My earliest American ancestors were indentured servants. Where are my reparations?
I have read that the average life span of the white servants who came to the New World, until the new society learned to adapt to the new conditions, was about 7 or 8 years. During the 18th Century, however, after the population became acclimated, the population. began to grow at a phenomenal rate. The populastion boombs--among whites and black alike--was surely one cause for the American revolt. And we were healthier. The average American in the continental army was about 2 inches taller than his British counterpart, who, contrary to what has be said were not city dweller pressed into service but usually countrymen like their American opponents.
I've always been a little irritated that the Brits get a pass on the slave guilt. Many times I hear it from Brits who wish to trash America.
The simple fact is that slavery lasted much longer in the colonies under British rule than it did under American rule.
In my opinion, the Brits only declared the slaves free because they needed a ready made army to fight the revolution.
Accurate, well-researched historical scholarship presents a different picture.
While indentured servitude existed, it was limited to 7 years for volunteers and 10 years for convicts. In no case was it hereditary.
Some of the convicts had it rough in isolated mining camps and large plantations, but the big market demand was for skilled labor. A good carpenter or bricklayer could get away with a 4-year indenture.
Those who found their deal irksome often ran away. Since they were white and spoke English, they were usually never found.
I was under the impression that indentured servitude was (for the most part) voluntary. Generally, slavery was not something that one volunteered for.
Thanks for this article!!!
My family history is that when we first came from Germany in 1732, (Rudolf with his wife, two parents, two of his sisters), the sisters were indentured when they arrived to pay for part of the passage. They apparently wre not heard from again.
This is the first confirmation I've had that this was even possible!
btt
Let's get real here.
Cracker propaganda.
Just sayin'...
Being a descendant of white slaves just ain't politically correct enough for anyone in this gubment to care about (or our schools to teach about).
If I remember my history, one of the first Englishmen to start selling African slaves was Cap'n John Hawkins sometime before 1588.
He took ships to Africa, bought slaves from local tribes and shipped them to South America where he forced Spanish Colonists, who had been forbidden to trade with him, to buy them. He had most of his fleet destroyed at Vera Cruz Mexico and all slaves still aboard were sold in mexico by the Spanish.
His Coat of Arms showed a black man in chains.
Bump for later.
I want 40 mules and an acre.
The New Basin Canal was constructed by the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company, incorporated in 1831 with a capital of 4 million United States dollars. The intent was to build a shipping canal from Lake Pontchartrain through the swamp land to the booming Uptown or "American" section of the city, to compete with the existing Carondelet Canal in the Downtown Creole part of the city. Work commenced the following year. Yellow fever ravaged workers in the swamp in back of the town, and the loss of slaves was judged too expensive, so most of the work was done by Irish immigrant laborers. The Irish workers died in great numbers, but the Company had no trouble finding more workers to take their place, as shiploads of poor Irishmen arrived in New Orleans, and many were willing to risk their lives in hazardous backbreaking work for a chance to earn $1 a day.
This reminds me that I need to go buy a new pair of diverse shoes on Monday.
The area they came from actually pulled their money together to send groups of people to the New World so their voyage was already payed for. The captain kept going back to Europe to pick more people up who thought they were merely on a pilgrimage but each time him and the mayor would sale them into slavery.
They were from the upper Volga area of Russia and couldn't speak English so they couldn't get away and blend into the population. Occasionally some would escape and try to settle East just to get slaughtered by Indians or die some other way.
This went on for a very long time and only a fraction of the people survived.
So when I hear talk of reparations I laugh.
" White slaves transported to the colonies suffered a staggering loss of life in the 17th and l8th century.
During the voyage to America it was customary to keep the White slaves below deck for the entire nine to twelve week journey. A White slave would be confined to a hole not more than sixteen feet long, chained with 50 other men to a board, with padlocked collars around their necks.
The weeks of confinement below deck in the ship's stifling hold often resulted in outbreaks of contagious disease which would sweep through the "cargo" of White "freight" chained in the bowels of the ship.
Ships carrying White slaves to America often lost half their slaves to death.
According to historian Sharon v. Salinger, "Scattered data reveal that the mortality for White servants at certain times equaled that for Black slaves in the 'middle passage,' and during other periods actually exceeded the death rate for Black slaves." (Salinger, Sharon V., 'To Serve Well And Faithfully: Labor and Indenttured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800'. p.91.)
"A death rate of ten to twenty percent over the entire 18th century for Black slaves on board ships enroute to America compared with a death rate of 25% for White slaves enroute to America" (Salinger, Sharon V., 'To Serve Well And Faithfully: Labor and Indenttured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800'. p. 92).
Foster R. Dulles writing in Labor in America: A History, p. 6, states that whether convicts, children 'spirited' from the countryside or political prisoners, White slaves "experienced discomforts and sufferings on their voyage across the Atlantic that paralleled the cruel hardships undergone by negro slaves on the notorious Middle Passage."
Dulles says the Whites were "indiscriminately herded aboard the 'white guineamen,' often as many as 300 passengers on little vessels of not more than 200 tons burden--overcrowded, unsanitary... The mortality rate was sometimes as high as 50% and young children seldom survived the horrors of a voyage which might last anywhere from seven to twelve weeks."
Independent investigator A.B. Ellis in the 'Argosy' writes concerning the transport of White slaves, "The human cargo, many of whom were still tormented by unhealed wounds, could not all lie down at once without lying on each other. They were never suffered to go on deck. The hatchway was constantly watched by sentinels armed with hangers and blunder busses. In the dungeons below all was darkness, stench, lamentation, disease and death."
Marcus Jernegan describes the greed of the shipmasters which led to horrendous loss of life for White slaves transported to America:
"The voyage over often repeated the horrors of the famous 'middle passage' of slavery fame. An average cargo was three hundred, but the shipmaster, for greater profit, would sometimes crowd as many as six hundred into a small vessel.. .The mortality under such circumstances was tremendous, sometimes more than half...Mittelberger (an eyewitness} says he saw thirty-two children thrown into the ocean during one voyage." (Jernegan, Marcus W., 'Laboring and Dependent Classes in America, 1607-1783', pp. 50-51 ).
Stating that...The mercantile firms, as importers of White servants, were not too careful about their treatment, as the more important purpose of the transaction was to get ships over to South Carolina which could carry local produce back to Europe. Consequently the Irish--as well as others--suffered greatly."
"It was almost as if the British merchants had redirected their vessels from the African coast to the Irish coast, with the white servants coming over in much the same fashion as the African slaves." (Warren B. Smith, p. 42).
A study of the middle passage of White slaves was included in a Parliamentary Petition of 1659. It reported that "White slaves were locked below deck for two weeks while the slaveship was still in port. Once under way, they were all the way locked up under decks amongst horses. They were chained from their legs to their necks."
"Transports, traveled in double irons, were whipped and beaten." (Ekirch, Roger A., 'Bound For America', 1718-1775' p.101 ).
Of the White slaves bound for Maryland from London aboard the slaveship Justitia, at the mercy of the savage Capt. Barnet Bond, nearly one-third of the Whites died: "The very worst excesses were revealed during the voyage of the Justitia in 1743. Under the command of Barnet Bond...Bond set stringent water rations. Despite ample reserves of water on board, he allotted each transport only one pint a day. Some started to drink their own urine." (Ekirch, Roger A., 'Bound For America', 1718-1775', p.102).
Once the slaveships left British shores, "profit rather than penal policy shaped the character of transportation" and what happened to enslaved Whites overseas "Mattered little. As soon as they were safely consigned to merchants, authorities ,assumed no responsibility for their welfare." (Ekirch, Roger A., 'Bound For America', 1718-1775' p. 3).
"White slaves aboard ship were treated worse than dogs or swine and are kept much more uncleanly than those animals are." (Shaw, Charles, 'When I Was A Child' p. 35).
A witness who saw a White slave aboard a ship owned by the slaver John Stewart, reported: "All the states of horror I ever had an idea of are much short of what I saw this man in; chained to a board in a hole not above sixteen feet long, more than fifty with him; a collar and padlock about his neck, and chained to five of the most dreadful creatures I ever looked on."
Another observer watching the auction of a hundred White slaves in Williamsburg, Virginia remarked, "I never seen such passels of poor wretches in my life. Some almost naked." (Ekirch, Roger A., 'Bound For America', 1718-1775' , pp. 100 and 122).
One White woman slave, Elizabeth Dudgeon, had dared to talk back to a guard. She was trussed up to a ship's grating and mercilessly whipped. One of the ship's officers relished watching her lashed: "The corporal did not play with her, but laid it home, which I was very glad to see...she has long been fishing for it, which she has at last got to her heart's content." ('Journal of Ralph Clark', entry of July 3, 1787).
In order to realize the maximum profit from the trade in White slaves, the captains of the White Guineamen crammed their ships with as many poor Whites as possible, certain that even with the most callous disregard for the lives of the Whites the financial gain would still make the trip worth the effort. A loss of 20% of their White "cargo" was regarded as acceptable. But sometimes losses were much higher.
Out of 350 White slaves on a ship bound for the colonies in 1638 only 80 arrived alive. "We have thrown over board two and three in a day for many dayes together" wrote Thomas Rous, a survivor of the trip. A ship carrying White slaves in 1685, the Betty of London, left England with 100 White slaves and arrived in the colonies with 49 left.
A number of factors contributed to the higher death rates for White slaves than Blacks. Although the goal of maximum profits motivated both trades, it cost more to obtain Blacks from Africa than it did to capture Whites in Europe. White slaves were not cared for as well as Blacks because the Whites were cheaply obtained and were viewed as expendable.
"The African slave trade was not fully established in the early 17th century. The price of African slaves was prohibitively high and the English were neither familiar with nor committed to black slavery as a basic institution" (Beckles, Hilary 'White Servitude', p. 3).
Ship Captains involved in the White slave trade obtained White slaves with penal status either free of charge or were subsidized to take them, and for all other categories of White slaves, they paid at most a small sum to an agent to procure them, forefeiting only the cost of their keep on board ship if they died.
Moreover, traders in Black slaves operated ships designed solely for the purpose of carrying human cargo with the intent of creating conditions whereby as many Black slaves as possible would reach America alive. White slave ships were cargo ships with no special provisions for passengers.
In addition, transportation rules decreed that, in cases where White slaves were sold in advance to individual planters in America, if the White slave survived the voyage beyond the halfway point in the journey, the planter in America--not the captain of the slave ship-- would be responsible for the costs of the White slaves' provisions whether or not the slave survived the trip. Captains of the slaveships became infamous for providing sufficient food for only the first half of the trip and then virtually starving their White captives until they arrived in America.
" Jammed into filthy holds, manacled, starved and abused, they suffered and died during the crossings in gross numbers. Thousands were children under 12, snatched off the streets." (Kendall, p. 1 ).
"The transportation became a profitable enterprise. Traders delivered thousands of bound laborers to Pennsylvania and exhibited a callous disregard for their cargoes" (Salinger, Sharon V., 'To Serve Well And Faithfully: Labor and Indenttured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800'p. 88).
As a result, White slaves on board these ships suffered a high rate of disease.
"Transportation of White slaves remained a branch of commerce wedded to carrying human cargoes at minimal expense. Sizable numbers never reached American shores from disease, and mistreatment." (Ekirch, Roger A., 'Bound For America', 1718-1775', p. 108).
The number of diseased White slaves arriving was high enough for Pennsylvania officials to recommend a quarantine law for them. Thus a new torment was to be endured for White slaves who "Were often stopped just short of the New World, with land in sight, and forced to remain quarantined on board ships in which they had just spent a horrifying ten to twelve weeks" (Salinger, Sharon V., 'To Serve Well And Faithfully: Labor and Indenttured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800' p. 89).
In 1738 Dr. Thomas Graeme reported to the colonial Council of Pennsylvania that if two ships crammed with White slaves were allowed to land, "It might prove Dangerous to the health of the Inhabitants of this Province." ("Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania," Colonial Records, 4:306).
Ships filled with diseased White slaves landed anyway. In 1750 an island was established for their quarantine, Fisher Island, at the mouth of Schuylkill River. But the establishment of the quarantine area did nothing to protect the health of the White slaves and the island was more typical of Devil's Island than a place of recuperation.
In 1764 a clergyman, Pastor Helmuth, visited Fisher island and described it as "a land of the living dead, a vault full of living corpses."
"Before 1650, however, the greater victims of man's inhumanity were the mass of white Christian servants who suffered at the hands of callous, white Christian masters. For the time being, with all of their troubles, the blacks had it better." (Bridenbaugh, Roberta , 'No Peace Beyond the Line: The English in the Caribbean, 1624-1690', p. 120).
"Sold to a master in Merion, near Philadelphia, David Evans was put to work 'hewing and uprooting trees'--land clearing, the most arduous of colonial labor, work that was spared black slaves because they were too valuable." (Van Der Zee, John, 'Bound Over: Indentured Servitude and the American Conscience', p. 138).
"Negroes are, therefore, almost in every instance, under more comfortable circumstances than the miserable European, over whom the rigid planter exercises an inflexible rigidity. They are strained to the utmost to perform their allotted labor. They frequently try to escape, but very few are successful, and when apprehended, are committed to close confinement, advertised, and delivered to their respective masters. The unhappy culprit is doomed to a severe chastisement; and a prolongation of servitude is decreed. Those who survive, seldom establish their residence." (William Eddis, 'Letters From America', [published in 1792] Letter VI).
In the British West Indies the torture visited upon White slaves by their masters was routine. Masters hung White slaves by their hands and set their hands on fire as a means of punishment. To end this barbarity, Colonel William Brayne wrote to English authorities in 1656 urging the importation of negro slaves on the grounds that, "...as the planters would have to pay much for them, they would have an interest in preserving their lives, which was wanting in the case of Whites." many of whom, he charged, were killed by overwork and cruel treatment. "
That recount was worse than I knew. What I learned was that the average term of servitude was 7 years. The average life expectancy was 5 years. In essence if the indentured slave were owned, why work them to death? (The best Over Terrain Vehicle is a rental car, not the one you own.) I believe my version was in a documentary from the History Channel.
Anyone know the average life expectancy for a Black slave?