Indentured servants first arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607. The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap labor.

“James Buchanan was not legally a slaveholder,” Matthew Pinsker told a Zoom audience late last month. Nor did Buchanan or his contemporaries consider him a slaveholder, he added. But was Buchanan, as ...

In 1754 a carpenter named Josiah Halstead purchased the Allen House in Shrewsbury. Shortly thereafter he transformed it into a tavern. At some point, Halstead had indentured servants working for him. ...

It seems as if the history of Blackface isn’t the only history that embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam struggles with. In an interview with CBS This Morning host Gayle King that is set to air on ...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is taking aim at the controversial H-1B visa program, arguing that it replaces "good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad" — just as the ...

Samantha Berlin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on trends and human-interest stories. Samantha joined Newsweek in 2021. She is a graduate of Syracuse University's S.I.