Americans nowadays tend to think of their ancestors as quite free individuals who rightly rebelled against despotic encroachments by crown and aristocracy on their natural and unfettered liberties as British citizens.
That was generally not the situation. There were a lot of indentured servants who were not free at all regardless of crown or aristocracy.
In general, one important point, it seems to me, is that there was, in practice, less of a difference between these categories, serfdom, indentured servitude, and slavery, than one might suppose.
Indentured servitude was of shorter duration, at least for those who survived it. Serfdom and slavery were both more restrictive than indentured servitude, but it was more a matter of degree rather than of kind in many ways in practice.
Video reference: Captain Blood
J H Elliott has a detailed, lively, and very very learned discussion of this whole area in the New World context.
Video reference: Captain Blood
J H Elliott has a detailed, lively, and very very learned discussion of this whole area in the New World context.
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