Editing Indentured servitude (section)

===Caribbean===
{{Seealso|Redleg}}
[[File:West Indian Slaves Stick Fight.jpg|right|thumb|Slaves having a stick fight. A white indentured servant is standing on the left.]]
In 1643, the European population of Barbados was 37,200<ref>{{Cite book|title=Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas: In honor of John V. Singler|first=Cecilia|last=Cutler|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company|date=12 July 2017|isbn=978-90-272-5277-7|page=178}}</ref> (86% of the population).<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/barbados_03.shtml Population], ''Slavery and Economy in Barbados'', BBC.</ref> During the [[Wars of the Three Kingdoms]], at least 10,000 Scottish and Irish prisoners of war were [[Penal transportation|transported]] as indentured laborers to the colonies.{{sfn|Higman|1997|p=108}}

A half million Europeans went as indentured servants to the Caribbean (primarily the English-speaking islands of the Caribbean) before 1840.<ref>Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor, Jeffrey G. Williamson, eds. ''Globalization in historical perspective'' (2005) p. 72</ref><ref>Gordon K. Lewis and Anthony P. Maingot, ''Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The Historical Evolution of Caribbean Society in Its Ideological Aspects, 1492–1900'' (2004) pp 96–97</ref>

In 1838, with the abolition of slavery at its onset, the British were in the process of transporting a million Indians out of India and into the Caribbean to take the place of the recently freed Africans (freed in 1833) in indentureship. Women, looking for what they believed would be a better life in the colonies, were specifically sought after and recruited at a much higher rate than men due to the high population of men already in the colonies.{{Citation needed|date=April 2022}} However, women had to prove their status as single and eligible to emigrate, as married women could not leave without their husbands. Many women seeking escape from abusive relationships were willing to take that chance. The Indian Immigration Act of 1883<ref>{{cite web|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43470807 |title=12 Feb 1883 – THE INDIAN IMMIGRATION ACT. – Trove |newspaper=South Australian Register |publisher=Trove.nla.gov.au |date= 12 February 1883|access-date=2022-03-18}}</ref> prevented women from exiting India as widowed or single in order to escape.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture|last=Bahadur|first=Gaiutra|publisher=Chicago Press|year=2014|isbn=978-0-226-21138-1|location=United States|page=22}}</ref>  Arrival in the colonies brought unexpected conditions of poverty, homelessness, and little to no food as the high numbers of emigrants overwhelmed the small villages and flooded the labor market. Many were forced into signing labor contracts that exposed them to the hard field labor on the plantation. Additionally, on arrival to the plantation, single women were 'assigned' a man as they were not allowed to live alone.  The subtle difference between slavery and indenture-ship is best seen here as women were still subjected to the control of the plantation owners as well as their newly assigned 'partner'.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture|last=Bahadur|first=Gaiutra|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2014|isbn=978-0-226-21138-1|location=United States|page=123}}</ref>

Indentured servitude of Irish and other European peoples occurred in seventeenth-century Barbados, and was fundamentally different from enslavement: an enslaved African's body was owned, as were the bodies of their children, while the labour of indentured servants was under contractual ownership of another person.{{sfn|Handler|Reilly|2017|p=39}}<ref name=":2">{{cite journal |last1=Hogan |first1=Liam |last2=McAtackney |first2=Laura |last3=Reilly |first3=Matthew |title=The Irish in the Anglo-Caribbean: Servants or Slaves? |journal=History Ireland |date=March 2016 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=18–22 |doi=10.17613/M61Z41S48 }}</ref> Laws and racial hierarchy would allow for the "indentured" and "slaves" to be treated differently, as well as their identities to be defined differently.{{sfn|Shaw|2013|p=15}}<ref name=":2" /> &nbsp;

Barbados is an example of a colony in which the separation between enslaved Africans and "servants" was codified into law.{{sfn|Shaw|2013|p=15}} Distinct legal "acts" were created in 1661 treating each party as a separate group.{{sfn|Shaw|2013|p=15}}

The British ruling class anxieties over Irish loyalties would lead to harsh policing of Irish servants' movements, for instance, needing "reason" to leave the plantations from which they were employed.{{sfn|Shaw|2013|p=39}} Similarly, the laws regarding slavery would prevent enslaved Africans from doing the same.{{sfn|Shaw|2013|p=39}}<ref>"Barbados Side-by-Side Transcription - Slavery Law & Power in Early America and the British Empire". 2022-02-08.</ref> While enslaved Africans - and for a period, free Africans - were not allowed to use the court system in any manner, even to act as a witness, Barbados would allow "white servants" to go to court if they felt that they had received poor treatment.{{sfn|Handler|Reilly|2017|p=40}} Additionally, children of African descent were offered no supplementary protection, while children of English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh extraction who were sent to Barbados as indentured servants could not work without a parent's consent.{{sfn|Handler|Reilly|2017|p=42}}

Such differences in social classes would ensure that alliances between the two groups would not lead to revolts towards plantation owners and managers.{{sfn|Shaw|2013|p=22}}

As well, during periods of mass indentured servitude of Irish peoples in the Caribbean, certain Irish individuals would use enslaved labour to profit financially and climb the ladder of social class.{{sfn|Block|Shaw|2011|p=60}}{{sfn|Shaw|2013|p=157}} Historians Kristen Block and Jenny Shaw write that: "the Irish — by virtue of their European heritage — gained […] greater social and economic mobility."{{sfn|Block|Shaw|2011|p=60}} An example is a former indentured servant in Barbados, Cornelius Bryan, would go on to own land and enslaved people himself, demonstrating the tiers between servant and slave classes.{{sfn|Shaw|2013|pp=1–2}}