East Indian Indentureship a mitigated form of enslavement?

I think it comes down to just and honest treatment of those indentured. If they have a contract delineating the terms of their employment and those terms are rigourously adhered to, then there is no question that such an arrangement is right and just. Hourly and salaried employees work under the same conditions, don't they? There is an agreed upon amount to be paid for an agreed upon amount of work over a certain length of time.

BUT

The problems, and they are widely reported, and they are not just with the particular group you are concerned with, include non-payments, non-releases, withholding of passports and other documents, work that is beyond the scope of what was agreed upon, physical and sexual abuse, censoring or forbidding outright communication with family (or legal help) medical treatment that is lacking or non-existent and incidents of unlawful incarcerations that included actual jail-like cells and physical punishment for attempts at escape.

Make a sliding scale of the indentured population. Place those who are able to work off their debts and win their freedom at one end and those who are obliviously enslaved at the other. Scatter all the rest between based on how just their treatment is. See where the balance point is between enslaved and free.

Joe(There are cases of enslavement before the New York Courts now)Nation

thanks for the reply! i catch your drift and have an idea of where you are coming from

do you have any idea how i can spice up my project other than the basic themes that i have such as Political, Economic, Religion, Social and Cultural?

Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll?