White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America (36 page)

The servants’ legal right to take grievances to court is revealed as virtually worthless. Time and again over fifty years, Ridgely servants went to court, usually claiming they were being held beyond their time, and there is only a single instance of the court finding against the company. Moreover, every unsuccessful servant litigant found him/herself listed as a ‘runaway’ and penalised – very probably by serving extra time.

Giveaway references to neck rings (iron collars), a company jail and whipping appeared in the archive. There was also a letter from an English doctor denouncing the Ridgelys for cruelty to their servants. The Ridgelys were typical, judging from David Waldstreicher’s study
Runaway America
: ‘Much available evidence suggests that the risks to and the possibilities for profit drove masters to treat their bondsmen with a cruelty and lack of care more often associated with the slave societies of the Caribbean.’16

One of the justifications of earlier English moves to dump the unwanted in America was redemption of their souls. The idea of villains finding salvation in the tough climes of Virginia was voiced by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, James I, John Donne and a galaxy of others. However, it did not feature in the 1717 Transportation Act nor were convicts offered a glimpse of eventual salvation after arriving in America. In 1749, Virginia’s burgesses decided that even 258

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when a convict’s term was served, and even if he or she became a successful landowner, they would be second-class citizens for ever.

Ex-convicts were denied the right to vote and in this they were grouped with children and slaves.

In contrast, the lot of non-convict servants seemed to improve.

They were still being imported but in smaller numbers. In 1753, the Virginia Assembly imposed a five-year maximum on the time in servitude to be served by poor immigrants arriving without indentures. The same law tried to deter masters from dumping servants who fell ill, laying it on every owner as an obligation to care for sick or lame servants during their whole period of service.

But in other ways nothing changed. Indentured servants were still chattels and the Virginia Assembly reminded them of their place.

In the 1750s, it extended earlier legislation ordering complete obedience to masters. Servants who disobeyed their owners’

‘just and lawful commands, and resist or offer violence to master, mistress or overseer’ had a year more of servitude added for each offence. Punishments for runaway servants were also increased

– yet again.

As for the prospects of servants after they eventually attained freedom, they appear to have diminished as colonies developed and became more stratified. In
Down and Out in Early America
, Gary B. Nash quotes data showing this to be the case in Maryland after the 1660s and in Pennsylvania after the 1740s. Nearly three out of four servants freed in Pennsylvania ended up on the public dole and ‘only a handful ever became property holders’.17

In many eyes, all servants – and not just convict servants – were scum. So thought the Reverend Hugh Jones, a professor in the 1720s and 1730s at America’s first great seat of learning, the William and Mary College:

The servants and inferior sort of people, who have either been sent over to Virginia, or have transported themselves thither, have been, and are, the poorest, idlest, and worst of mankind, the refuse of Great Britain and Ireland, and the outcast of the people.

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The Reverend Jones thought the convicts among them had nothing to complain about: ‘Their being sent thither to work as slaves for punishment, is but a mere notion, for few of them ever lived so well and so easy before.’18

Was there an especially southern bias against servants? The Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter thought so.

He suggested that the plantation practice of buying both convict and non-convict servants, and so putting honest unfortunates and hardened criminals together, caused them to be ‘lumped all together as rogues who deserved no better than what was meted out to them’.19

However, in New England where few convicts were sold and there were not many free-willers, there was just as much distaste for servants, judging from a withering article in the
Boston Gazette
in 1725. The main target was Irish servants, who were then overtaking the English on the migrant ships:

The masters of servants going to Ireland knowing the great want of servants here pick up all the vagabonds they can find to make up a cargo. Fellows and wenches brought up to no other employment than the picking [of] St Patrick’s vermin and driving them out of their strongholds . . . they serve us for no other purposes than to plague their masters and mistresses and to debauch their children. This gives us an ill opinion of foreigners, especially those coming from Ireland when the truth of it is the best of them stay at home

. . . and generally the very scum of the nation, both freemen and servants visit the plantations.

Few servants were in a position to argue their own case and we know very little about them as individuals. One exception is Elizabeth Sprigs, whose pathetic letter home in 1756 was as desperate and futile as that penned by that other indentured servant, Richard Frethorne, 134 years earlier:

Honored Father,

My being for ever banished from your sight, will I hope 260

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pardon the boldness I now take of troubling you with these, my long silence has been purely owning to my undutifulness to you, and well knowing I had offended in the highest degree, put a tie to my tongue and pen, for fear I should be extinct from your good graces and add a further trouble to you, but too well knowing your care and tenderness for me so long as I retained my duty to you, induced me once again to endeavour if possible, to kindle up that flame again. O Dear Father, believe what I am going to relate the words of truth and sincerity, and balance my former bad conduct my sufferings here, and then I am sure you’ll pity your distress daughter. What we unfortunate English people suffer here is beyond the probability of you in England to conceive, let it suffice that I one of the unhappy number, am toiling almost day and night, and very often in the horses drudgery, with only this comfort that you bitch you do not half enough, and then tied up and whipped to that degree that you’d not serve an animal, scarce any thing but Indian corn and salt to eat and that even begrudged nay many Negroes are better used, almost naked no shoes nor stockings to wear, and the comfort after slaving during masters pleasure, what rest we can get is to rap ourselves up in a blanket and lie upon the ground, this is the deplorable condition your poor Betty endures, and now I beg if you have any bowels of compassion left show it by sending me some relief, clothing is the principal thing wanting, which if you should condescend to, may easily send them to me by any of the ships bound to Baltimore Town.

Honored Father

Your undutiful and disobedient child

Elizabeth Sprigs
20

Her father did not reply because he never received his daughter’s letter. England and France were at war and a French man-of-war captured the vessel taking the letter to England. Then the Royal Navy captured the Frenchman and all the paperwork it carried was sent to the Admiralty. Elizabeth Sprigs’ letter lay in the Admiralty 261

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vaults unread for 300 years. We can only speculate about the young woman’s fate.

There is an amazing resource that tells us a lot more about the eighteenth-century servant. It is the hundreds of runaway ads placed in the colonial press by masters hunting escaped servants. In the nineteenth century, the quarry was the runaway black slave; in much of the eighteenth century, the runaway was more likely to be white.

There is no more vivid an insight into this class of people than the wanted notices posted by their masters. The selection below is from the
Maryland Gazette
, the
Virginia Gazette
and the
Pennsylvania
Gazette
. It covers regular indentured servants and convict servants.

There were always many Irish amongst the escapers: TWENTY POUNDS REWARD. Run away from . . .

Alexandria, Fairfax County, Virginia, a convict servant man, named John Murphey, born in Ireland, about 28

Years of Age, by trade a joiner, a low set fellow, about 5

feet 4 inches high, struts in his walk, has a pale complexion, large black beard and eyebrows, wide mouth, and pleasant countenance, sings extraordinarily well, having followed it in the playhouses in London, talks proper English, and that in a polite manner . . . It is imagined he has forged a pass, and likely will deny his name, trade and place of nativity.

N.B. All Masters of Vessels are forbid to take him off at their Peril. (August 1760)

RUN away from the subscriber, living in Lancaster . . . a Native Irish Servant Woman, named Katey Norton, who came from the County of Wicklow, in Ireland, last Fall, she is about 25 or 26 years of age, of a dark complexion, has black hair, talks in the Irish dialect, rocks in her walk, and is pretty sharp in talking . . . she is a cunning hussey, and no doubt will pass a while for an honest woman, as she has good clothes with her, and can behave herself. Whoever takes up said woman, and brings her to the subscriber, in Lancaster, shall have three pounds reward, and reasonable Charges, paid by me ROBERT FULTON. (July 1763)

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There were many English-born runaways, too, including one who presumably had something on her master:

Run away, last night, from the workhouse in Chester, a servant girl that belonged to Thomas Blair in West New Jersey; she was advertised some time ago in this Gazette by the name of Elizabeth Burk, but changes her name often . . . is about 18 years of age, of small stature, dark complexion, and speaks much through her nose. Had on

. . . a blue calimancoe gown, striped linsey petticoat, and a black silk bonnet, was bare footed… Four pounds reward, and reasonable charges.

N.B. I desire that all persons would take notice of this advertisement, and secure the girl, wherever found, as it will ruin me if she is not got; and not to believe what she says, as she will certainly tell many lies. (July 1, 1756) Some runaways looked like murderers:

RUN away, on the 20th instant, four convict servant men (Englishmen) . . . Francis Wignall . . . a stout able fellow, and about 5 feet 10 inches high . . . Stephen Devoux . . . a grim looking lusty fellow, and much pitted with the smallpox

. . . James Trump . . . a yellow complexion, has a remarkable scabbed head, and wears on it a striped worsted cap and felt hat. John Henes . . . walks very lame, occasioned by one leg being much shorter than the other Reward 20s shillings per servant. (June 1766)

Some runaways were murderers:

Whereas, Alexander Jamieson and John Skerum, two servant men, belonging to me, as they were returning from Norfolk, in a small schooner . . . did barbarously murder Mr. Tobias Horton, their Skipper, (his body having been since found on the Bay Shore, nigh Windmill Point) and ran away with the Vessel . . . As Jamieson has been used to go by water, they 263

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will probably pass for sailors, and endeavour to make their escape, by getting on board some vessels, outward bound; wherefore it is expected all commanders will strictly examine their crew before sailing, to prevent, if possible, the escape of such barbarous murderers. (September 1745)

A great many servants carried scars, most from disease but some from whippings:

Ran away . . . last month, a convict servant man, named Edward Ormsby: He is an Irishman, of a low stature, has an impediment in his speech . . . ’Tis suppos’d he is gone away in company with a mulatto woman, known by the name of Anne Relee, alias Bush; who being whipt last court held for the County of King George, may possibly have the marks on her back. Two pistols reward besides what the law allows.

(April 1737)

James Brannon . . . an Irishman born, about 20 years of age

. . . much afflicted with the kick kicksey and jaundice, and, if observed is much scarring about the arms, and many other parts of his body . . . (October 1753)

RAN away from the Subscriber, in Richmond County . . .

two servants, a man and a woman. The man, named Brian Cagan, is a tall thin man, about fifty years of age, wears his own black hair . . . Had on, when he went away, a dark brown coat, a blue great coat, and a pair of blue plush breeches . . . The woman named Mary Ramshire, is of a middle age and stature, a fresh complexion, has several scars on her face, and one on her arm. Five pounds reward besides what the law allow. (June 1738)

Many servants fled in groups and they must have been easy to spot unless they got to New York or Boston and lost themselves in the crowds:

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RAN away, on Tuesday Night . . . four servant men, viz.

John Tomlins, a tall, thin fellow, about 26 Years old, very much disfigur’d with the Small-Pox . . . John Minor, a tall well-set fellow, about the same age, he had on a light drab coat and breeches, with a white wig . . . Thomas Lee, a tall, thin man, a convict, has lost one of his Fingers . . . George Barry, a lad about 16 or 17 years of age, a convict. (April 1738)

Frequently, such advertisements featured black slaves and white servants, who, as in the 1600s, were still fighting back together, often by running away together:

RAN away, on Saturday the 15th instant, at night, from Mr.

Humphry Brooke, in King William County, a servant man, nam’d John Harris, a Welshman . . . A Negro man, nam’d Abraham, belonging to Col. George Braxton. And a Negro man, nam’d Windsor, belonging to the subscriber . . . The Negroes are both Virginia born, and are sensible fellows.

They went away by water, and ’tis suppos’d will endeavour for Carolina, the Eastern Shore, or up the Bay. (July 1738) RUN away . . . a Negro man named Temple, about 35 years old, well set, about 5 feet 6 inches high, has a high forehead, and thick bushy beard; he took a gun with him . . . Likewise run away . . . two indented servants, imported from London last September, viz. Joseph Wain aged 22 years, about 5 feet 4 inches high, round shouldered, stoops pretty much in his walk, has a down look, and understands ploughing. William Cantwell of Warwuckshire, aged 19, about the same height, and stoops a little. (May 1766)