indentured servant

Noun

indentured servant (plural indentured servants)

1. (historical) A debt bondage worker who is under contract of an employer for a specified period of time, in exchange for transportation, food, drink, clothing, lodging, and other necessities.
   • He traced back to Alfred Standing, an indentured servant, or slave if you please, who was transported from England to the Virginia plantations in the days that were even old when the youthful Washington went a-surveying in the Pennsylvania wilderness.1915, Jack London, chapter 1, in The Star Rover
   • Probably the best known of these was John Harrower, whose journal provides a fascinating insight into the life of a schoolmaster and indentured servant in late colonial Virginia.[…]He arrived in London virtually destitute and, unable to find work, soon contracted to work as an indentured servant in...2004, David Dobson, Scottish Emigration to Colonial America, 1607–1785, University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 149

   Synonyms:

   nexus