In "Myne Owne Ground": Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern shore, historians T.H.Breen and Stephen Innes, concentrate on the lives of blacks who achieved freedom. This book describes how against formidable likelihood, they gained property, established plantations, acquired dependant laborers, and lived for several generations as free and independent members of Virginia society. They describe three kind of relationships: patron-client relations; family relations and relations of free blacks with white indentured servants, poor freemen and Indians.
             Patron-client relations were between free blacks and whites. with their master.
             The fundamental division in society at that time was not between blacks and whites but between servants and masters.
             P 59 "The planter expected a good return on his investment. For him, the servant was simply a form of property".
             The men, women and children hired as servants often had their passage to America paid by their future master. Many of these people looked forward to the promise of food, clothing, and shelter in exchange for their labor. Male servants may have looked to the end of their indenture when they would receive land and a monetary reward for their service. Most servants were impoverished and the end of a successful indenture could represent the opportunity for prosperity. In order to achieve these goals, servants had to provide their masters with constant labor for a specified period of time.
             The majority of indenture agreements simply involved service. In exchange for food, clothing, lodging, and the occasional boat fare from England, a servant would agree to work for an established time period. When their indenture came to an end, the servant often received a small parcel of land and food. There were wide discrepancies in the type of payment received for a term of service. "What they did not obtain, however, was land, since the headright went not to t...