I think an important fact for us to consider while reading "Bills of Sale of Chinese Prostitutes" is that these amounts owed were a lot more back then. I do not believe any of these women wanted to sell themselves, but had no other option. America was the land of opportunity and even if they had to be indebted and prostituted first, nothing would keep them from these opportunities. As for Morgan's question about prostitution for re-payment, the mistresses probably made decent money from their prostitutes. I wondered if perhaps the mistresses kept the immigrants for four years because they might have been able to use the immigrants’ ignorance and accrue more money than was actually owed. --kokeefe

I think an important fact for us to consider while reading "Bills of Sale of Chinese Prostitutes" is that these amounts owed were a lot more back then. I do not believe any of these women wanted to sell themselves, but had no other option. America was the land of opportunity and even if they had to be indebted and prostituted first, nothing would keep them from these opportunities. As for Morgan's question about prostitution for re-payment, the mistresses probably made decent money from their prostitutes. I wondered if perhaps the mistresses kept the immigrants for four years because they might have been able to use the immigrants’ ignorance and accrue more money than was actually owed. --kokeefe