These indentured servants were people who voluntarily surrendered their freedom in exchange for passage to America. Most indentured servants were able to gain back their freedom after working for five to seven years. Just like slaves, servants could be bought and sold; they also had the same rules as a slave. They could not marry without their owner's permission, "were subject to physical punishment, and saw their obligation to labor enforced by the courts." If a female servant were to get pregnant during the time of her enslavement they would lengthen the term to make sure she served her full term. The only thing that separated slaves from indentured servants was that the indentured servants could look forward to their release to freedom. Many indentured servants were able to escape to neighboring towns since no one was really able to tell them apart from a normal civilian. .
Throughout the years slavery was becoming more and more of a necessity, even though no European nation pictured that the colonization of the New World would have to rely on African slaves for the majority of its labor work. From the very start the Englishmen viewed the Africans with disdain, claiming that they were "savage, pagan, and uncivilized." As well they also compared them to animals. During the seventeenth century, the shipping of African slaves became a major international business. By the eighteenth century the business was regularized; European merchants, American Planters, and African traders were constantly engaged in the complex bargaining over human lives. An estimated 7.7 million Africans were transported to the New World by the 1800s, but more than half arrived between 1700 and 1800. Because slaves could be sold in America for twenty to thirty times the price in Africa, men, women, and children were forced to aboard small vessels and travel to the New World. These ships were so crammed that the passengers could not turn around or even turn to their side.