Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/582

 plantation, a continuity to the labor system of white servants as unbroken as if it had been the labor system of slaves. The economic results were substantially the same; the moral and social influences of both were in many respects exactly similar.

Nevertheless, it is a cause for lasting regret that the African slave gradually took the place of the indented English servant. From a political point of view, the chief merit of the system of white laborers was that upon the expiration of their terms they became at once citizens who were identified in race with members of the ruling class. They could in time rise to a high position in that class if they had energy and ability, or could, if they themselves were lacking in these qualities, transmit the right to rise to their descendants, either immediate or remote. The complete homogeneity of the community was not affected by the presence of the white servant; in that servant the community possessed the most admirable instrument for the eradication of the prim&aelig;val forest, the supreme task of the colonial age, because he was just as thoroughly and directly in the power of his master as the negro slave himself; at the same time, the public interests foresaw in him a free man, who was destined to the highest possibilities as soon as he had taken his place in the ranks of the community at large.

In all the advantages of citizenship, there was no essential difference between the immigrant who took up a tract of land on his arrival in the country and the son or grandson of the indented white laborer, or the indented white laborer himself after the end of his term, if he was able to acquire an equal amount of property. The discipline which the indented white servant was brought under, the very hardships to which he was exposed, and which he was compelled to endure, formed a school which was most