Bound over
Subtitle: indentured servitude and American conscience
By: by John van der Zee ; foreword by John Patrick Diggins.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1985
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 382
Subjects: Indentured servants -- United States -- History.; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Causes.; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Social aspects.
Description: From 1609 until well after the founding of the Republic, half of all the colonists who came to America did so under some form of involuntary labor. Author John van der Zee draws on original memoirs, newspapers, and pamphlets to re-create the life stories of a number of the remarkable men and women whose enshacklement and destitution paved the way for American freedom. From the narratives of convicts, redemptioners (who accepted servitude in exchange for transportation to America), and those who were "spirited away" (snatched against their will), van der Zee weaves a colorful "people's history" of colonial and Revolutionary times. In their own words and through their own eyes, we meet such men and women as the first labor organizer in America; the young nobleman whose memoirs inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped; and a real-life Moll Flanders. The book also offers a surprising new interpretation of the Revolution as growing out of this widespread practice of servitude.--From publisher description.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 365-373.
Includes index.