USA > Massachusetts > The planters of the Commonwealth : a study of the emigrants and emigration in colonial times: to which are added lists of passengers to Boston and to the Bay Colony ; the ships which brought them, 1620-1640 > Part 3
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I Adams: Founding of New England, pp. 121-124.
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system which for generations had been bleeding the patient tenantry white. The copy-holders of 1630 were exactly where their ancestors of 1330 left off - hopeless and help- less. The sweat of their brows gave them no return beyond mere existence. To say that the victims of such a system of serfdom to lords of manors could be influenced to abandon a life of profitless drudgery for religious reasons only, would be to convict our ancestors of ignoring their obvious future welfare and that of their children as freeholders. The oppor- tunity to own land in fee simple was offered to them and was more important than the alleged desire for religious liberty. It is difficult to prove 'motives' but two public utterances of emigrants from different parts of England, settled in dif- ferent colonies here, justifies the opinion held by the author of this volume that social slavery and degradation of the land system at home was the main cause of their hegira.
The first was made in 1621 by William Hilton, a native of Cheshire, who emigrated in the Fortune to join the Pilgrims at Plymouth, although not one of the Separatist body, in a letter to his kinsman back home. He wrote
We are all freeholders, the rent day doth not trouble us, and all those good blessings we have.
(Smith: New England Trials, Arber Ed., 261.)
The other statement was made about 1633 by George Cleeves, a native of Somersetshire, the founder of Portland, Maine, who said
He would be tenant to never a man in New England.
(Me. Hist. Soc. Documentary Series, III, 265.)
These are words from the hearts of men emancipated from the demands of the steward of the manor, busily collecting rents and fines for his lordship. These identical sentiments expressed by men of more than ordinary ability show what was
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was in their minds. As far as they can these two witnesses answer those who think that twenty thousand people came over here for a chance to hear men preach without a surplice!
It should be understood that emigration to parts beyond seas was not an unrestricted right of Englishmen. Permission to leave England had to be obtained in each indi- Licenses to vidual case from the Privy Council and this in- pass beyond cluded persons of all classes - nobility, gentry, the seas
and merchant - who desired this privilege for any reason whatsoever. The records of the Privy Council are full of these grants, and when travel in Europe was alleged as the occasion for the request the grantee was prohibited from visiting Rome lest he come under the influence of the Cath- olic Church! When the North American continent was first opened for colonization under the auspices of the Trading Companies of North and South Virginia, persons desiring to emigrate thither were required to take the Oath of Supremacy and Conformity. This provision, of course, did not apply to persons 'transported' to Virginia as convicts. The difficulties which the Pilgrims had in obtaining permission to emigrate as a body of Separatists to Virginia are well known, and it was not until 1620 that King James was induced to look the other way when the Mayflower took them on its famous voyage to New England where they were suffered to remain during their good behavior.
Examples of these 'Licenses to pass beyond the seas' are here given:
Martha Butler, 21, wife of Samuel Butler, dwelling in Yarmouth & maid, Judith Wharton, 23, to Amsterdam. July 6th 1624.
Fines Morrison to visit his Ante at the Queen of Bohemias. 28 July 1633.
Mary Atkinson, to her husband at Rotterdam & for Eliza Browne
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Browne & Anne Madder, being poor, to seeke reliefe amongst their freindes. 17 August 1633.
It is probable that persons unable to get permission to emi- grate to New England would procure license to visit Holland on some pretext, and thence manage to obtain passage across the Atlantic; or to meet English ships in the Channel by previous arrangement. This was the method adopted by Hooker and Peter in their flight to Boston.
It can be assumed with probability that these licenses to pass beyond seas were the forerunners of our modern pass- ports.
The impressive toll of death which followed the voyages of the Mayflower and the Winthrop Fleet, claiming half the The perils of passenger list of the Pilgrims in the first winter disease in and about a third of the emigrants who settled ocean travel the Bay Colony, brings clearly to the reader of the early settlement of New England one of the worst features of ocean travel in that day. The rovers of the Seven Seas who put out from English ports in the sixteenth century had learned by bitter experience that long, deep-water voyages, such as were undertaken by Drake, Ralegh, and Gilbert in their pioneer essays to circumnavigate the globe, or to reach Cathay by the elusive 'Northwest Passage,' became a ques- tion of proper food, and it gradually came to their knowledge that man could not survive indefinitely on dried or salted meats. The scientific explanation of it was beyond their com- prehension, but these venturesome seamen had arrived at some crude empiricism on the subject of sustaining health during long absences from fresh food on the 'vasty deep.' But they were few, and the knowledge they had acquired was not available or of any direct interest to those who later led the Great Emigration to our shores.
The
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The Pilgrims were the first to feel the heavy hand of scor- butic starvation, and when, after nearly ten weeks at sea, their vessel dropped anchor inside the tip of Cape Cod, it is safe to say that there were not many seaworthy men left to navigate the disease-ridden craft. Bradford called it the 'general sickness' for want of definite information on the sub- ject, but in reality they were all suffering from scurvy, the crew as well as passengers, and for weeks many of them were unable to leave the ship. Only the hardiest were able to stand up under the strain of a diet insufficient in quality, not in quantity. Only one thing enabled them to keep going - the casks and hogsheads of English beer which John Alden, the cooper, hired for the purpose, had kept from injury during those long weeks. The crew and passengers had reached the point where an equitable division of this nourishing beverage would not be shared. Added to the perils of the deep which they had just survived was the lack of fresh vegetables to be obtained from the land, as they arrived when winter had con- gealed the earth and not a green thing was left to supply their starved blood with the vitamins of health. Bradford himself was a scorbutic victim as were all the leaders, and Captain Jones could not leave for the return voyage until late in the spring of 1621 because of the continued invalidism of his crew. He 'durst not put to sea till he saw his men begine to recover and the hart of winter over.'
The Winthrop Fleet suffered the same experience only in lesser degree, though they arrived in midsummer.' The long voyage of the Arbella began to take its victims soon after arrival. The Lady Arbella Johnson was among the first to go - delicately nurtured in her youth in an earl's castle. She was
I Masters of the merchant vessels of this fleet, with only experiences of short voyages to European ports or the Mediterranean, had no knowledge of dietetics to guide them across the Atlantic in sanitary safety.
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was soon followed by her husband, then by Edward Rossiter, and then Winthrop's family physician, within two months after reaching their promised haven. The physician's death is a striking instance of the helplessness of the profession in that period in the face of outraged Nature. Neither Giles Heale, the ship's surgeon on the Mayflower, nor William Gager, who held a similar office on the Arbella, could cope with this situation or adequately prepare against its ravages. Of this inevitable scourge the average emigrant from the in- land parishes of England was in absolute ignorance. As a re- sult the slopes of Charlestown Neck became a hospital camp during the autumn and winter after the landing of Win- throp. The aged and weakly went first until, as Dudley states, 'there dyed by estamacon about two hundred at least so lowe hath the Lord brought us.' I Winthrop tried to write home cheerful letters, but he could not quite overlook this ghastly picture, referring to his own health 'among so many dead corpses through the heat of Summer and the cold of Winter.' 2
It was not until that famous Atlantic ferryman, Captain William Pierce, of the Lyon, made his hurried emergency voyage to England and back in midwinter, bringing lemons, the remedial palliative of scurvy, that its ravages began to abate in the following spring.
With this experience still in mind, Winthrop, in writing to his wife about preparations for her voyage, soon to follow, advised her to bring 'a gallon of Scurvy grasse to drinke a little 5: or 6: mornings together, with some saltpeter dis- solved in it and a little grated or sliced nutmege.' 3
The
I Letter to the Countess of Lincoln. 2 Winthrop: Life and Letters, II, 58.
3 'Scurvy Grass,' a corruption of Scurvy Cress, is a cruciferous plant (Cochlearia officinalis) found in northern Europe in cultivation and in wild form in high latitudes in North America. Early used as an anti-scorbutic and later as a salad. 'Buy any scurvy-grass'
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The presence of physicians on these two famous early emi- grations brings to attention the beginnings of medical service on trans-Atlantic ships. Doubtless there were professional men on most of the larger vessels who were taken on con- tingent rewards to be paid for by the passengers. This service was an extra charge amounting to 2s. 6d. for each person covering the voyage. The regulations of the Guild of Barber Surgeons of that date (section 47) specified that the 'furni- ture' of surgeons employed at sea (instruments, medicines, etc.) should be examined before sailing. The duties and qualifications of this officer are thus detailed by Captain John Smith in his Accidence for Young Seamen (London, 1626, p. 3):
The Chirurgeon is exempted from all duty but to attend the sicke and cure the wounded; and good care would be had that he have a certificate from the Barber-Surgeons Hall for his sufficiency, and also that his Chest bee well furnished both for Physicke and Chirurgery and so neare as may be proper for the clime you goe for, which neglect hath been a losse of many a mans life.
These first terrifying records that place the death star against so many names on the passenger lists of Plymouth and Charlestown were rarely repeated in the succeeding years except on unusually long voyages in stress of weather. Each experience increased knowledge of the needs of pre- ventive preparations.
It came to be understood that the lack of fresh vegetables was the main factor in the causation of scurvy and that lem- ons and lime juice would furnish the necessary lack. The use of ale or beer to allay thirst and as a mild anti-scorbutic was based
scurvy-grass' may be read in The Roaring Girl, III, 2, by Middleton and Dekker. Saltpeter is a nitrate of potassium which supplied a mineral salt necessary to main- tain the alkalinity of the blood.
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based on sound therapeutic judgment. Water could not be preserved sweet and potable on these long voyages. The Arbella carried forty-two tons of beer (about ten thousand gallons) for her voyage, while only fourteen tons of water, one third the quantity, was provided.
The food supplies of emigrant ships consisted largely of beef and pork, dried or preserved according to the art or 'mystery' of keeping the flesh of animals edible, practiced by the Company of Salters.' The 'staff of life' was repre- sented by biscuits made of both brown and white flour, with oatmeal for porridge. The only vegetable they could depend on was dried peas to be cooked into thick soup. Mustard seed was used as a condiment to stimulate their jaded appetites after days and weeks of 'salt horse.' It is safe to conclude that the better class of passengers brought special stores of non-perishable delicacies and necessary utensils to prepare them to supplement the regular meals served from the ship's galley.
A study of the various phases of emigration to New Eng- land in colonial times has developed a hitherto unsuspected
Transporta- and generally unknown feature of the problem.
tion of It is well known that the English authorities, after children the first settlement of Virginia, began to transport in considerable numbers adults for servants who had been convicted of various crimes and misdemeanors, and in the course of a few years this policy became more or less of a scandal and a menace to the well-being of that Colony. In like manner, when the settlement of the New England terri- tory began to engage the attention of the lords and gentle- men who formed the Council for New England, this subject early
: Winthrop states that the preserved meat they brought was 'powdered' and that it was 'sweet and good.'
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early had their attention. The transportation of children to the new settlements in Virginia was first considered by the officials of London in 1617 as a means of relieving the pressure of the tenement-house districts in the East End of London swarming with homeless waifs, orphans, and foundlings. Every parish had its quota of these unfortunate denizens left at the church porches and a constant charge on the Poor Rates. Sir George Bolles, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London in 1617, issued a proclamation in which he gave utterance to the fear 'lest the overflowing multitude of in- habitants should, like too much blood, infect the whole city with plague and poverty.' Transportation of children to the new Colony in Virginia was suggested as a remedy. A meet- ing of representatives of the hundred parishes in London was held at Saint Paul's to devise a method of dealing with this question and, as a result, each parish was assessed in varying amounts to accomplish this object. In 1618, one hundred children were transported to Virginia, and the Church Ward- ens' Accounts of many of the parishes show moneys paid in to the Lord Chamberlain of London as their assessments.
In 1619, the Lord Mayor, Sir William Cockayne, followed the example of his predecessor. The Virginia Company asked for one hundred more children and the City cooperated in procuring them. After some difficulty with recalcitrants, the second consignment was sent in response to this request. It will be a surprise to most people in this section of the coun- try to know that three children were thus 'transported' to New England in the Mayflower - Richard, Jasper, and Elinor More. They were brought over under the protection of three different passengers, and that they were orphans seems entirely clear, as their parents did not come over later to join them as would have been the case if they were given into the hands of relatives. Richard More, the only survivor of
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of the three, made a deposition in his old age (1684) that he was living in the house of Mr. Thomas Weston, ironmonger, in London in 1620 and 'was thence transported to New Ply- mouth in New England.' His use of the word 'transported' is significant, as that was the phrase used to describe the sending of persons to the Colonies.
The Council for New England took this matter up within two years of its organization. On July 5, 1622, the Council took the following action:
Conserning the proposition to bee made unto the Citty for take- ing away of poor Children for New-England. It is thought fitt that there should bee Letters gotten from the Lords for the furtherance hereof to the Citty, and that these Children bee of 14 yeares of age apeese or upwards.1
Again, on November 16, 1622, the Council took the following additional action in this matter:
Touching a Letter to bee sent from their Lords to the Lord Mayor of London, the Clerke is appointed to attend the Clerke of the Counsell to bee advised for the Superscription and direction thereof.
Propounded whether the Children shall bee Received by the publike or private undertakers. If for the publike then to bee ad- vised how to give Securety for the Cittys Sattisfaction.2
Three months later, on February 18, 1622/3, the Council made the following entry in its records:
Sir Hen: Spelman propoundeth that if the Statutes made the ... yeare of Queene Eliz: for the binding forth of poore Children Apprentices bee made use of, by this Councell, in every County it will be Easefull to the Country, and beneficiall to this plantacon.3
It will thus be seen that it became the policy for the Coun- cil for New England, as it had been for the Virginia Com- pany, to use its territory as a means of relieving the congested
population
I Records, Council for New England, 13. 2 Ibid., 24. 3 Ibid., 37.
1
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population of London and possibly the other great cities of England. How far this policy was promoted by the Council is not accurately known. Such lists of passengers coming in ships to New England, as have been preserved, contain the names of minors who cannot be assigned to any of the fami- lies coming at the same time. The conclusion is inevitable that they were transported under a continuance of this prac- tice as indentured servants or under the protection of adults.
The Church Wardens' Accounts of the Parish of Saint Giles in the Field, London, for 1636 show that these parochial collections for 'transporting of children into New England' were still being made,' and as late as 1643, Winthrop records the arrival of a score of them, as follows:
One of our ships the Seabridge, arrived with twenty children and some other passengers out of England ... and those children, with many more to come after, were sent by money given one fast day in London and allowed by the parliament and city for that pur- pose.2
It will thus be seen that, from the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620 to this last-named ship, there was an officially organized traffic in the transportation of children to New England under the auspices of the Lord Mayor and the churches of London.
The records of Bristol show the names of more than ten thousand servants transported to foreign plantations on the Atlantic Coast and the West Indies from 1654 to 1685. This list comprises persons of both sexes. The transportation of children evidently became an organized traffic for commer- cial profit, and in 1645 Parliament passed an ordinance 'for the Apprehending and bringing to condigne punishment, all such persons as shall steale, sell, buy, inveigle, purloyne, con- vey, or receive any little Children. And for the strict and diligent
I S. P. Dom., Charles I, vol. 536, No. 711. 2 Journal, II, 96.
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diligent search of all Ships and other Vessels on the River or at the Downes.' It is a well-known fact that a number of the passengers of the Mayflower, particularly among the London contingent, brought over minors classed as 'servants' or 'boys' of no known kinship to their masters, and it may be supposed that they were picked up in London with the con- sent of the authorities. English captains in the early days of the settlement of New England kidnapped Irish boys en route to our coast and sold them to the Puritan planters in virtual slavery under the euphemism of apprenticeships," and the story of the Scotch prisoners sold for service in the iron works by Cromwell in 1651 is one of the picturesque phases of this traffic in human lives.2 In that era apprentice- ships served as a polite term for involuntary servitude, and emigrants coming to New England under that designation, in most cases, had no choice in the matter. The laws govern- ing apprenticeships left little freedom of action against the master's will, and the 'submerged tenth' were its principal victims.
During the early years of the reign of Charles, a number of additional restrictions were placed upon the intending emi- Restrictions grants to this region which was being rapidly de- on emigrants veloped. The first of these was consequent upon in 1634 the monopoly claimed by the Council for New England of exclusive rights to the fishing privileges on this coast, but this did not affect emigration to any extent. The second restriction related to the export of food supplies for the increasing number of settlements on the seaboard, and in 1634 a number of vessels were held in the Thames on this ac- count. In addition to this there was a general objection to allowing
1 Essex Court Records, VIII, 186.
2 Proceedings, Massachusetts Historical Society, LXI, 4-29.
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allowing people to leave England for any purpose. The Reverend Henry Dade, Commissary of Suffolk to Archbishop Laud, reported in 1634 to His Grace of Canterbury that
two ships are to sail from Ipswich with men and provision for their abiding in New England in each of which ships are appointed to go about six score passengers whom he supposes are either indebted persons or persons discontented with the government of the Church of England. He hears that as many more are expected not long after to go as altogether will amount to six hundred persons. If suffered to go in such swarms it will be a decrease of the King's people here, an increase of the adversaries to the Episcopal state and will also be an overthrow of trade.
He further adds that after they have reached New England 'they cannot be avocated by reason of the largeness of that continent.' I
This appeal to the Archbishop to restrict emigration of the discontented had its effect, and the Privy Council in Feb- ruary, 1634, ordered the detention of eight vessels 'now lying in the River of Thames untill further order.' A week later, after consideration, the masters of the detained ships were called before the Council and ordered to give bond in one hundred pounds for the performance of the following articles :
I. That all & every Person aboard their Ships now bound for New England as aforesaid that shall blaspheme or profane the Holy name of God be severely punish't.
2. That they cause the Prayers contained in the Book of Com- mon Prayers established in the Church of England to be said at the usual hours for Morning & Evening Prayers & that they cause all persons aboard their said Ships to be present at the same.
3. That they do not receive aboard or transport any person that hath not Certificate from the Officers of the Port where he is to imbarque that he hath taken both the Oathes of Alleigeance & Supremacy.
It
I P.R.O., Dom. State Papers, 1633/4, P. 450.
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It was further provided that the masters on their return to England should be relieved of their bonds. From that time henceforth all emigrants to New England were required to take these oaths and be certified by a clergyman of the Es- tablished Church or a Justice of the Peace of their conform- ity to the State Church. This gave rise to wholesale certifi- cation of a ship's list of passengers by one clergyman or a Justice of the Peace. This circumstance has provided an element of confusion in attempting to locate the origins of passengers from the residence of the clergyman who provided this blanket certification. Complaisant vicars would furnish these certifications for persons who must have been strangers to them, and the real purpose of the law was thus rendered ineffectual.
But a third restriction was imposed by the authorities in- terested in the collection of revenue, somewhat in the manner existing at the present time in connection with the payment of our income taxes by persons desiring to leave the United States. The subsidies granted to King Charles by Parlia- ment and his own imposition, without authority of Parlia- ment, of the hated ship subsidy were made the occasion of re- fusing permission to leave England to those persons taxed in the subsidies. The officials charged with this duty were re- quired to certify that each emigrant was 'no subsidy man.' Like all prohibitory laws deemed to be against the interests of the people, it was successfully evaded. Numbers of subsidiaries reached New England by one device or another; but by far the greatest number of emigrants were of the yeo- man tenantry class and had no difficulty in answering all the requirements of the law in respect to emigration to the Colonies.
A fruitful source of evasion of these laws was furnished by the recalcitrant clergy and their more obstreperous support- ers
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ers among the laity. These clerical remonstrants against the canons of worship according to the forms of the Church of England became entangled in the meshes of the Ecclesias- tical Courts, and being put on trial for contumacy were either put on suspension, fined, or imprisoned according to the de- gree of their offenses. Numbers of them fled secretly to the Continent or went in hiding among friends in London. Thus, Cotton, Dalton, Hooker, Peter, and Shepard began their roundabout journey to their Utopia in New England. The story of the Reverend Thomas Shepard, as told by himself, will give a vivid idea of the extremities to which they were put in evading the pursuivants of the Archbishop, and getting in safety to New England. After reciting his various em- ployments in charge of parishes from each of which he was inhibited by Laud, he finally went into the extreme North of England, where he obtained an appointment at Heddon, Northumberland, and served there for several years. Then he decided to cast in his lot with his Separatist brethren in New England. For some time he was in hiding under the protection 'of Roger Harlakenden in Essex, and from thence started from Ipswich in 1634 for the Atlantic voyage. The ship ran into a terrific storm in the North Sea, and, after many hours of helplessness, during which the main mast was chopped down to save her from foundering, they drifted into Yarmouth almost a wreck. Following this he went to Lon- don, and there found sanctuary in a friend's home, where he remained concealed for another year. He then embarked in the Defence with his friend Harlakenden under the name of John Shepard, husbandman.' The rest of his story is related in his own words:
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