This is an indentured service contract signed between Edward Sullivan and John Wade and written by William & Hardwicke on October 10, 1646. Indentured servant contracts were documents that allowed someone to come over from Europe (and later other parts of the world) to this country in exchange for work - a wealthy person would pay for the person’s passage to get here and the person who sailed here would work off the passage fee by providing labor for anywhere from five to seven years, typically seven years, and it was a stiff bargain. The person paying passage would usually provide food, clothes, shelter, but there was a lot of uncertainty facing the person who came here.

Indentured servants were usually white Europeans of modest means who for various reasons wanted to go to the British colonies, but could not pay the cost of passage. The indenture was the contract they signed and obligated them to a certain length of service.

Indentured servants did not get paid, and they were not allowed to marry until their time of service was up, and the food and clothing they received was often the bare minimum needed to survive.

The idea of indentured servitude started around 1619, in the decade that followed the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607. Wealthy people owned lots of land, but had no one to care for it, so they came up with the idea of indentured servitude - I’ll pay for you if you work for me - but it wasn’t always an even exchange or bargain. Most of the first indentured servants were of English origin, but they were often treated harshly. They could be whipped if they misbehaved or had harsh masters, andmany of the indentured servants died before their term of service was completed. If servants ran away and were caught, they had their term of service extended, which didn’t offer them much hope.

Even Benjamin Franklin was an indentured servant - he contracted to work for his brother at his brother’s print shop - but that was a family circumstance and not quite the same relationship a typical indentured servant enjoyed.

The practice ended in England after Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the Indian freedom movement, saw first hand the plight of Asian indentured laborers in South Africa and campaigned against this during the first part of the twentieth century. The system of indentured labour was officially abolished by the British government in 1917.

This document was written on vellum and, unfolded, measures 19 x 26 in. wide, it hasthe original candle wax seal attached to the document by a cord made of vellum, andit is absolutely a fabulous document for someone who appreciates the beginnings of slavery in this country. Not so fortunate for the person signing his or her life away, but a fabulous document of history and how poor people lived and survived in the 1600’s here and abroad.