Indentures at such young ages were a kind of placement -- foster care is
somewhat analogous -- for orphans or children of indigent parents.  The
provision of bound labor was the payment for the master who took on the
charge; the obligation of training in some skill was to ensure that such
children would be economically self-sufficient adults and not on the poor
rolls. It was not adoption because that would entail the transference of
parental rights.


David Kiracofe
College of Charleston

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