How similar were white indentured servants in the Colony of North Carolina to the black slaves that eventually replaced them as labor on the plantations of wealthy landowners?
In 1896, John Spencer Bassett (1867-1928) compares and contrasts black slavery and white servitude in his highly regarded book "Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina."
In introducing his book, Bassett writes:
"The lives of the American slaves were without annals, and to a large extent without conscious purpose. To get the story of their existence there is no other way than to follow the tracks they have made in the history of another people. This will be a slow and, in a sense, an unsatisfactory labor. At best it can give but a partial picture of the real life of the slaves, yet it can give all there is to give. Those who in these days of a clearer view and a broader sympathy have come to look on the former bondsmen as a race having their proper place in the evolution of the human family, must be content to gather up as many facts as can be found and to regret that circumstances have made it impossible to obtain a more complete story."
