[2] Local conditions and circumstances dictated and directed the form of subjection. For this same reason, both servitude and slavery differed in different sections of the country. Nieboer brings out the local character of subjection when he holds that slavery does not exist as formally among fishing and hunting peoples as among agricultural and that subjection is milder in an open country than in a closed. Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_, p. 55. [3] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 37. [4] It is not meant that all Negroes became servants and then slaves. Many Negroes became servants and followed the course of servants while others became slaves and remained slaves. At any period, however, during his first three-quarter century at least in the colonies, the most pronounced status of the Negro consisted of a cross-section of a transition from servitude to slavery. [5] On the significance of the expiration of the white servant's term, Bruce has this to say: "Unless the planter had been careful to make provision against their departure by the importation of other laborers, he was left in a helpless position without men to reap his crops or to widen the area of his new grounds.... Perhaps in a majority of cases, his object was to obtain laborers whom he might substitute for those whose term were on the point of expiring. It was this constantly recurring necessity which must have been the source of much anxiety and annoyance as well as heavy pecuniary outlay, that led the planters to prefer youths to adults among the imported English agricultural servants, for while their physical strength might have been less, yet the periods for which they were bound extended over a longer time." Bruce, _Econ. Hist. of Va._, II, pp. 58-59. [6] Ballagh, _Hist, of Slavery in Va._, pp. 37-38. "Negro servants were sometimes compelled by threats and browbeating to sign indentures for longer terms after they had served out their original terms." (Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 33.) Indian servants, too, were held and reduced to slaves whenever possible. Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, pp. 196-201. [7] Ballagh, _Hist, of Slavery in Va._, pp. 29, 30, 31. [8] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 32, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38-39.