Hey, Bill.  Answering your question very simply; centuries ago when very few people could read or write, a seller would execute a document called even then a "deed" to a buyer, whereupon the parties literally tore - NOT cut - that document in two, each taking one half or thereabouts.  Through that usage, and since only those exact halves would fit together, each had proof near positive of the bargain and the closing of the deal.  Since that document had "indents" where it had been torn in two, the term "indenture" perfectly fit that piece of paper and that practice.  While the  term is now archaic, some printed forms used by some lawyers still bear that term as a title (sounds neat, you know, and lawyers are SLOW to change anything since some court might jump up and set such aside).  

In reality, for a couple centuries now the term has meant only that an agreement was reached and the document - without tearing it in two - remains evidence of that relationship and bargain between the parties.  Notice that we used the term "indentured servant" (a deal by which one agreed to supply another with transport or "room and board" in exchange for months or years of the servant's life and labor).  Despite the use of that term to describe that relationship, the end of the "tearing in half" was at hand and I know of no use of that custom in the colonies.   Paul

From: Bill Cross 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 12:25 PM
  Subject: What is land indenture?


  Can someone explain what a land indenture is and how it differs (if it does) from a land sale? Is this part of the process Paul described concerning holding a deed in trust, perhaps a document that says the deed for a parcel of land is being held by so-and-so?

  Bill Cross

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