Bradford, 178-184. Bradford, 283-292. Equally unfortunate was the enterprise of Robert Gorges, who came to Weymouth in the following year. Sir Fernando sent his younger son clothed with great authority. He had received an extensive grant of land and the commission of governor general for all New England. A year's experience of the hardships of pioneer life discouraged this luxurious gentleman. "Not finding the state of things here to answer his quality and condition," says Bradford, he returned to England in disgust. No less disheartening was the attempt of another representative of Sir Fernando, Thomas Morton "of Clifford's Inn, Gent," to found a colony at Mount Wollaston. His people were runaway servants and other ne'er-do-weels who spent their time in drinking and riot to the great annoyance of the men of Plymouth. The merrymakers at Merrymount may not have been so disreputable as the Pilgrims believed, but their practice of selling rum and firearms to the Indians menaced the safety of all the neighboring settlements. Plymouth was besought to send her little army and prevent the growth of this mischief." Morton was arrested and sent back to England, and his dissolute company was dispersed. John White, the Dorchester clergyman who was laying wise The Planter's plans for the Massachusetts Bay colony, pointed out that such "rude and ungovernable persons, the very scum of the land, were unfit instruments for the planting of a commonwealth." White, Plea. Bacon's VI, 457. 66 Lord Bacon, who was deeply interested in the London Company's experiment, echoed this protest in his Essay on Plantations (1625). "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, and wicked and condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so but it spoileth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation. The people wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, laborers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers." The Labor Supply Hist. of New Brown, Genesis of the United States, I, 252, 352, 506, 688. The most serious problem encountered by landowners was the difficulty of securing a sufficient force of laborers. Ablebodied men who would work for hire were scarce in the colonies and wages were consequently high. The attempt Weeden, to regulate wages in accordance with English precedent Econ. Soc. failed utterly. The statute passed by the General Court of Eng., Massachusetts in 1630 was frequently revised and finally 1, 98-99. repealed. The natives were lazy, at least in the estimation of the whites, and showed no aptitude for field work. The attempts made to force the Indians to manual labor were unsuccessful. The captives sickened and died. In England, on the other hand, artisans and field laborers were falling into poverty and crime for lack of means to earn an honest living, and the parish officers were eager to rid themselves of the paupers and dissolute persons with whom their jails and workhouses were filled. It was thought a thrifty and benevolent scheme to send this surplus population to America. The London Company undertook to meet half the cost of transportation and maintenance for all children sent them by the parish authorities, on the understanding that they were bound to service from the day of their arrival in Virginia until they came of age. The Company undertook to provide these little servants with food and clothing during their term of service, to teach them some trade, and to assign to each boy, when his freedom year arrived, fifty acres of land to cultivate, a cow, seed corn, tools, and firearms. He then became the Company's tenant, paying one half the produce of his farm for seven years, at the end of which term he was insured full possession of twenty-five acres. One hundred pauper children were sent to Virginia from the city of London in 1619 and one hundred more in 1620. Indentured Servants. After the collapse of the Company, Bruce, individual planters began to import servants on similar terms. I, Ch. IX. A written contract or indenture bound master and man to the fulfillment of their mutual obligations. The term varied with the age of the servant; if over twenty-one years of age he was to serve four years, if under twelve, seven. For persons between twelve and twenty the usual term of service was five years. A law enacted in 1666 made the general requirement of five years' service from persons imported at nineteen years or over. Servants under that age were to serve until their twenty-fourth year. Children were preferred to adults because they were usually more teachable, the cost of maintenance was less, and the term of service longer. Hundreds of these unfortunates were indentured by their relatives, or transported by the parish guardians, or kidnapped by the agents of shipmasters, to be bound over on their arrival in Virginia to the planter who offered most for their services. Fourteen or fifteen hundred such children were sent over in 1627. Legislation against the practice seemed futile. In 1680 the English authorities estimated that some ten thousand persons were each year "spirited away to America by force or fraud. Of the adults brought over many were criminals whose death sentence had been commuted to a term of service in the plantations. The Council in Virginia early protested against the foisting of felons on that colony, and a law passed the House of Burgesses (1671) and was approved by the governor prohibiting the reception of such persons. Seven years later this law was set aside to give opportunity for the transportation of political offenders. Shiploads of Irish rebels had been sent to America during Cromwell's occupation of Ireland. Cavaliers were transported from England in like manner for their championship of the Stuarts. After the restoration of Charles II, batches of Roundheads were sent to the colonies to be sold into service. Scotchmen involved in the insurrection of 1678 and the English farmers and laborers who joined in Monmouth's rebellion were also transported to America. They were carried to the Barbadoes or to Jamaica or to any coast port where there was good chance of finding a purchaser. The greater number were disposed of in the Southern colonies, where estates were cultivated on a large scale. Indentured servants were not so much in demand on the little New England farms. Beverley, Ch. X. The law did what it could to protect the indentured servant in his rights. If the master failed to provide adequate food and lodging or treated his man with undue harshness, the latter had recourse to the county court. The commis- Bruce, sioners were authorized to annul the contract if the master II, Ch. X. did not make amends. The law required that in case of sickness a physician should be furnished, and if the servant became permanently incapacitated the master must still provide for him till the end of his term; thereafter the parish was responsible. On the other hand, the county officers were bound to assist in the recapture of runaway servants. Men, boats, and horses were impressed for the search until the fugitive was restored to his master. He was then obliged to serve double the time of his unexpired term and to pay the costs of capture. He might be whipped or branded in the cheek if the offense were repeated. Whatever may be thought of the morals of this labor system, its economic advantages were many. Laborers were transferred from the place where they were not wanted to a place where they were in demand. Their passage money was paid by an employer who was guaranteed against loss by a claim of from five to ten years of service. When the term expired, master and servant presented themselves at the county court and a certificate of emancipation was made out and duly signed. The servant was then presented with Geiser, ten bushels of grain, two suits of clothes, firearms, etc., suffi- Redemptioncient to secure him against want. The emancipated servant Indentured could earn good wages as a free laborer or he might acquire Servants in land. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey redemptioners were Pennsylgranted fifty acres to cultivate in their own right. ers and vania. Bruce, African Slaves. Toward the close of the seventeenth century the supply of servants from the British Isles fell short, and laborers were provided from another source. A shipload of negroes, captured on the Gold Coast, had been II, Ch. XI. brought to Jamestown by a Dutch trader in 1619 as a busi- Weeden, ness venture. The West India Company sent other ship- II, Ch. XII. Kalm, Travels into loads from time to time, but they found their best market in the West Indies. There were only three hundred Africans in Virginia in 1650 and but two thousand in 1671. An English commercial corporation- the Royal African Company chartered in 1662, was given (1687) exclusive monopoly of trade between the Gold Coast and the British colonies. Under the auspices of the Duke of York, the commerce in slaves was encouraged and great numbers were sent to the Atlantic coast for sale. The Africans came direct from barbarism, but they proved tractable and were physically better adapted to field labor in a hot climate than the servants imported from the British Isles. It was soon apparent that the slave was a more economical investment than the indentured servant. The initial cost was greater. The passage money paid to secure a servant amounted to from 6 to 10, while the price of a slave varied from £10 to £50; but the servant was bound for a limited term, while the slave was bound for life. His children, moreover, became the property of his master. The slave was fed and clothed more cheaply than the servant, for there was no contract, and the slave had no standing in the courts against his master. The African had less skill and intelligence than the white servant, but high grade labor was not necessary for extensive agriculture. Slaves were bought and sold all along the Atlantic coast. They were less in demand in the Northern colonies where more intelligent labor was required and where the climate was too severe for men and women fresh from tropic Africa. In 1721, when the slave trade was at its height, there were few blacks in New England. In New York the number was seven thousand, or one seventh of the total population. In Pennsylvania the slave population made up one thirteenth of the total. In Maryland it was nearly half, in Virginia more than half, in North Carolina one third, while in South Carolina the blacks outnumbered the whites in the ratio of four to three. The benevolent projectors of the Georgia colony forbade the holding of slaves, but their intentions were overruled by the planters, who asserted that the hot |