The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap labor. Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years.The indentures document the Overseers' efforts to place children who, because of the conditions in their home, were living in the Almshouse. Massachusetts justified and legalized the enslavement of Africans, Native Americans, and mixedrace people in their Body of Liberties (1641). This paper attempts to understand the varied perspectives on the regulation and treatment of servants in Plymouth Colony. In Massachusetts, religious instruction in the Puritan way of life was often part of the condition of indenture, and people tended to live in towns. In 1780, when the Massachusetts Constitution went into effect, slavery was legal in the Commonwealth. Apprenticeship was a common means of training artisans in the colonies. The number of slaves in Massachusetts was never as great as in southern states, perhaps because the agricultural system generally did not require large gangs of. The indentures document the Overseers' efforts to place children who, because of the conditions in their home, were living in the Almshouse.
