THE END OF EUROPEAN IMMIGRANT SERVITUDE IN THE UNITED-STATES - AN ECONOMIC-ANALYSIS OF MARKET COLLAPSE, 1772-1835

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: GRUBB, F
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700015497
• 发表日期: 1994
• 页码: 794-824
• 关键词: chester-county; pennsylvania; servants; CHOICE; LABOR

摘要

Europeans stopped using servitude to finance passage to America sometime in the early nineteenth century, but exactly when and why immigrant servitude disappeared is a mystery. Hypotheses abound, but no consensus has emerged nor have scholars tested hypotheses. In this study, quantitative evidence for the final sixty years of immigrant servitude establishes when and why it disappeared. Servitude did not end because of insufficient demand, legal restrictions, or declines in passage fares. It ended because superior methods of financing migration developed. Chance historical events, however, determined the exact timing of the end.