[Goose]

Indentured servitude was an agreement where the individual involved agreed to work without wages for a fixed interval in return for other considerations. Those "considerations" were usually 1) transport to "america" 2) room and board during the period of performance. You weren't working to "become eligible to earn wages". You were working to pay off a debit that you freely incurred. The college athlete's situation is really quite different. They can walk away at any time. There is no mandatory period of performance.

My grandmother told me that her grandmother was an indentured servant who fled the potato famine in Ireland for New York as a 17 year old.  She went to work for an Anglo family.  Terms of her indentured servitude was to work 100 hours per week for seven years, with Sundays and Christmas off.  That's 36,400 hours to pay off the five pound passage from Dublin to Liverpool to NYC.

Inflation? =)

She put up with it for two years, then, apparently, left with the family's silver for San Francisco, traveling overland by stagecoach.

After 1833 you couldn't be imprisoned for debit. As a result, there was little the family could do to here when she fled. The silver was another matter. Getting extradition from California was pretty unlikely I would imagine.

[Goose]

Indentured servitude was an agreement where the individual involved agreed to work without wages for a fixed interval in return for other considerations. Those "considerations" were usually 1) transport to "america" 2) room and board during the period of performance. You weren't working to "become eligible to earn wages". You were working to pay off a debit that you freely incurred. The college athlete's situation is really quite different. They can walk away at any time. There is no mandatory period of performance.

My grandmother told me that her grandmother was an indentured servant who fled the potato famine in Ireland for New York as a 17 year old.  She went to work for an Anglo family.  Terms of her indentured servitude was to work 100 hours per week for seven years, with Sundays and Christmas off.  That's 36,400 hours to pay off the five pound passage from Dublin to Liverpool to NYC.

Inflation? =)

She put up with it for two years, then, apparently, left with the family's silver for San Francisco, traveling overland by stagecoach.

After 1833 you couldn't be imprisoned for debit. As a result, there was little the family could do to here when she fled. The silver was another matter. Getting extradition from California was pretty unlikely I would imagine.