When did becoming an Indentured Servant become unlawful (or did it ever?)

[mbh]

@Freddy_the_Pig

No. In 1867 Congress passed implementing legislation for the Thirteenth Amendment called the Anti-Peonage Act, which provided: The proximate motivation behind the act was to eliminate debt peonage–holding a person to labor until a debt is paid–in New Mexico Territory, where it persisted as a holdover from Mexican rule. But, the wording (any debt or obligation) was broad enough to outlaw holding a person to indentured servitude as well.

I hasten to add, the law had nothing to do with actually ending indentured servitude. The practice had died of its own accord before the Civil War. But per your question, if someone had attempted to revive it in 1910 or 1930 or 1950, it would have been illegal.

As noted above forms of servitude did persist for children. Apprenticeship was considered an appropriate form of foster care for orphaned children, or children removed from the custody of their parents, until the Twentieth Century.

Debt peonage may have been outlawed in 1867, but sharecropping persisted until the 1940s, and the company store still exists today.