Answer:
Slaves
Step-by-step explanation:
To a degree, the material conditions of slave life were predetermined by the status of the slave. During the early colonial period, slaves and indentured servants enjoyed greater freedoms than black slaves would in later periods. But even then, they belonged to the lowest, poorest ranks of society. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, slaves were condemned to impoverishment by the law. In many colonies, slaves could not participate in wage-earning trade or labor. In others they were denied the right to own property. The slave's resulting dependence on his or her master for the most basic necessities -- food, clothing, shelter -- was integral to the preservation of the master's power and the sustaining of the slave society.