Indenture of Apprenticeship

1865-1911

Introduction

Indenture derived its name from the English practice of tearing indentions or notches in duplicate copies of apprenticeship forms. This uneven edge identified the copy retained by the apprentice as a valid copy of the form retained by the master. In those days, both the original and the copy of the indenture were signed by the master and the parent or guardian of the apprentice.

One chapter in the history of apprenticeship caused a stigma difficult to outlive — the exploitation of poor men, women, and children as indentured servants who were given little or no opportunity to learn a trade. It was a system that can hardly be classified as apprenticeship. The practice of indenturing servants, some of them former prisoners imported from abroad, took place largely in the Southern States, where labor was needed on the plantations. Workers paid off the cost of their transportation by serving as so-called apprentices. Tempted into the trafficking of these workers were the ships’ captains and bartering agents who profited by it.  After the Civil War, slave owners would sometimes agree to apprentice the younger children that previously belonged to them.

Indentures of Apprenticeship were a form of obtaining free labor and also a form of what we would currently call social welfare when a parent or guardian had no means to support their children.

The following Indentureships for Allen County, KY were found in a binder labeled “MISC” at the County Court Clerk’s office. Having no index, it is a little used book and often overlooked. 

The following documents survived the October 1902 Courthouse fire.  Within this document are post-Civil War indentures for former slave children – an important resource for African-American genealogy research. The indentures after 1869 are primarily records for Caucasian children.

Sharon Tabor

2008