Indentured servitude was introduced by the Virginia Company in 1619 and appears to have arisen from a combination of the terms of two other types of labor contract widely used in England at the time: service in husbandry and apprenticeship (Galenson 1981).

When did indentured servitude start in Latin America?

Although the first shipload of about 400 Chinese indentured servants arrived in Trinidad in 1806, their entrance in the Caribbean and Latin America flourished only after African slave emancipation in the second half of the 19th century, except for Cuba, where they labored alongside slaves.

Who was involved indentured servitude?

Indentured servitude was popular in the United States in the 1600s as individuals, mainly European immigrants, worked in exchange for the price of passage to America. Indentured servitude was not slavery as individuals entered contracts of their own free will.