connecting the Atlantic and the legendary Northwest Passage, which finds mention in the edition of traveler, Marco Polo's work dated 1559. European powers' endeavors to make their homes in the Americas succeeded, ultimately, in the 17th century, when the English and the French successfully contested the Spanish claim to total domination over the whole continent. Towards the end of the 16th century, European political changes, largely significant substitutions in leaders/rulers, ultimately afforded the English and the French the chance for planning settlements in America. The French-English rivalry started on the fresh stage of North America. The era from 1492 to 1600 marked the Atlantic's Opening, but the subsequent period would witness something greater -- North America's Opening (Concepcion Saenz-Cambra, 2012).

3. Indentured servants -- the[[:blank:]]southern colonies in the seventeenth century 1601-1700

By the year 1620, indentured servitude surfaced in the colony of Virginia. Originally, a means for transporting workers from Europe to the Americas, this form of servitude declined over time, with the growth of the black slavery trend in English colonies. The Virginia Company's indentured servitude that was established in just over ten years after Jamestown, was first inhabited by colonists represented an institutional reaction to capital market deficiencies. Targeted at individuals who had no access to capital suppliers, indenture helped prospective immigrants borrow against future revenues in the New World, and pay for costly passage to the continent. Following a succession of initial failures, the Company resolved the serious issue of enforcing initial capital sum repayment through lump sum trading of the contract of the servant to a planter, outright, thus making the immigrant's planter-master a source of loan, as well. Through political action, indentured labor was eliminated; however, with the 1830s' slavery abolition, the West Indian region began using indentured Asians. Through a number of governmental policies that grew in intensity beginning from the latter part of the 19th century, the English government ultimately forbade further migration of Indians towards servitude for repaying debts, in the year 1917 (David W. Galenson, 1984).