In addition to the regular settlers at Jamestown, from time to time indentured servants came to America. They were individuals who signed contracts called "indentures" whereby they agreed to work as apprentices or tenant farmers for a stated time in return for their paid passage to America. On August 30, 1619, a ship that looked like a Dutch man-of-war but actually was believed to be a pirate craft came to Jamestown with a cargo of twenty Negroes which it sold to the Governor and the colonists. This was the first recorded selling of slaves in the area now called the United States. The Negroes seemed to be more easily adaptable to hard, manual labor than the Indians or indentured white servants had been. The need for labor which could endure the intense sun of the tobacco fields made the Negroes much more desirable than the whites since they seemed to endure these conditions more satisfactorily. During the same year, another historical milestone occurred in Virginia when a ship arrived at Jamestown with sixty young women from England. Each bachelor who desired a bride had to pay 120 pounds of tobacco for his bride's passage. The young women stayed at the married planters' homes until their marriage. These brave women made happy homes and helped shoulder the responsibilities so that community life in Virginia became more settled. They wrote such cheerful, courageous accounts of their life in Virginia that a second shipload soon followed and more homes were rapidly established. In July 1621, the London Company issued to Virginia a code of written laws and a frame of government patterned after the English type: the Governor of the colony was to be appointed by the company, a Council was to be appointed by the company, and a House of Burgesses was to be elected by the colonists themselves. Whenever making laws, the councilors and burgesses were to sit together. A law would be proposed, debated and, if passed, be submitted to the Governor for his approval. The company in England would have the final ratification or rejection. The right of petition and the right of trial by jury were guaranteed. A unique feature was the provision that the burgesses had the power of vetoing any objectionable acts of the company. Thus, additional political rights were furnished to the colonists by this so-called Virginia Constitution of 1621.