Oh, I see. I hadn't realised you were talking about indentured servants - even though I now notice you explicitely stated you were in your post . I see where yuou're coming from now though I think I'd disagree with calling it a form of slavery. As a slave you were actually owned by another person. Under indentured servitude you had a contractual arangement to provide them with a period of service. The key difference is that the latter did not supercede your normal legal rights. You were protected from physical abuse, for example. The same could not be said of a slave. There are plenty of examples of the 'employers' of indentured servants abusing those legal rights but the key point is that the abuse was itself illegal. To be honest, it's little different from the arrangements you can have these days where a company will finance your degree in exchange for a period of employment.