ADDITIONAL MODEL · WEEK 9 · CHAPTER 3
Why did a promised end to service fail to guarantee economic independence?
This model examines life after indenture, one part of Week 9’s comparison of labor systems. It does not answer the entire comparison between servants and enslaved people.
The model paragraph
The end of service gave former servants legal freedom, but control of good land could prevent them from building independent lives. An indenture, a labor arrangement requiring a limited term of service, held out the possibility of a different future. Takaki explains, “At the end of the indenture, or term of service, indentured servants were free to look for jobs, claim land of their own, or do whatever they could to support themselves” (YPT 49). This says that completing the term removed the obligation to keep working for the master. It shows why the promised end mattered: former servants could seek work and land for themselves. However, a legal possibility did not guarantee an available resource. The chapter describes an obstacle: “The richer colonists scrambled to buy up all the best land” (YPT 53). This says that wealthy buyers competed to secure the most desirable farmland. It shows how their purchases could reduce the practical opportunity available to people who had just finished serving. The freemen, men whose legal service had ended, still needed a way to support themselves. This connects to Key Idea 1: Economic forces drive history. Powerful buyers could concentrate land in fewer hands, limiting what freedom made possible for others. Because independence required resources as well as the end of an obligation, we must distinguish freedom under the law from a realistic chance to make a living.
1 POINT TO NAME IT · 1 POINT TO EXPLAIN IT
How this model earns its key idea points
Gist
People make choices to get land, money, and the things they need. Those choices can change other people’s lives.
Check your understanding
Academic definition
Economic interests shape historical change when people use power to control resources, organize labor, and distribute wealth. Explain the decisions connecting an economic goal to its consequences.
Check your understanding
Elaboration
- Name the idea
- Key Idea 1: Economic forces drive history
- Point to the evidence
- Indentured servants are promised freedom at the end of their terms (YPT 49), but wealthy colonists acquire the best land (YPT 53).
- Explain how it works
- The legal end of service permits a worker to seek resources, but concentrated ownership limits access to those resources. A change in legal status does not automatically redistribute land.
- Make the connection explicit
- Distinguish what the law permits from what people can obtain. Then explain how ownership affects the opportunities available after service ends.
Check your understanding: explain how this model’s evidence shows its key idea without looking at the explanation above.
Compare your explanation
The legal end of service permits a worker to seek resources, but concentrated ownership limits access to those resources. A change in legal status does not automatically redistribute land.
How the argument builds
Follow what each move adds to the answer. Then map your own paragraph in your notebook.
- Answer the practice question
Legal freedom does not guarantee the resources required for independence.
- First evidence
Indentured service is supposed to end with freedom to seek work and land.
- Explain the promise
The worker can pursue a livelihood outside the former master’s control.
- Second evidence
Wealthy colonists acquire the best farmland.
- Connect the key idea
Concentrated ownership narrows former servants’ opportunities.
- Develop the consequence
Evaluate legal status and practical access to a livelihood separately.
How this practice model meets the 10-point rubric
| Requirement | What the model does | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Four practice words | All four practice words appear in complete sentences. These stand in for the four assigned Words of the Day for this exercise. | 2/2 |
| Two appositives | Two noun phrases between commas rename the nouns immediately before them. | 2/2 |
| Two quotations, explained and analyzed | Two exact YPT quotations have page citations; each is followed by what it says and what it shows. | 2/2 |
| Key idea named and explained | The paragraph names one course idea and explains the specific process connecting its evidence to that idea. | 2/2 |
| Development | The argument moves from an answer through two pieces of evidence to an explained consequence; each move develops the practice question. | 2/2 |
The four practice words stand in for assigned Words of the Day in this example. Development is the quality row: follow how each sentence moves this argument forward.
Read the full rubric →Build your own sentences · Chapter 3
Choose the relationship your argument needs. These are sentence models to study; your paragraph should use your own reasoning and your assigned four words of the day.
Appositives · rename a noun precisely
A noun phrase between commas renames the noun before it. It adds useful information, not another sentence. You need two.
Check: remove the phrase between the commas. The main sentence should still work.
Indentured servants, workers bound to masters for a legally limited term, could formally seek jobs or land after service even when powerful landowners restricted their opportunities.
YPT 48–49 YPT 53Hereditary bondage, a system extending enslavement from parents to descendants, appears in Jowan’s sale through the colonist’s claim over children and later generations not yet born.
YPT 52John Punch, a Black runaway sentenced to lifetime service in 1640, received a harsher legal future than the white servants captured after the same escape.
YPT 51Nathaniel Bacon, a tobacco planter who organized a volunteer militia, attacked Native communities before his conflict with Virginia’s governor grew into rebellion against colonial authority.
YPT 55–57Virginia’s legislature, the colony’s lawmaking body controlled by landowning elites, lengthened indentures to preserve labor and reduce competition from servants who might become independent farmers.
YPT 53Captain Grantham, the naval officer who negotiated with the rebels, used false promises of freedom and safety to help government forces regain control.
YPT 57
The nine connectors · choose a relationship
But
Adds a contrast.
Black and white servants shared exhausting plantation labor and harsh punishment, but courts and lawmakers increasingly denied Black workers the limited legal futures available to whites.
YPT 48–52So
Shows a result.
Virginia’s landowners wanted a larger labor supply and less competition for farmland, so the legislature extended white servants’ terms and delayed their chances of independence.
YPT 53Because
Gives a reason.
John Punch’s punishment reveals the construction of racial inequality because the court sentenced him to life while giving the white runaways additional years of service.
YPT 51If
Names a condition.
If we compare a limited indenture with the sale of Jowan and her future descendants, we can see how bondage became permanent and hereditary.
YPT 48–49 YPT 52Unless
Means if not.
We cannot explain Bacon’s Rebellion accurately unless we distinguish slavery’s earlier existence from the later decision to expand it as Virginia’s main labor system.
YPT 51–52 YPT 58–59When
Means if with expectation.
When Black men joined armed white rebels at Jamestown, the alliance frightened colonial leaders who feared that discontented laborers could threaten their political and economic control.
YPT 55 YPT 57–58Despite
Takes a noun phrase.
Despite his stated opposition to slavery, Jefferson continued to own enslaved people and tied their freedom to debts that remained unpaid when he died.
YPT 60Although
Takes a subject and a verb.
Although indentured servants could formally seek land after completing their terms, elite control of desirable farmland made that promised route to independence increasingly difficult.
YPT 49 YPT 53–54However
Starts a new sentence.
Elite planters could have expanded opportunity for white workers. However, they chose greater reliance on African slavery, preserving their advantages while deepening racial coercion.
YPT 58–59After despite, use a noun phrase. After although, use a subject and a verb. In your rubric’s pattern, put a period before however and a comma after it. The contrast must make sense in context.