Once the Virginia Company realized that growing tobacco would generate the quickest profits from a colony in Virginia, the investors sought to stimulate population growth to increase the supply of farm laborers. To recruit people with enough wealth to start a new farm, starting in 1616 the Virginia Company offered free land to anyone who imported new residents into Virginia. The headrights system provided 50 acres for each new resident who paid their own way to Virginia. In 11617, the incentive was expanded to offer 50 acres to anyone who paid for an indentured servant to be shipped to Virginia.
Finding people willing to serve as an indentured servant was hard, but there were people in England willing to take a chance at creating a better life across the Atlantic Ocean. They were recruited with the promise of free transport to Virginia followed by free housing and food for six or more years, in exchange for working for no pay during that period of indenture.
The Virginia Company needed workers in its colony, and recruited men willing to gamble on finding a better life in a new place. To attract them, it offered free transportation across the Atlantic Ocean and 30 acres of land in exchange for a man's labor for 6-7 years.1
Living conditions were tough. One man wrote home in 1623 about the poor health conditions and inadequate food at Martin's Hundred:2
He begged for his parents to find a way to bring him back to England, or to send food to him in Virginia:3
Source: Timeline, Indentured Servants vs. Slaves in Jamestown, Virginia 1607-1619 Indentured Servitude versus Slavery
Source: Indentured Servitude and the Origins of Slavery at Jamestown