Abstract
As a master in Great Britain had the right to recover fugitives, so too in the colonies, indentured servants who fled were subject to criminal penalties. Without the Masters and Servants Acts, indenture would not have been possible. This means that the labor contract was not a “fiction” but a real tool in the master’s hands. This is all the more important as masters in the colonies gradually obtained broader rights than those held by masters in Great Britain. They could exercise corporal punishment, authorize the marriage of indentured servants, and so on.1 The idea that the British Industrial Revolution was made possible, thanks to institutions that facilitated free contracts and, according to some, the proletarianization of the peasantry, is supported by a long tradition dating back to at least the nineteenth century and the classical economists. However, these views are not confirmed by close historical examination. Until the mid-nineteenth century double employment (mostly in rural and urban areas) was the rule rather than the exception. As Lindert and Williamson have recently estimated, for the larger occupational groupings, such as “agriculture,” “commerce,” and “manufacturing trades” the error margins are probably within the range of minus 40 to plus 66 percent.2
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Notes
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© 2014 Alessandro Stanziani
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Stanziani, A. (2014). From British Servants to Indentured Immigrants: The Case of Mauritius. In: Sailors, Slaves, and Immigrants. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137448446_7
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