The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1928-02-23

| Creme Settlers did not stop with
their first two thousand acres, but
ambitiously increased their holdings
by taking on more servants. These
they obtained from contractors" a
class of people like the master of the
ship Sophia who made their business
the transporting of servants from
abroad.
Since servants We're so much de-
sired it was a happy coincidence that
so many were eager to come. But in
such a state of things it was inevita-
BILE that great many were made SER
wants against their will. All over Eu-
rope the most helpless of the lower
class were kidnapped by rogues of con-
tractors. Many a fellow who allowed
himself to become drunk in the even
ing woke up in the morning to find
himself on ship and en- route for an
other continent. Also there were the
"redemptioners," people who had
come over of their own free will and
had promised to pay back their pas
sage in a certain period of time; if, as
was too often the case, they were dis
appointed in their hopes of quick
money, they were sold by the ship
owners to pay for their passage.
Still other classes of the "shang-
haied" were the rounded-up Migrants
and unprovided-for or orphaned chill
dren. Finally there were the convicts,
| the one class of servants the Colonists
did not want but whom His Majesty
insisted on their accepting.
With all these classes of servants, a
veritable army, we can see now, our
forefathers were able to subdue a
wilderness. One may be sure that
| under such a system servants took
their orders Immediately and did not
talk back. The system of white serv-
itude apparently was just the system
for the times. 1t enabled our ances-
tors to effect a physical and social or
ganization of their lives amid difficult
ties which were all but insuperable.
But even if white servitude helped
the country was it not rather hard on
the servants themselves? Strange to
say, it does not seem to have been.
The white servants not only refrained
from many Bolshevistic activities but
they did not evince any notable dis
content. There were many runaway
servants, to be sure, but more often
than not they ran away out Of their
own perversity. 1t may be mentioned
incidentally that the death penalty for
fugitives was practically never APP
piled; the punishment was taken out
in imposition of additional time of
service.
A certain minimum of good treat
ment was assured the servant by law.
The papers of indenture signed before
embarking committed the master to
duties also, and if he did not give de-
cent maintenance or treatment he was
legally liable. Aside from the law
itself there seems to have existed in
most of the masters certain sponta-
neous kindliness. On one occasion
a woman servant of Maryland was
ransomed by popular subscription be-
cause she had an obnoxious master
and aroused sympathy.
1t may, after all, seem strange that
men could have so easily stomached
serfdom. But one cannot read beck
into the workers of those times the
proud passion for liberty of today.
This clearly can be seen in the writ
ings of George Alsop, Maryland re-
demptioner, who left literary docu-
ment of the peculiar mentality of his
class. In one place, after giving var
ious instances of necessary relations
of inferiority, he piously says: "And
since it is ordained from the original
and superabounding wisdom of all
things that there should be degrees
and diversities among the sons of men
in acknowledgment superiority from
interiors to superiors; the servant
with reverent and beftting obedi-
ence is as liable to this duty in a
measurable performance to him whom
he serves, as the loyalist Of subjects
to his prince"
It is an interesting commentary on
the late growth of democratic senti-
ment that not even the American rev.
olution saw the end of this institution.
So deeply rooted was it in the eco
nomic custom of the country that it
did not die until about 1915. And then
it was not so much hostile sentiment
that killed it as the simple fact that
it had outlived it's usefulness.
By 1915 the country had been
placed upon a firm economic basis;
hordes of black slaves had been
brought in and European conditions
were no longer so bad as to cause
wholesale immigration.
AS for the white servants them
selves their venturesome voyage to a
new continent had in most cases re-
suited we'll for themselves and their
posterity. Starting with the little
nucleus of fifty acres, corn, ETC., they
had worked their way up into the
middle classes as self-made men in
the most eminent sense Some of them