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servants. They willingly sold a portion of their working lives in exchange for free passage across the
Atlantic ocean. Many of the indentured servants were unemployed and held the lower class on the social
ladder from their places of origin.
Life for indentured servants was often a nightmare. If diseases did not kill them, many succumbed to the
brutal work routine that harsh masters imposed upon them. When the remaining servants neared the end of
their contract, masters would find ways to add time to the contracts.
The profitable tobacco crops created an intense demand for land. As more and more colonists settled along
the rivers that flowed in Chesapeake Bay, the local Indian tribes retaliated. The murder of an Indian
captain triggered a fierce Indian assault that dealt a staggering blow to Virgini
...