The kidnapped servants did not fare badly. Many examples are known where they worked on until they had acquired ample means; still the literature of the day is full of complaints such as this in The Sot-weed Factor:—
“Not then a slave; for twice two years
My clothes were fashionably new.
Nor were my shifts of linen blue.
But Things are Changed. Now at the Hoe
I daily work; and Barefoot go.
In weeding Corn, or feeding Swine
I spend my melancholy time.”
Cheap ballads were sold in England warning English maidens against kidnapping.
In the collection of Old Black Letter Ballads in the British Museum is one entitled The Trappan’d Maiden or the Distressed Damsel. Its date is believed to be 1670.
“The Girl was cunningly trappan’d
Sent to Virginny from England.
Where she doth Hardship undergo;
There is no cure, it must be so;
But if she lives to cross the Main
She vows she’ll ne’er go there again.
Give ear unto a Maid
That lately was betray’d
And sent unto Virginny O.
In brief I shall declare
What I have suffered there
When that I was weary, O.
The cloathes that I brought in
They are worn so thin
In the Land of Virginny O.
Which makes me for to say
Alas! and well-a-day
When that I was weary, O.”
The indentured servant, the redemptioner, or free-willer saw before him, at the close of his seven years term, a home in a teeming land; he would own fifty acres of that land with three barrels, an axe, a gun, and a hoe—truly, the world was his. He would have also a suit of kersey, strong hose, a shirt, French fall shoes, and a good hat,—a Monmouth cap,—a suit worthy any man. Abigail had an equal start, a petticoat and waistcoat of strong wool, a perpetuana or callimaneo, two blue aprons, two linen caps, a pair of new shoes, two pairs of new stockings and a smock, and three barrels of Indian corn.
We find that many of these redemptioners became soldiers in the colonial wars, often distinguished for bravery. This was through a law passed by the British government that all who enlisted in military service in the colonies were released by that act from further bondage.
Lady Herrman.