When the English people came to this country, they brought English ways with them. In England at that time the lands of rich men were cultivated by tenants, who not only paid rent, but owed much respect and service to their "lord," as they called the owner of their lands. If these tenants did not pay their rent faithfully, they could be punished. Many of the people sent to Virginia at first were tenants, who were expected to work on other people's land in a sort of subjection. They were to pay half of all they produced to the landowner, and they were bound to stay on the land for seven years. Tenants were also sent to Maryland, and the Dutch established the same system in New York.

Besides tenants, there were sent to Virginia people of a poorer class, who were called "indentured servants." Those sent at first were poor boys and girls, bound to serve until they were of age. After a while there were sent to Virginia and to New England adult servants, bound to serve for seven or ten years, but afterward they were only required to serve four years to pay their passage. This way of getting laborers became very common, and many thousands were sent over in this temporary bondage. During the time of their bondage they could be bought and sold like slaves. They were often whipped and otherwise cruelly treated when they chanced to fall into the hands of hardhearted masters.

There were people in England at that time called "spirits" and "crimps." By many false stories they persuaded poor men to go to the colonies as servants. Sometimes the crimps entrapped a man aboard ship, where he was detained and carried off to the colonies against his will. This was called "trapanning" a man. Sometimes they kidnapped or "spirited "away children, and sold them into service in the colonies. Sometimes people who wished to inherit an estate sent away the true heir and had him sold in America. One lad, who would have been Lord Annesley, was entrapped on shipboard by his uncle and sold into Pennsylvania. He was twelve years in bondage, after which he returned to England and proved his right to the lordship, though he died before he came into possession of it.

Bond-servants were in some places called "redemptioners." Around 1670, about fifteen hundred of them were sold in Virginia every year. In Pennsylvania, the men who took droves of redemptioners about the country and peddled them to the farmers were called "soul-drivers." Many of the bond-servants, when their time was out, got land and grew rich. But the lot of the poor man was much harder in that time than in our day.

The English laws in old times were very severe against small crimes. A man could be hanged for stealing bread to satisfy his hunger. Many people sentenced to death for small offenses were pardoned on condition of their going to the colonies. In America convicts were sold for seven years. The Americans complained bitterly that such bad people were forced on them.

In 1619, the year that the Great Charter reached Virginia, there came a Dutch ship into James River, which sold nineteen black slaves to the planters. They were the first slaves in America. In that day it was thought right to make slaves of black people because they were thought to be heathens. However, for some time, the number of slaves that came into the colonies was small. White bond-servants did the most of the work in Maryland and Virginia until about the close of the seventeenth century, when the high price of tobacco caused a great many black slaves to be brought. About the same time the introduction of rice into South Carolina created a great demand for slaves.

There were slaves in all the colonies. But in the colonies far to the north there was no crop that would make their labor profitable. Black slaves in New England were mostly kept for house-servants. In New York city and in Philadelphia there were a great many slaves, but not many in the country regions about these cities, where wheat was the chief crop, for wheat did not require much hard labor. The larger number of black slaves were taken to the colonies which raised tobacco, rice, and indigo. After the Revolution, slavery was abolished in the colonies that had few black slaves. But, where almost all the labor was done by slaves, it was much harder to get rid of slavery. This led to the difference between free and slave States, and at last to our civil war.

The slaves at first did not speak English, and they practiced many customs of their African homelands. Some were very strong, and the Europeans colonists were afraid of them. Great harshness was used to subdue them. The black slaves often made bloody insurrections, which were put down with great harshness. One of these was in New York city in 1712. Twenty-four black slaves were put to death on this occasion, some of them in the cruel ways used in that time. In 1740 there was an uprising of slaves in South Carolina, and a battle between them and the European colonists, in which the black slaves were defeated. In 1741, on a bare alarm of intended insurrection, thirty-three slaves were executed in New York, thirteen of them by fire. Like severity was shown in other colonies, for people were more cruel in that day than in later times.