Not everyone who wished to come to America could afford it. As a result, indentured servants were common in Colonial America.The Center has compiled lists of values contained in the place of origin, occupation, and destination fields of the Middlesex Indentured Servants Database. Indentured servants were people who came to America under a work contract, called an indenture. This is a brief guide to researching records of an apprentice or master. It is a synthesis of historical studies that have addressed the education of indentured servants and apprentices in colonial America. 1700 was a hard one. Normally only poorer children were apprenticed. In modern-day finance, the word indenture most commonly appears in bond agreements, real estate deals, and some aspects of bankruptcies. The first child bound out in Massachusetts was in 1636, when Benjamin Eaton was indentured to Bridget Fuller of Plymouth County.