USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > The German immigration into Pennsylvania through the port of Philadelphia from 1700 to 1775 : part II: The Redemptioners > Part 20
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The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
caught ten miles away from home, without the written per- mission of his master, he was liable to be taken up as a run- away and severely punished. The person who harbored a runaway was fined 500 pounds of tobacco for each twenty- four hours, and to be whipped if unable to pay the fine. There was a standing reward of 200 pounds of tobacco for capturing runaways, and the Indians received for every captured runaway they turned in a 'match coat.' For every day's absence from work ten days were added to his time of servitude. The master had a right to whip his Re- demptioner for any real or imaginary offense, which must have been a very difficult matter to determine, for offenses may be multiplied. The laws also provided for his pro- tection. For excessively cruel punishment the master could be fined and the Redemptioner set free. I presume in most cases this was only effective when the Redemptioner had influential friends who would take up his case." 164
THE SYSTEM IN NEW YORK.
New York had a similar system, although, owing to the fact that the many large landed estates owned by the Pa- troons, were worked by free tenant farmers, the number of white indentured servants was not nearly so great as in Pennsylvania. The character of this labor was, however, the same as in Pennsylvania and Maryland. They con- sisted of convicts sent from England and Ireland, of the miserably poor who were kidnapped and sold into servi- tude, and of Redemptioners who were disposed of on their arrival, as in Pennsylvania, to pay the cost of transporta- tion and other expenses.165 It is elsewhere stated in these
164 LOUIS P. HENNIGHAUSEN, The Redemptioners, pp. 5-6.
165 See JOHN FISKE'S Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, Vol. II., p. 286.
Ul a Council as the Court House, Saturday the Eighth of September 1753_ Present Joshua Maddox Esquire.
The "Foreigners whose , names are underwritten . imported in the Ship j' michael, Thomas Ellis commander from "Hamburgh bis lass from Couves did this day take the usual, Qualifications. NO 62
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288
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
pages that many of the children of parents who died on the ten ships that brought over the more than three thou- sand Germans to New York in 1710, were bound out to ser- vitude by the Government authorities.
The State of New York also legislated on this perplex- ing question, as may be seen by the following :
" AND WHEREAS, the emigration of poor persons from Europe hath greatly conduced to the settlement of this State, while a Colony ; AND WHEREAS, doubts have arisen tending to the discouragement of further importations of such poor persons ;- therefore be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid that every contract already made or hereafter to be made by any infant or other person coming from beyond the sea, executed in the presence of two wit- nesses and acknowledged by the servant, before any Mayor, Recorder, Alderman or Justice of the Peace, shall bind the party entering into the same, for such term and for such services as shall be therein specified : And that every assignment of the same executed before two credible witnesses shall be effectual to transfer the same contract for the residue of the term therein mentioned. But that no contract shall bind any infant longer than his or her ar- rival to the full age of twenty-one years; excepting such as are or shall be bound in order to raise money for the payment of their passages, who may be bound until the age of twenty-four years, provided the term of such service shall not exceed four years in the whole." 166
THE TRAFFIC IN VIRGINIA.
The early Virginia colonists were a class, who came not to work themselves, but to live on the labor of others.
166 New York Laws, Chapter 15. "An act concerning apprentices and Ser- vants." Passed February 6, 1788.
289
Redemptioner Life in Virginia.
This required the aid of servile labor. Negro labor was at first resorted to. That was in 1619, but as the demand was greater than the supply, other sources had to be found. Convicted criminals were sent from the mother country in large numbers. But other means were also resorted to. Men, boys and girls were kidnapped in the streets of Lon- don, hurried on ship-board and sent to the new colony, where they were indentured as servants for a term of years. The usual term of service was four years but this was only too frequently prolonged beyond that period for trivial of- fenses. Fiske says " their lives were in theory protected by law, but when an indentured servant came to his death from prolonged ill usage or from excessive punishment, or even from sudden violence, it was not easy to get a verdict against the master. In those days of frequent flogging, the lash was inflicted upon the indentured servant with scarcely less compunction than upon the purchased slave."167 But the majority of the indentured white servants of Vir- ginia, like those of Pennsylvania, were honest, well- behaved persons, who like the latter sold themselves into temporary servitude to pay the charges of transportation. The purchaser paid the ship master with the then coin of the colony, tobacco, and received his servant. There as in Pennsylvania they were known as Redemptioners, and like those in this State numbered many of excellent char- acter. There was no let up in this importation of convicts and servants until it was terminated by the Revolutionary War. It has been variously estimated that the number of involuntary immigrants sent to America from Great Britain between 1717 and 1775 was 10,000 and during the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries 50,000. 168 Probably a ma-
167 JOHN FISKE'S Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I., p. 177.
168 American Historical Review, II., p. 25. See also the Penny Cyclopedia, Vol. XXV., p. 138.
290
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
jority of these reached Virginia. The latter colony re- ceived more Redemptioners than any of the other colonies during the seventeeth century, but in the eighteenth, Penn- sylvania was the more favored province.
There were still another class of servants who were sent to America who deserve to be mentioned in this connec- tion. They were prisoners of war, men who were cap- tured by Cromwell at Dunbar and Worcester. Some of
PASSENGER SHIP OF THE PERIOD-1750.
From a Contemporary Drawing.
these were sent to Virginia. After the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, so many non-conformists were sold into servitude in Virginia as to lead to an insurrection in 1663,
291
Redemptioners Sent to New Jersey.
followed by legislation designed to keep all convicts out of the colony. 169
Of the services rendered to the colony of Virginia by these indentured servants it has been said they were " the main pillar of the industrial fabric, and performed the most honorable work in establishing and sustaining it." 170
In Virginia, as in Pennsylvania, many of these Redemp- tioners rose to be persons of wealth and importance in the Commonwealth, and occasionally became members of the House of Burgesses. At the same time it deserves to be very distinctly stated that the general character of the Re- demptioners in Virginia was by no means equal to that of the Germans who came to Pennsylvania ; nor was any- thing else to be expected considering the classes from whom so many sprung.
IN NEW JERSEY.
Mellick informs us that the laws of New Jersey were about like those of Pennsylvania in relation to the Re- demptioners. Contiguous as the two were, with only the Delaware river between, this was to be expected. In Section 5, of the Colonial Entry Book of that State, oc- curs the following :
" The waies of obtayning these servants have beene usually by employing a sorte of men and women who make it theire profession to tempt or gaine poore or idle persons to goe to the Plantations and having persuaded or deceived them on Shipp board they receive a reward from the person who employed them."
169 FISKE'S Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. II., pp. 184-185. 170 BRUCE'S Economic History of Virginia, Vol. I., p. 609.
"Many of the early settlers of Virginia reached that colony as servants, doomed according to the severe laws of that age, to temporary bondage. Some of them, even, were convicts." (BANCROFT'S History of the United States, Vol. II., p. 191.)
292
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
In New Jersey, under the laws, white servants could not be compelled to serve more than four years if sold or bound after attaining the age of seventeen years. Young chil- dren were held until they attained their majority. When the term of service expired the redemptioner received two suits of clothing, one falling axe, one good hoe and seven bushels of corn. The master was not allowed to inflict corporeal punishment upon his bond servant, but he could bring the case to the attention of a civil magistrate.
It is a noteworthy fact that the most popular novel pub- lished in the United States in the year 1899 has a Redemp- tioner for its hero, and for the most part the scene of the novel is laid in New Jersey. Another work of fiction, al- most equal to the previous one mentioned in popularity, deals with a Redemptioner hero in Virginia.171
The colony South Carolina also received some of this Redemptioner immigration, and pretty nearly the same
conditions and terms for taking them there, and holding them in bondage, prevailed as elsewhere.
Joshua Kocherthal in his little pamphlet, published in Frankfort in 1709, in which he strives to divert German emigration from Pennsylvania to South Carolina, says in his ninth chapter that " Special arrangements have to be made with the Captain for each half grown child. Per- ons too poor to pay, sometimes find proprietors willing to advance the funds, in return for which they serve the latter for some time in Carolina. The period of service, in time
171 FORD'S Janice Meredith and JOHNSTON'S To Have and to Hold.
293
Kochenthal's Invitation to Carolina.
of peace, is from two to three years, but when the fare is higher (he states it to be from five to six pounds sterling, but the cost of a convoy and other expenses, raise it to seven and eight pounds for every adult), the time is neces- sarily longer." 172 He adds in an appendix that " an im- migrant to Pennsylvania must have the ready money with which to prepay his passage, while for one going to Caro- lina, this is not necessary."
172 Full and Circumstantial Report Concerning the Renowned District of Carolina in British America, 1709.
See also DR. JACOBS' German Emigration to America, pp. 39-40.
THE DE LA PLAINE HOUSE, GERMANTOWN.
CHAPTER X.
ARGUMENT ATTEMPTING TO SHOW THE REDEMPTIONER SYSTEM WAS BY NO MEANS AN UNMIXED EVIL .- THAT MUCH GOOD CAME OUT OF IT .- THAT IN MOST RESPECTS IT WAS PREFERABLE TO THE UNENDING ROUND OF TOIL THAT HAD TO BE ENCOUNTERED IN THE FATHERLAND.
"O, Rivers, with your beauty time-defying, Flowing along our peaceful shores to-day, Be glad you fostered them-the heroes lying Deep in the silent clay.
"Be jubilant ye Hill-tops old and hoary- Proud that their feet have trod your rocky ways ; Rejoice, ye Vales, for they have brought you glory And ever during praise."
NE hundred and fifty years are but a short period in LUN the history of the human race. ADEST In the early ages of the world FRANKLIN ARMS. that number of years would come and go and at their close men thought and did and felt about as at their beginning. Habits and morals were not as now, things that change almost as regularly and frequently
(294 )
295
This Traffic a Custom of the Age.
as the earth's revolutions around the sun. But times have undergone a wonderful transformation during the past cen- tury and a-half. So far away. is 1730 in its customs and manner of thought, that we hardly realize that it was the time in which our great-grandfathers lived, and yet in some things we seem as far removed from those days as we are from the biblical patriarchs who lived and died upon the Judean hills, thousands of years ago.
This man-traffic, which I have attempted to describe in these pages, did not at that time create the general ab- horrence with which we now regard it. It was a matter of every-day business in every community. It had the
SPECIMEN OF EPHRATA DISPLAY TYPE, MADE AND USED AT THAT PLACE PRIOR TO 1748.
endorsement, so far as we may judge from the records and the spirit of that time, of the majority of the com- munity. It was recognized as a legitimate business by
296
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
the laws of the land. It was in full accord with the com- mon life of the people. Even Sauer, Mittelberger, Muhlenberg and the other worthies of that period who have been referred to and liberally quoted, did not arraign the system itself, but the numberless and almost nameless abuses it called forth. It was the injustice, the hardships, the rascality, misrepresentations, methods of transporta- tion, the crowded condition of the ships, the hunger and starvation, the sufferings, the general horrors by which it was accompanied, that called forth their protests. Never, since men have gone down to the sea in ships, have such sufferings and iniquities been known. Only men dead to all the better instincts of our human nature could have been guilty of the barbarities practiced upon these inno- cent, helpless victims of man's inhumanity to man.
Even as I read them to-day, I cannot understand why these men did not arise in their might and their wrath, smite their oppressors, and cast them into the sea, even as their own dead were thrown into the kindly waters, un- knelled, uncoffined and unknown. They were many and their oppressors few; smarting under the deceptions and wrongs practiced upon them, their forbearance seems al- most inexplicable. Here, too, the spirit of the age played its part. It was an age of loyalty to lord and master. To them the doctrine of jure divino was not a mere abstrac- tion. It was one of the overmastering principles of their lives. They were respecters of authority, and to an ex- tent that for half a century and more led to their disadvan- tage. For once the divine precept of obedience to author- ity worked to their undoing.
We fail to understand how these poor people should have consented to all this unutterable injustice and wrong-doing for several generations. If the immigrant of 1728 was
297
The Father of His Country.
unaware of what was in store for him, the same cannot be said of those who came in 1750 and thereafter. The At-
Sancafter : Gebrudt ben francis Bailen.
Os Lanbes Bater.
1779.
WBafchington.
FAC-SIMILE OF COVER ON BAILEY'S GERMAN ALMANAC. 173
173 The above cut is a fac-simile of the cover on an almanac-Der Gantz Neue Berbesserte Nord-Americanische Calender. Auf das 1779ste Jahr u. f. w. Berfertigt von David Rittenhaus,-published at Lancaster, Pa., by Francis
298
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
lantic was wide, but not so wide that letters could not reach the relatives and friends who were still in the old home. We know many of them wrote and told the horrors that had been encountered. It is true, as is elsewhere recounted, that the Newlanders even stole the letters from America, when they could, to prevent the dismal tales they told from becoming known to those for whom they were intended ; but that, doubtless, was an infrequent occurrence, and pos- sible only on favorable occasions. Why then did these people persist in coming, five and six thousand yearly, for lengthy periods? The question is difficult to answer, per- haps, and yet I venture upon an explanation.
Why do thousands of gold-seekers and other adventurers brave all the hardships of Alaskan winters to find fortunes in the Klondike? Everybody knows that not one in a score of them is successful, and yet the hegira thitherward is as active to-day as when that wealth-fever first set the gold- seekers in motion. We hear and know some are success- ful. The rest hope they may be. All who came to Amer- ica did not score failures. Not all were penniless and needy. Those who were able to make a fair start were successful far beyond anything they could ever have at- tained in their old homes. The virgin lands were rich almost beyond description. In that the booklets of Penn, Pastorius, Thomas and others did not exaggerate. The sit- uation in this particular was not overdrawn, and the lands were cheap. It is true there was hard labor and plenty of it before the settler. But he was a German, strong of will
Bailey. It possesses especial historical interest from the fact that the winged allegorical figure of Fame, seen in the upper part, holds in one of her hands a medallion portrait of Washington, while in the other she has a horn, from which a blast is blown with the legend Des Landes Vater. This is the first recorded instance where the designation of "Father of his Country " was given to Washington.
4 COMM INITY LIDER-PRESS PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN FARM LIFE
T
VUOIWWI NVWY
298
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
lantic was wide, but not so wide that letters could not reach the relatives and friends who were still in the old home. We know many of theis store and told the horrors that had been encountered. It is tate, as is elsewhere recounted, that the Newiandere even stole the letters from America, when they could. to pre we ot ibe allemaal tales they told from becoming known house fio whom the were intended ; Lo pprai bcentrence, and pos-
w. Why then did these
people peron n 1 200 px Gogwand yearly, for length : me 4 4f Rir to answer, per-
Rom son oder adventurers
4 HOWers to and fortunes in
Everybody knows that not one in a score of them is successful, and yet the hegira thitherward is as active to-day as when that wealth-fever first set the gold- seeker in motion We hear and know some are success- n !. The rest hope they may be. All who came to Amer- w: did not score failures. Not all were penniless and Those who were able to make a fair start were store-Fful tar beyond anything they could ever have at- tinto in their old homes. The virgin lands were rich Brist bevond description. In that the booklets of Penn, Pretorius. Thomas and others did not exaggerate. The sit- uation in this particular was not overdrawn, and the lands were cheap. l'is true there was hard labor and plenty of it before the owl. !. But he was a German, strong of will
Bailey It possesses especial historical lnteres from the fact that the winged allegorical figure of Fame, seen in the upper omel, holds in one of her hands a medallion portrait of Washington, while in the other she has a horn, from which a blast is blown with the legend Aus Landes Vater. This is the first nu corded instance where the designation of "Father of his Country " was given to Washington.
GERMAN IMMIGRATION INTO PENNSYLVANIA.
-
PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN FARM LIFE. A COMMUNITY CIDER-PRESS.
4
299
Plenty in the New Home.
and limb, inured to toil and not afraid to labor every day in the year except Sundays, if the situation required such service. The seasons were on his side and he saw houses and lands, such as he never dreamed of owning, belong- ing to him, yielding him an abundant support and provid- ing an inheritance for those whom he should leave behind him.
Another important condition of life came to the front with these people, to which most of them perhaps had been strangers in the old home. It was the question of food. Not only did the soil yield its abundant harvests, but the fields and the woods made no mean additions to their larder. Game of many kinds was at their command. Fur and feather and fin may almost be said to have been as much the product of their farms as wheat and corn and potatoes. Meat could be on their tables daily if they so desired. Mittelberger is very explicit on this point. He says : " Provisions are cheap in Pennsylvania. The people live well, especially on all sorts of grain, which thrives very well, because the soil is wild and fat. They have good cattle, fast horses and many bees. The sheep which are larger than the German ones, have generally two lambs a year. Hogs and poultry, especially turkeys are raised by almost everybody. Every evening many a tree is so full of chickens that the boughs bend beneath them. Even in the humblest and poorest houses in this country there is no meal without meat, and no one eats the bread without the butter or cheese, although the bread is as good as with us. On account of the extensive stock raising, meat is very cheap : one can buy the best beef for three kreuzers a pound." 174 He tells of poultry and eggs, fish, turtles, venison, wild pigeons, and other foods; not
174 MITTELBERGER'S Reise nach Pennsylvanian im Jahr 1754, pp. 64-65.
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The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
to mention nuts, grapes and other fruits that were to be had in every woods for the gathering.
All these things were well known in the Fatherland. Every letter spoke of them. Such flattering tales had their effect. They came for the most part to men and women whose lines in life were hard and drawn. The struggle for existence there was all those words imply. Nowhere in Europe was it harder. It was a from-hand- to-mouth life. The food was often scant, and not of the best at that. As these letters and the various descriptions of Penn's wonderful land which were everywhere distrib- uted by the Newlanders were read around the fireside dur- ing the bleak winters, and the ever-present scant larder forced itself upon the mind, there could be but one result.
The overmastering instinct of the race to better its con- dition came upon them. There are many causes that lead men to seek new homes, in distant lands, but there is one that overtops all the rest. It is the desire to better their worldly condition, the hope of material advancement, in short, it is better bread and more of it that lies at the source of nearly all the migrations of the human family. The love of gain, the desire for property and the accumulation of wealth was the great underlying principle of all coloni- zation on the American continent. It was this all-power- ful motive that crowded out all else, and led these people to brave all dangers, known and unknown, to reach this western Eden. So long as distress and danger and diffi- culties are in the dim distance, we fail to give them due consideration. It is only when they become a present reality, a source of trial and sorrow, that we realize the true condition of things.
These people were ready to encounter the obstacles they knew were to be met. Perhaps they underestimated their
30I
Only Denunciations for the Traffic.
importance and character. That was something which could not be guarded against. At all events, their fears were cast behind them and that hope which springs eternal in the human breast held sway, and spurred them to take the leap in the dark which many lived to regret, and which thousands regretted while dying. No sadder tale can ever be told. It has become an imperishable page in the his- tory of the Germans of Pennsylvania ; one that the historian
reluctantly deals with, so full of sorrow and heart- break is it.
und
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So abominable and in- human were the dealings of the Newlanders, ship- masters, ship-owners and most of the commission merchants with these help- less immigrants, and so sad and sorrowful the fate of many of them, that the wrath of the reader is also BARBER'S BASIN, IN USE 150 YEARS AGO. aroused and the denunci- ation has become universal. The same incidents are told by them all, and the worst are of course chosen for expo- sure; the same tale of starvation and pestilence and death is rehearsed so that we almost insensibly reach the conclu- sion that from the beginning until the end, there was one long, continuous cloud over the horizon of these people, un- relieved by a single rift and un-illumined by a single ray.
Almost every writer whom I have consulted has written only in terms of unqualified condemnation of the evils that arose out of the system of bonded servants. There is however one noteworthy exception.
302
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
Elder Johannes Naas, who, next to Alexander Mack, was the most celebrated and influential member of the Taufer or Brethren church in Germany, came to this country in I733. Shortly after his arrival he wrote a long letter to his son, Jacob Wilhelm Naas, who was living in Switzerland at the time, in which all the incidents and circumstances of his voyage are minutely detailed. The letter is well worth reading by every one who has an interest in the events I have been trying to depict. Want of space prevents its appearance here in its entirety. The concluding portion bears directly on the case of the Redemptioners, and con- trary to the customary practice, the writer regards that question favorably, rather than otherwise, for which reason I quote that part of his letter.
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