Yet the life under a master or mistress was often such as to tempt a servant to escape; added to a condition that often involved hard work, poor lodging, and insufficient food and clothing, was the infliction of humiliating corporal punishment in case of disobedience or disorder. In Connecticut a servant could be punished by the magistrate not to exceed ten stripes for one offence.[118] The Rhode Island law was similar.[119] In North Carolina runaways were to receive from the constable as many lashes as the justice of the peace should think fit, “not exceeding the Number of thirty-nine, well laid on, on the Back of such Runaway,” while disobedient servants were to be punished with corporal punishment, not to exceed twenty-one lashes. In cases where free persons suffered punishment by being fined, servants were whipped.[120] In South Carolina a servant for striking his master or mistress was to serve not more than six months’ additional time, or be punished with not more than twenty-one stripes.[121] In Massachusetts and New York any servants who had been unfaithful, negligent, or unprofitable in their service, notwithstanding good usage from their masters, were not to be dismissed until they had made satisfaction according to the judgment of the civil authorities.[122]
In nearly every colony heavy penalties followed attempts to carry on trade or barter with servants. In North Carolina a freeman trading with a servant forfeited treble the value of the goods traded for and six pounds in addition; if unable to pay the fine he was himself sold as a servant. A servant trading or selling the property of his master was to serve his master additional time, the length to be fixed by the Court.[123] In East New Jersey the penalty was five pounds for the first offence and ten pounds for each subsequent one; the offending servant was to be whipped by the person to whom he had tendered such sale, the reward of half a crown being paid by the master or mistress to the person administering the punishment.[124] In Pennsylvania any one trading secretly with a servant was to forfeit to the master three times the value of the goods, and the servant at the expiration of his time was to render satisfaction to the master to double the value of the goods, and, if black, was to be whipped in the most public place in the township.[125] Trading with servants was prohibited in Connecticut[126] and in Massachusetts.[127] In South Carolina any one buying, selling, or bartering with a servant was to forfeit treble the value of the goods and ten pounds to the informer; the offending servant was to be whipped on the bare back in the watch-house at Charleston.[128] In New York servants were forbidden to trade under penalty of fine or corporal punishment. Those trading with servants were to restore the commodities to the master and to forfeit double their value to the poor of the parish.[129] In Maryland the penalty was two thousand pounds of tobacco, one half to go to the king and one half to the master.[130]
Many miscellaneous provisions in different colonies must have seemed oppressive. In New Jersey and South Carolina servants could not marry without the consent of their masters.[131] In Massachusetts no covenant servant in the household with any other could be an office holder.[132] In Pennsylvania innkeepers were forbidden to trust them.[133] In North Carolina servants making false complaints in regard to illness were to serve double the time lost, and the same penalty followed if they were sent to jail for any offence.[134] No slave was to go armed in North Carolina, and if one was found offending, the person making the discovery was to appropriate the weapon for his own use, and the servant was to receive twenty lashes on his or her bare back. One servant on each plantation, however, was exempted from the law, but such an one must carry a certificate of permission.[135] In Massachusetts servants were to be catechised once a week[136] and were not to wear apparel exceeding the quality and condition of their persons or estates under penalty of admonition for the first offence, a fine of twenty shillings for the second, and forty shillings for the third offence.[137]
The obligation of the master to a servant-owning and slave-owning community was recognized in North Carolina in a positive law prohibiting a master from setting free a negro or mulatto on any pretence whatsoever, except for meritorious services to be judged and allowed by the County Court, and even in this case a license was to be previously obtained.[138] In Massachusetts Bay servants were not to be set free until they had served out their time.[139] In Connecticut a slave set free was to be maintained by his master if he came to want.[140]
In view of all these restrictions on servants of a personal, industrial, and political character it seems strange that even any from their number should have been able, at the expiration of their term of service, to break away from the spirit of this bondage and reach a higher position in the social scale; yet many of the redemptioners became in time, especially at the North, respectable and even prominent members of the community.[141] The women often married planters[142] and in turn became the employers of servants. Yet these are the exceptions. For a long time the redemptioners were considered the off-scourings of English cities, and they formed a distinct class in the social order lower than their masters or employers. In view of this fact, a reproach was of necessity attached to all belonging to the class and to the designation applied to them. Their descendants ultimately formed the class of poor whites,—the lowest stratum in the social order whose members were held in contempt even by the negroes.
It has been said that the redemptioners were found in all the colonies, though they were more numerous in the Middle and Southern colonies than in New England. But it was difficult to keep white servants for any length of time in a country where land was cheap and the servant soon in turn became a master.[143] It was undoubtedly this difficulty that led to the substitution for white servants of Indians and negro slaves. Indian servants were apparently more numerous in the New England colonies, while negro slavery gained its strongest foothold in the South.
The employment of Indians as servants grew up naturally in New England and was continued for at least a hundred years.[144] Their presence was regarded as almost providential by the New Englanders, hard pressed for assistance in house and field. When the question of the right and wrong of the matter was suggested by the troubled conscience, an easy answer was found: was it not sin to suffer them longer to maintain the worship of the devil when they were needed so sorely as slaves?[145] But like the redemptioners, their service so eagerly sought often proved unsatisfactory. Hugh Peter wrote to John Winthrop, September 4, 1639, “My wife desires my daughter to send to Hanna that was her mayd, now at Charltowne, to know if shee would dwell with vs, for truly wee are so destitute (hauing now but an Indian) that wee know not what to doe.”[146] More unfortunate still was the young clergyman, the Rev. Peter Thatcher. He records in his diary at Barnstable, May 7, 1679, “I bought an Indian of Mr. Checkley and was to pay 5£ a month after I received her and five pound more in a quarter of a year.” A week later he writes, “Came home and found my Indian girl had liked to have knocked my Theodora on head by letting her fall, whereupon I took a good walnut stick and beat the Indian to purpose till she promised to do so no more.”[147]
In every section negro slavery grew up side by side with white and Indian slavery,[148] though its hold even upon the South was far from strong until the end of the seventeenth century. It is both unnecessary and impossible to discuss in this place the question of slavery[149] and its relation to the larger subject of service. The close of the colonial period saw it firmly established at the South, where it supplanted the system of white servitude, while at the North both black and white slavery gave place to free labor.
The details of the history of domestic service during the colonial period may seem unnecessary to an understanding of domestic service as it is to-day, but an examination of them must show the existence during that period of principles and conditions that must modify the judgment concerning the conditions of to-day. No wish is more often expressed than that it might be possible to return to the Arcadian days when service was abundant, excellent, and cheap. But those days did not exist in America during the colonial period. The conditions at that time bear a marked resemblance to those of to-day. The social position of all servants was lower than that of their employers, and the gulf between the two was more difficult to span. Service was difficult to obtain and unsatisfactory when secured. Servants complained of hard work and ill treatment, and masters of ungrateful servants and inefficient service, and both masters and servants were justified in their complaints. The legal relations between master and servant were explicitly defined as regards length of service, wages paid, and the mutual obligations of both parties to the contract during the period of service. But this very definiteness of the contract was due to the fact that the relationship between the two parties was an arbitrary one and could not have been preserved without this legal assistance. In default of a better one, the system of white servitude may have served its age fairly well; but its restoration, if the restoration were possible, would do nothing to relieve in any way the strain and pressure of present conditions.