It is impossible to fix any date when this iniquitous traffic first began. It arose, probably, from the want of labourers in the plantations of our colonies in their early days, and the employment of unscrupulous agents on this side to supply their needs in this respect. A man in pecuniary difficulties in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries was indeed in woeful plight: a gaol was his certain destination, and there he might rot his life away, cut off from all hope of release, unless death came mercifully to his relief. All knew of the horrors of a debtor’s prison, and, to escape them, an able-bodied man had recourse to the dreadful expedient of selling himself into bondage, for a term of years, in one of the plantations, either in America or the West Indies, or he would believe the specious tales of the ‘kidnappers,’ as they were called, who would promise anything, a free passage, and a glorious life of ease and prosperity in a new land.
Thoroughly broken down, wretched, and miserable, his thoughts would naturally turn towards a new country, wherein he might rehabilitate himself, and, in an evil hour, he would apply to some (as we should term it) emigration agent, who would even kindly advance him a trifle for an outfit. The voyage out would be an unhappy experience, as the emigrants would be huddled together, with scant food, and, on his arrival at his destination, he would early discover the further miseries in store for him; for, immediately on landing, or even before he left the ship, his body would be seized as security for passage money, which had, in all probability, been promised him free, and for money lent for his outfit; and, having no means of paying either, utterly friendless, and in a strange country, he would be sold to slavery for a term of years to some planter who would pay the debt for him.
Having obtained his flesh and blood at such a cheap rate, his owner would not part with him lightly, and it was an easy thing to arrange matters so that he was always kept in debt for clothes and tobacco, &c., in order that he never should free himself. It was a far cry to England, and with no one to help him, or to draw public attention to his case, the poor wretch had to linger until death mercifully released him from his bondage; his condition being truly deplorable, as he would be under the same regulations as the convicts, and one may be very sure that their lot was not enviable in those harsh and merciless times. It was not for many years, until the beginning of this century, that the American laws took a beneficial turn in favour of these unhappy people; and it was then too late, for the institution of redemptioners died a speedy death, owing to the influx of free emigration.
One of the earliest notices of these unfortunates is in a collection of Old Black letter ballads, in the British Museum, where there is one entitled, ‘The Trappan’d Maiden, or the Distressed Damsel,’ (c. 22, e. 2)/186 in which are depicted some of the sorrows which were undergone by these unwilling emigrants, at that time. The date, as nearly as can be assigned to it, is about 1670.
The Girl was cunningly trapan’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 into Virginny, O:
In brief I shall declare,
What I have suffered there,
When that I was weary, O.
When that first I came
To this Land of Fame,
Which is called Virginny, O:
The Axe and the Hoe
Have wrought my overthrow,
When that I was weary, O.
Five years served I
Under Master Guy,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Which made me for to know
Sorrow, Grief, and Woe,
When that I was weary, O.
When my Dame says, Go,
Then must I do so,
In the land of Virginny, O:
When she sits at meat
Then I have none to eat,
When that I was weary, O.
The cloathes that I brought in,
They are worn very thin,
In the land of Virginny, O:
Which makes me for to say
Alas! and well-a-day,
When that I was weary, O.