Bob Friedland: Are they condo owners or indentured servants?

You may have seen a large, hand-written, 300-year-old document on the wall of your lawyer’s office. Quite likely, there may also have been ribbons and red seals appended to it. There was almost certainly a bite taken out of a corner. For this is an indenture of servitude, and the missing bite of parchment identified the servant.
Before 1800, about 500,000 white Europeans bought their passage to North America by selling themselves into a form of slavery, unpaid labour, for a term of years.