The Development of Labor in the Colonial Era

A brief look at the development of a labor force in the colonial era.

Colonial settlements needed labor - and preferred free labor.

Three groups: 

First Group: American Indians.

Not successful.
- Tribes decentralized
- Societies more egalitarian
- difficult to contain

Second Group: European Indentured Servants.
- initially successful
- aligned with African Indentured Servants
- efforts made to drive wedges between the two 
- allowed to advance up social ladder
- penal labor?

Third Group: African Slavery.
- easier to control
- slave codes became more detailed and restrictive over time
- chattel slavery / labor involved in maintaining slave labor
- labor and penal codes set up to retain labor after the end of chattel slavery

Other sources: 

- The Emergence of American Labor.