White Cargo PDF | British Indentured Servitude & Colonial History

White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America PDF

Read Don Jordan and Michael Walsh’s account of British indentured servants, transported convicts, coerced labor, and colonial experiences in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America.

Drawing on letters, diaries, court records, and government archives, the book examines how migration, debt, punishment, labor contracts, and colonial power shaped the lives of people sent from Britain to America.

Digital edition details

• Full digital PDF edition
• By Don Jordan and Michael Walsh
• Primary-source material including letters, diaries, court records, and government archives
• Useful for colonial history, labor history, migration studies, and slavery studies
• Readable on a phone, tablet, computer, or e-reader
• No physical item is shipped

Historical context: The book’s study of white indentured servitude and convict transportation addresses important forms of coercive labor, but these histories should not be used to equate or erase the distinct system and racialized violence of African chattel slavery in the Americas. Compare the book with current scholarship.