How indentured servitude shaped colonial societies’ ideas about race and citizenship.
Anna Suranyi is professor of history at Endicott College.
"Indentured Servitude is an important contribution to the social,
legal, and labour history of the British colonies. Suranyi walks
her readers through the many points of the indenture process, the
experience of a variety of servants, masters' treatment of
different groups of servants in the colonies, servants' means of
recourse against abusive masters, and life after servitude, while
also directing them to the important connections between servitude
and the evolving understanding of citizenship." Patrick O'Brien,
Kennesaw State University
“Suranyi’s work provides us with a picture of an era of horrific
cruelty preceding and overlapping with the barbarity of slavery.
She does not fail to impress upon the reader the difference between
servants and the enslaved. Indentured Servitude will be useful to
those teaching the seventeenth century, for in depicting the lives
of people the same age as our students, the history will resonate
and help move them toward empathy with those who suffer
exploitation, then and now.” Agricultural History
“Indentured Servitude encourages readers to grapple with important
yet difficult questions on inequality and unfreedom to help
illuminate changing conceptions of rights, oppression, and
exclusion in a society that would later—and
contradictorily—champion democratic ideals.” William and Mary
Quarterly
“The text will be accessible to a broad range of audiences, as the
individual stories, ranging from poignant to bizarre, breathe life
into and paint a complex picture of the indenture experience.” The
American Historical Review
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