Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
From the _American Weekly Mercury_, February 18, 1729:
Lately arrived from London, a parcel of very likely English
servants, men and women, several of the men Tradesmen; to be
sold reasonable and Time allowed for payment. By Charles Read of
Philadelphia, or Capt. John Ball, on board his ship, at _Anthony
Millkinson’s Wharf_.
From the same for May 22, 1729, announcements of two ships:
There is just arrived from Scotland, a parcel of choice _Scotch
Servants_; Taylors, Weavers, Shoemakers and ploughmen, some for
five and others for seven years; Imported by James Coults, etc.
Just arrived from London in the ship _Providence_, Capt. Jonathan
Clarke, a parcel of very likely _servants_, most Tradesmen, to be
sold on reasonable Terms.
The several nationalities were appraised and rated by careful merchants
and the fittest import seasons considered.[135] The “best time for
Servants is about the month of May,” one merchant wrote to his agent in
Ireland; and another warned, “Irish servants will be very dull, such
numbers have already arrived from Different parts & many more expected,
that I believe it will be overdone, especially as several Dutch vessels
are expected here, which will always command the Market.”[136]
In the middle colonies, particularly Pennsylvania, the greater number
of servants came from the Rhine country. Deceived by swindling agents,
thousands of German peasants, eager to get away from their war-harried
and plundered homes, sold themselves into servitude to pay their
passage to America. For the better part of a century these German
redemptioners thronged the ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore, as the
following news items testify:
From _Der Hoch Deutsche Pennsylvanische Bericht_, August 16, 1750:
Six ships with Irish servants have arrived at Philadelphia, and two
ships with German Newcomers. Some say 18 more on their way here;
others say 24 and still others 10,000 persons.
From the same, December 16, 1750:
Capt. Hasselwood has arrived from Holland with the latest ship that
brought Germans. It is the fourteenth that has come laden with
Germans this year. 4,317 have registered in the Court House....
Besides these, 1,000 servants and passengers arrived from Ireland
and England.[137]
Of the human side of this widespread traffic some little idea may
be got from the diary of a certain John Harrower, a man of modest
education who became an articled schoolmaster to a Virginia family in
the year 1774. Following are some entries:
Wednesday, 26th. [January, 1774.] This day I being reduced to
the last shilling was obliged to engage to go to Virginia for
four years, as a schoolmaster for Bedd, Board, washing and five
pounds during the whole time. I have also wrote my wife this day a
particular Acct of everything that has happened to me since I left
her until this date....
Munday 31st ... It is surprising to see the No. of good tradesmen
of all kinds, th’t come on b’d every day ... while the Clerk was
filling up the Indentures the doctor search’d every serv’t to see
that they were sound ... seventy-five were Intend [indented] to
Capt Bowres for four Years....
Munday 7th ... at 4 pm put a servant ashore extreamly bade in a
fever, and then got under saile for Virginia with seventy Servants
on board all indented to serve four yeares there at their different
Occupations....
Munday, May 2nd.... At 2 pm the Capt carried five servts ashore to
Hampton in order to sell their Indentures, But returned again at
Midnight with[out] selling any more but one Boat Builder....
Freiday, 6th ... at Hobshole there was five Glasgow ships and an
English Brigantine lying, at 2 pm we passed by Leedstown on our
Star board hand where there was a ship from London lying with
convicts....
Wednesday, 11th.... At 10 A M Both Coopers and the Barber from our
Mace [mess] went ashore upon tryall. At night one Daniel Turner a
servt returned onb’d from Liberty so Drunk that he abused the Capt
and Chief Mate and Boatswan to a verry high degree, which made
him to be horse whipt, put in Irons and thumb screwed, on houre
afterward he was unthumbscrewed, taken out of the Irons, but then
he was hand cuffed, and gagged all night....
Munday, 16th. This day severalls came on b’d to purchase servts
Indentures and among them there was two soul drivers, they are
Men who made it their business to go on b’d all ships who have
in either Servants or Convicts and buy sometimes the whole and
sometimes a parcell of them as they can agree, and then they drive
them through the Country like a parcell of Sheep until they can
sell them to advantage, but all went away without buying any....
Munday, 23rd [May] ... at same time all the rest of the servants
were ordered ashore to a tent at Fredericksbg and several of their
indentures were then sold, about 4 pm I was brought to Colonel
Daingerfield, when we immediately agreed and my Indenture for four
years was then delivered him and he was to send for me the next
day.[138]
In some such fashion, year after year, thousands of immigrants were
transported to America, there to mingle their blood with that of the
earlier comers. They came as social derelicts, were greeted by the
awaiting “soul-drivers,” found masters, worked and got on, or lost
heart and slipped away into the tempting backcountry whither so many
broken men went in search of refuge. They were a plebeian lot, and they
endured the common fate of the underling. Very likely they transmitted
to their children a bitter hostility to the ways of an aristocratic
society, the residuum of old grievances, and this slowly accumulating
animus was eventually to count heavily with lower-class colonials in
favor of a more democratic order in the new world.
II • The Frontier • Lubberland
The frontier, which exercised so creative an influence in shaping
American character and institutions, was regarded in very different
lights by the gentleman and the commoner. To the former it was no other
than lubberland, the abode of rude leveling, the temptation to gross
social laxity. It drew away servants who were needed, and kept the
price of real estate low; and such very different persons as Cotton
Mather and John Dickinson agreed in desiring to stop the constant
drain into the backcountry, and keep settlers in the older portions.
Descriptions of the frontier indited by aristocratic pens convey an
idea very different from later democratic conceptions, and paint the
ancestors of later Jacksonians in unlovely colors.
Among the earliest of these records is _The Private Journal kept by
Madam Knight on a Journey from Boston to New York in the Year 1704_.
Madam Knight was a sprightly and intelligent woman, keeper of a dame’s
school in Boston, who set down in the journal some of the odd things
that came under her sharp eyes on her venturesome trip on horseback.
As she drew away from the older settlements, signs of relaxing social
convention multiplied with the worsening of the road. Connecticut,
which had always been too democratic to suit the Boston taste, she
found “a little too much Independant in their principalls.” It was not
careful to uphold proper social distinctions, but inclined to a free
and easy leveling altogether offensive:
... They Generally lived very well and comfortable in their
famelies. But too Indulgent (especially ye farmers) to their
slaves: suffering too great familiarity from them, permitting ym
to sit at Table and eat with them (as they say to save time), and
into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand. They
told me that there was a farmer lived nere the Town where I lodged
who had some difference with his slave, concerning something the
master had promised him and did not punctually perform; wch caused
some hard words between them; But at length they put the matter to
Arbitration and Bound themselves to stand to the award of such as
they named--wch done, the Arbitrators Having heard the Allegations
of both parties, Order the master to pay 40s to black face, and
acknowledge his fault. And so the matter ended; the poor master
very honestly standing to the award.[139]
In the unsettled country strange figures with rude decivilized ways
made their appearance. Here is a description of one such product of the
wilderness:
I had scarce done thinking, when an Indian-like Animal come to the
door, on a creature very much like himselfe, in mien and feature,
as well as Ragged cloathing; and having ’litt, makes an Awkerd
Scratch with his Indian shoo, and a Nodd, sitts on ye block,
fumbles out his black Junk [salt meat?], dipps it in ye ashes, and
presents it piping hott to his muscheeto’s (?), and fell to sucking
like a calf, without speaking, for near a quarter of an hower. At
length the old man said how do’s Sarah do? who I understood was the
wretches wife, and Daughter to ye old man.[140]
She thus describes a squatter’s hut in the backwoods:
This little Hutt was one of the wretchedest I ever saw a habitation
for human creatures. It was suported with shores enclosed with
Clapboards, laid on Lengthways, and so much asunder, that the
Light come throu’ everywhere; the doore tyed on with a cord in ye
place of hinges; The floor the bear earth; no windows but such
as the thin covering afforded, nor any furniture but a Bedd with
a glass Bottle hanging at ye head on’t; an earthan cupp, a small
pewter bason, A Bord with sticks to stand on, instead of a table,
and a block or two in ye corner instead of chairs. The family were
the old man, his wife and two children; all and every part being
the picture of poverty. Notwithstanding both the Hutt and its
Inhabitance were very clean and tydee.[141]
As Madam Knight meditated upon the causes of such poverty, she came to
a characteristic Boston conclusion:
We may Observe here the great necessity and benefitt both of
Education and Conversation: for these people have as Large a
portion of mother witt, and sometimes Larger, than those who have
bin brought up in Citties; but for want of emprovements, Render
themselves almost Ridiculos, as above.[142]
It is in the chatty narrative of Colonel William Byrd of Virginia,[143]
that we find the earliest detailed description of the fringe of
squatter settlements. Colonel Byrd was the first gentleman of Virginia,
a man of old-world education and some literary taste,[144] polished
manners, and a vast number of acres of choice land which he had
acquired and held largely tax-free, by means well understood among
Virginia gentlemen.[145] Among the several capacities in which he
served the commonwealth in return for his many acres, was to act as
a member of a joint commission which in the year 1728 ran a boundary
line between Virginia and North Carolina. As he sat his horse in the
capacity of overseer, he observed many amusing things which he jotted
down in his journal.
The backcountry, it would seem, had already developed the free and
easy ways of a squatter world, shiftless, lubberly, independent, but
animated by hostility towards the aristocratic Old Dominion, from which
many of the settlers had come. North Carolina had long been a place of
refuge for debtors, criminals, and runaway servants, who used their
legs to even the score with a caste system; and Colonel Byrd regarded
the lazy crew with amused contempt:
Surely there is no place in the World where the Inhabitants live
with less Labour than in N Carolina. It approaches nearer to the
Description of Lubberland than any other, by the great felicity
of the Climate, the easiness of raising Provisions, and the