The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1897-11-05
COLONIAL SERVANTS.
The Kind OF Help They Had in
Early New England
MeniaIs Were in some Gases Trans-
ported convicts and Malefac-
tors VINO Sold Themselves
Into Servftude.


Domestic service in America has
passed through three distinct phases.
The first extends from the early col
onization to the time of the revolution;
the second from the revolution to about
1850; the third from 1850 to the present
slime
During the colonial period service of
every kind was performed by trans
ported convicts, indentured white
servants or ''redemptioners,' - ''free will
ers," negroes and Indians. The first
three classes-conyicts, redemptioners
first generally English, birth.
Protests were often made against
this method of settlement, both by the
colonists themselves and by English
men, but it was long before the English
government abandoned the practice of
transporting criminals to the Ameri-
can colonies.
Of the three classes of whites, or
Christian servants, as they were called
to distinguish them from the Indians
and negroes, the free willers were
evidently found only in Maryland. They
they be allowed certain number of
uaHS III WHICH, TO OlSI)OSC OI IuGMSS1bGS
to the greatest advantage.
1t is impossible to state the pro-
portion of servants belonging to the two
classes of transported convicts and re-
demptioners, but the statement is ap-
parently fair that the redemptioners
who sold themselves into service to pay
for the cost of their passage constituted
by far the larger portion. These were
IN, ~ ha
numerous in the southern and middle
colonies than in New. England. In
Virginia and Maryland they outnum-
bered the negro slaves until the latter
part of the seventeenth century. In
Massachusetts apprenticed servants.
bound for a term of years, were sold
from ships in Boston as late as 1870,
while the general trade in bound white
servants lasted until the time of the
revolution, and in Pennsylvania even
until this century.
~ghe first redeDltioners were natural
| ly of English birth, but after time they
were suppianted by those of other
nationalities, particularly by Germans
and Irisl2. AS early as 1718 there was a
complaint OF the Irish immigrants in
Massachusetts.
1t has been said that a great majority
of the redcmptioners belonged at first
to a low class in the social scale. a con-
siderable number, however, both men
and women, belonged to the re-
| spectacle, even to the so-called upper
class of society. They were sent. over
/ to preve.-c disadvactageous marriages,
! to secure inheritances to other members
of family or to further some criminal
| scheme.
Many of these bond servants sold
themselves into servitude, others were
disposed of through emigration brok-
ers and still others were kidnapped, be-
ing enticcd on shipboard by persons
called Spirits The evil of 'spiriting
away" both children and adults, be-
came SO great that in 1904 the commit
! tee for foreign plantations interposed,
| and the council created the office of
register, charged with the duty of keep
| ing a record CT all persons going to
America as servants, and the statement
that they had voluntarily left England.
| This act was soon followed by another
fixing the penalty of death, without
benefit of clergy, in every case where
persons were found guilty of Eidnap-
ing children or adults. But even these
extreme measures did not put an end
to the evil; and it is stated that 10000
persons were annually kidnapped after
the passage of the act.
The wages paid were, as a rule, small,
| though some complaints are found,
especially in New England, of high
wages and poor SERVICE More often the
wages were mere pittance. Elizabeth
Evans came from ireland to serve John
Wheelwright. for three years. Her
wages were to be three pounds a year
and passage paid. Margery Batman,
after five years of service in Charles
town, was to receive she goat toihelp
her in starting life. Mary Polly, accord
ing to the terms of her indenture, was
to serve ten years and then receive
three barrels of corn and one suit OF
penistone and one suit shirts of dowlas
and one black hood, two hifts of dowlas
and shoes and hose convenient.''-
Domestic Service.
CaAh in Hour Checks.