Indenture

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The term Indenture comes from the medieval English "indenture of retainer" — a legal contract written in duplicate on the same sheet, with the copies separated by cutting along a jagged (toothed, hence the term "indenture") line so that the teeth of the two parts could later be refitted to confirm authenticity.

The term is used for any kind of deed executed by more than one party, in contrast to a deed poll which is made by one individual. Each party to the deed would then retain a part of the indenture. In the case of bonds, the indenture is a legal document which shows the pledge, promises, representations and covenants of the issuing party. In England an Indenture was commonly used as a form of sealed contract or agreement, especially where land and buildings were concerned. An example of such a use can be found in this transcript of a property indenture from 1804.

Perhaps its best known use was in establishing a contract for slavery or apprenticeship and this use is more fully discussed under Indentured servant. However, when slavery ended in the British Empire in 1838, planters with ties to Britain from Mauritius and British Guiana to Natal, Fiji and Australia, revived the old indenture system. This time, the targeted populace was non-European and included East Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Javanese and Africans from Sierra Leone (some of whom were liberated from slave ships). An indenture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries therefore represented a new system of slavery, in the view of British historian Hugh Tinker. The contract did not spell out the laborers' rights, but in the hands of supervisors and managers, it provided several means to pursue poor labor performances (not in civil law courts, but) through criminal law and jail time. Besides, the contract of indenture was difficult to terminate after the stipulated number of years by the new non-European indenteds. While there were some humane plantation owners and managers, many others exploited these exotic workers to the fullest. Rarely were ships made available to return those workers who sought repatriation when the contract ended (usually after 3 or 5 years, but in later years, after ten years plus a period of "industrial residence" in the colonies). The recent history of indenture appears to have entailed "slavery with a contract" for non-Europeans. ^[1]