Olivia Calkins

Brenton
Early Am History
6 October 2016
Early American Struggles
Were some people really treated right in the early American colonies? Women,
indentured slaves, and Native Americans were all treated like garbage because higher status
british people/men though they were better than everyone else. Life was difficult for women,
indentured servants, and Native Americans in colonial America.
Before the 19th amendment, women were looked down upon by colonial men. According
to an article on study.com, Young women were often pregnant, partly because so many young
children were lost to sickness or lack of resources and partly because of a dire need to populate
the colonies. Likewise, spouses would often die, meaning that men and women would often
remarry. Marriages and families were thus often formed out of necessity rather than love. 1 This
was what women were mostly used for. Some colonies didnt have enough people so women
would repopulate just because of this problem. According to another article on study.com The
wives of wealthy plantation owners and merchants had very different lives from the average
farmer's wife. They still had few legal rights, but they didn't have to work nearly as hard. Most
wealthy families had a number of domestic slaves to do the work around the house. Wealthy
women were responsible for managing the help and seeing that the house was properly

"Role of Women in Colonial America | Study.com." 2015. 4 Oct. 2016

<http://study.com/academy/lesson/role-of-women-in-colonial-america.html>

maintained.2 If women were wealthier they had more perks that werent quite as good as the
perks men had but they were able to do alot more than normal women. Women were very
important in the colonization of America.
Meanwhile, indentured servants were working their butts off to earn a ride and some land
over in the colonies. According to PBS, Servants typically worked four to seven years in
exchange for passage, room, board, lodging and freedom dues. While the life of an indentured
servant was harsh and restrictive, it wasn't slavery. There were laws that protected some of their
rights. But their life was not an easy one, and the punishments meted out to people who wronged
were harsher than those for non-servants. An indentured servant's contract could be extended as
punishment for breaking a law, such as running away, or in the case of female servants,
becoming pregnant.3 Indentured servants were given certain things they may not have had in
Europe just by working on their own. They work for such a long time because getting money to
send people over to the American colonies with acres of land and stuff to get started used a lot of
money. Indentured servants struggled for years to obtain big things.
Eventually, the Native Americans were dragged into the American colony affairs as
disposable human garbage. According to history.org, European men did not understand, nor
approve the division of labor among American Indian men and women. Women grew crops,
erected houses, and did everything related to the home. Men hunted, fished, and made war. Since
hunting and fishing were recreational in Europe, Europeans regarded Powhatan men as lazy

"Role of Women in Colonial America | Study.com." 2015. 4 Oct. 2016

<http://study.com/academy/lesson/role-of-women-in-colonial-america.html>
3
"Indentured Servants In The U.S. | History Detectives | PBS." 2011. 4 Oct. 2016
<http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/indentured-servants-in-the-us/>

idlers. In fact, the contribution of both sexes was about equal, until the European demand for
hides and furs made the male hunters more important than the female farmers.4
In the Early American colonies people like women, indentured servants, and Native
Americans had some of the most difficult roles in society. All of these people were treated
unequally for either a reward, or just for kicks. Women had household jobs, indentured servants
had duties to fulfill to get their reward, and Native Americans had struggles being slaves for the
American colonists. Over all, America had to struggle before being at least a tiny bit stable.
America wouldnt even had happened if the American colonists hadnt done terrible things.

"The Native-American Family : The Colonial Williamsburg Official ..." 2011. 4 Oct. 2016
<http://www.history.org/Almanack/life/family/first.cfm?showSite=mobile>