Who paid for the ship's passage for indentured servants in colonial America?

• A. The colonists paid for the ship's passage.
• B. The crown funded the voyage.
• C. The agents paid for the ship's passage.
• D. The convicts paid their own way.

Answer: (C)

Indentured servitude relied on someone else paying the voyage to get labor into the colonies. Agents in England or port cities would recruit workers, advance the ship’s fare, and arrange a contract—the worker agreeing to serve a master in the colony for a set number of years in exchange for passage, room, and board. The master in the colony benefited from the labor once the term began, while the servant would earn freedom after completing the term (often with some freedom dues). The crown didn’t routinely fund these private voyages, and convict transportation was a different system. So the ship’s passage was paid by the agents who brokered and financed the indenture.