Colonists in bondage

"This book is about those white people who went to the British colonies in North America and who, because they were unwilling or unable to pay the cost of their own passage, became bond servants for a period of years to some colonial master who paid it for them. They were variously known as indentured servants, redemptioners, or, in order to distinguish them from the Negroes, as Christian or white servants. Many of them were convicts from the jails, transported instead of being hanged; a few were political and military prisoners taken in war or rebellion."--page 3.