Thread: History: The USA's Dirty Little Secret

We all know the story of exploitation by farmers and plantation owners that used Slave labor, but do you know the dirtiest little secret of all?

Around 1620 the Puritans landed and settled in the Boston area. They came here to be separated from the Church of England in an attempt to prove that a strict Christian life style could prevail without all of the corruption and nonsense of the mother church.

It took only about 20 years for their experiment to begin to falter. America was filled with abundant resources and many people wanted to come from England to raise crops and have their own farms. Most were displaced tenant farmers who lost their land due to the wave of sheep raising that required fences and pens to be built and reduced crop land.

Those who volunteered to come here did so because the cost to make the trip and buy land and supplies was too great, but they wanted opportunity so bad that they uprooted their families and sold themselves to take a chance in a new world.

The dirty secret is that the new immigrants to America were indentured servants. Farmers already established here in America would pay ship captains for bringing them servants and they would then force them to sign a contract of indenture. This made the servant the farmers property for 5 years when they would be freed and get their 'freedom gifts'.

The story gets worse from there. Servants and their families could be broken up at sale when they arrived, children could be worked hard and many died due to the new diseases. As the flow of servants slowed the farmers found a new way to get workers.

They were called 'spirits' or 'soul sellers' they would travel Europe and take drunk or unsuspecting peoples and kidnap them and force them onto ships. The ships feed them poor food and many would die on the trip from Europe to America which could take up to a year to complete. One such ship left Holland with 106 servants and arrived at America with only 45, 6 having been cannibalized by others on board.

When these new 'immigrants' arrived they would be looked over by prospective buyers on markets and purchased. Historians say that indentured servants in many cases were worked much harder than the African Slaves whose numbers would swell when the servants stop coming. The reason is because a slave owner owned a slave for life, but only a servant for the tenure of the contract. This made many land owners want to get their monies worth as they forced their contract slaves to work day and night.

Finally the flow of white servants began to dramatically decrease towards the 1700's. Many in Europe were finding new jobs and had little reason to leave, an economic boom in Europe could be in part responsible for the looming mass slavery of Africans.

It is estimated that of all the white servants who came here, gave up their life and liberty to pursue their happiness; that 80% died, returned to Europe or lived in poverty here in America.


Now lets look at who wants the illegals to come here. Corporations and Farmers willing to pay their way here. Restaurant owners willing to let them live in their homes, and many more all because they want servants.

Lets learn from our past. The wealthy do not wish to uplift the hispanic population. They wish to abuse it, twist it and beat it for all the labor its worth. Then move on to the next group of peoples willing to break their backs for half of what an American worker would.

My first immigrant ancestor was a indentured servant.He came here as a young man and was indentured for 7 years in Virginia.He worked hard but was not mistreated and at the end of his servitude was given 50 acres of land and a small amount of cash.

He sold the land and moved to inland Virginia,bought a large track of landworked hard and created a Plantation but he never used slave labor.

He was always grateful for the chance to come to this land and eventually make a good life for himself and later his family.

Two interesting posts.

My point in posting this is that America's labor track record started off bad, and even 300+ years later we still make the same mistakes.

We are supposed to be a progressive, tolerant yet just society. This nonsense of allowing human exlpoitation... no matter the excuse behind it.... needs to stop.

We as Americans need to become cohesive and unite as one, because outside our borders our enemies await our demise (e.g. Osama's latest video)