Benjamin Franklin, who was treated harshly by his much-older brother when he was indentured to him, later wrote in his autobiography that his brother’s treatment “might be a means of impressing me with that aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me through my whole life.” Colonists’ familiarity with servitude probably contributed to their suspicions of power and their fear that America would be subjected to Britain’s arbitrary rule and autocratic trade and tax policies.
