Mary Jane, I make the distinction because "they" made the distinction. A child without a family was a financial burden on the community. Somebody had to raise the child, and adoption as we know it today did not exist. So a youngster at age 2-3 without a family in which to be raised and taught what it needed to know to become a productive member of society and was bound until the age of 21 was NOT a slave but was provided with a household in which to live, a necessary education for a trade, husbandry, or housewifery, were clothed and fed, and prepared for adulthood. Life was hard, life was brutal, and life depended on one's ability to earn a day's wages, regardless on one's age. There was no such thing as childhood in those days, many women worked outside the home, despite what people in the late 20th and early 21st century like to believe about the good old days. Many women--and men--of the lower sort had no viable means of supporting a child. A child by a previous marriage was subject to the whims of the stepfather (which accounts for so many second husbands having to sign bonds securing a child's inheritance from the first husband), and a woman had few rights to protect the child. Poverty was such an abject thing, and to be poor was considered a sin, if not a crime, that many parents bound out their children and entered the workhouse themselves. Terms of seven years were applicable to apprentice indentures, generally beginning at age 14 and ending at age 21. Binding out one's son or daughter as an apprentice was not an awful thing, and parents paid to secure an indenture with a reputable artisan. Apprentices might live with their master and his family or at home. During those seven years, the apprentice learned the skills necessary to become proficient in a trade such as blacksmithing, joinery, surveying, farming, tayloring, shad fishing, any number of trades in the case of boys and how to run a household, do millinary work, mantuamaking, dairying in the case of girls. During those seven years boys learned cyphering (simple arithmetic), the Rule of Three (simple algebra), to read the Bible, and to write and all the "secrets and mysteries" of their trade. Girls weren't always taught mathematics, but did usually learn to read if not write. They in turn promised not to reveal those secrets and mysteries to anyone or to! m! arry without their master's permission. The master was considered loci parenti (in place of the parent) and was responsible for feeding, clothing, and educating the apprentice, for discipline and religious training, as the apprentice's parent would otherwise be. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, Mary Jane, but I urge you to use caution and not to judge our ancestors' lifestyle, as their goals and frame of reference were very different from ours. And indentured servitude was not a fancy English word, but a matter of law. The fact that such laws do not apply to us to us is irrelevant. What we think of the morality of the practice of indentured servitude, call it whatever you will today, is irrelevant. More people had concerns about slavery for life than about binding out children till adulthood. Also, many people would never have gotten to America without indenturing themselves to a master either in Europe or upon arrival in America, and we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Karen Greim Mullian booboopies@aol.com In a message dated Wed, 13 Sep 2000 5:18:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, REDSKI9136@aol.com writes: <<Hi Everyone, How can anyone say, after reading this article, that our Indentured Sevents were not slaves? I personally can not, and refuse to give it any fancy English Title. If you were living your life this way, what would you call it? African Slave Native American Slave White Slaves Indentured Servents They all equal the same thing. If a man at any point of his life, is held by an agreement, or owned, he is not his own self free. And if the Myth of Indentured servents, concerning being held for 7 years is true, then please tell me why the North held the children of these freed Indentured servents till they were 21. The North just gave slavery a fancy title, in my eyes. It really bothers me to know that while we were winning a war in the south, against our own brothers, that we had our own closets to clean out. This is just my opion, and Iam entitled to it. Mary Jane, Bright Star ==== PACHESTE Mailing List ==== Stop by our associated website for Chester County Genealogy at http://www.rootsweb.com/~pacheste/chester.htm >>