Essay - On Virtually Every College Campus Across the Country, Students Are...

On virtually every college campus across the country, students are greeted with the familiar sight of individuals seated at folding tables, with the purpose of marketing credit cards to them. These salespeople are most frequently seen during the beginning of ***** ***** semester and are usually young ***** attractive and smiling, barely older than the students *****selves. Quite *****ten, if a student fills out an application for the credit card, he or she may receive a small toy or a gigantic in exchange for his or her pains. What could be m*****e harmless? What's wrong with having a credit ***** on h*****nd, 'just in case?'

However, this familiar sight is one of ***** many reasons that college ***** are becom*****g more and more deeply ensnared in debt. These smiling individuals prey upon students when they are at their most vulnerable. Most ***** these students have just had to pay hundreds of dollars for a se*****ster's worth of books. Perhaps they ***** still looking for a part time job to help out ***** ***** tuition bill. These students are the perfect candidates to trust an young individual whom does not seem so d*****ferent from themselves, who prom*****es them a f*****vorable monthly rate in exch*****ge ***** their signature. Even the added 'free gift' makes signing for a credit card one is ill-equipped to pay more like something fun, like getting a birthday *****y goody bag as ***** did when one was a child, rather than engaging a serious economic decision that could impact one's future life. In fact, one ***** say, one is signing away ***** economic life into a form of indentured servitude or slavery.

Dramatic as this statement ***** seem, the very concept ***** credit h***** strong parallels with both indentured servitude and sh*****cropping, the economic institutions that preceded and then followed the formal institutionalization of slavery, first in Colonial, then in Reconstruction-era America. In colonial America, indentured servants would be freed ***** their obligations to their owners after serving for a period of years.

17th century contract for indentured ***** in Virginia stipulates ***** in return for passage ***** the New World, the ***** ***** give up seven years of his freedom ***** ***** ********** of unpaid labor to ***** master. In exchange, after the seven years, his obligation would be settled. The ***** could also, if he wished, give as ***** man's *****dom dues' some l*****, m*****y, **********, and perhaps some tools. (Indentured Servitude Contract in 17th Century Virg*****ia. Stratford Hall History Resource of Historical Documents)

Like a credit c*****rd ***** of today, the man entering a period ***** indentured servitude was given something—passage to America—in ***** for an agreed-*****on *****. He ***** have no full knowledge of the exact extent ***** the obligation he would ***** undertaking over the course of ***** next seven years. The most popular and the ***** obvious argument that credit is not a *****m of slavery is that ***** chose to sign their names willingly to receive ***** cards. But merely because