A contract system, indentured servitude provided mainly white labor to European colonies. To repay their travel and subsistence costs, laborers assented to indentures or contracts as servants, usually seven years. White servitude evolved in the Western Hemisphere along with Indian and African slavery. It is estimated that between one-half and two-thirds of all white immigrants in British America (1630s–1770s) came via indenturing. They also faced difficult conditions, one witness stating that they were “treated like slaves, with great cruelty.” While it lessened as black bondage expanded widely, the servant system lingered to the 1840s or later.