An indentured servant is an employee who, within a system of servitude, is bound by a contract (deed) to work for a particular employer for a fixed period of time. The employer often allows assigning the work of a contractor to a third party. People in this situation usually undertake, by deed, to a specific payment or other benefit, or to fulfill a legal obligation, such as debt bondage. In many countries, servant work systems have been banned.
Between half and two-thirds of the white immigrants who went to the American colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution were under indenture. However, although nearly half of the European immigrants in the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, when they were outnumbered by workers who had never been slaves, or when their respective deeds expired, free wage labor became more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.
