United States » Virginia » People & Families

Virtual Jamestown - Indentured Servants - Search the Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654 - 1686

Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations. This database of indenture contracts will eventually include over 15,000 indentured servants contracts from the London, Middlesex, and Bristol Registers. The contracts indicate not only the servant's name and length of indenture, but also the name of the servant's parents and owner, their home province and city, occupation, destination, and ship of embarkation. These records provide a detailed composition of indentured servants in the 17th century Atlantic World. The Bristol Registers record all indentured servants who left from the port of Bristol, England. Servants listed their place of origin as towns and provinces all over England, as well as many foreign countries such as Ireland and France. They were headed to many different places in the New World, including Virginia, Barbados, and the Caribbean islands. Lengths of indenture varied from 3 to 7 years, with the average length for females being 4.3 years, and for males, 4.44 years. The database contains records for approximately 10,000 indentured servants sent from Bristol to the New World.