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ORIGINS OF COLONIAL CHESAPEAKE INDENTURED SERVANTS:

AMERICAN AND ENGLISH SOURCES

Introduction
Background
Geographic Factors
American Sources
English Sources
Focused Projects
Conclusion
Footnotes

Indentured servants were not glamorous or famous figures in colonial


America. Nevertheless, family historians are interested in knowing that an ancestor
male or femalemay have been indentured. More important, the designation
indentured servant signifies that the individual immigrateda fact that surviving
colonial sources often do not clarify and one that can open doors to finding the ancestor
in European records.
Indentured servants can be found among the forebears of most people with southern
colonial ancestry.[1] Identifying an ancestor as indentured, however, is a challenge.
These men and women created few records while bound and, once they became free,
records might not mention their previous status. More daunting is tracing known
indentured servants back to their arrival in America and from there to a European port of
departure and place of birth. Some original records generated specifically about these
servants have been lost, but many sources survive in the United States and Europe that
can help researchers identify these ancestors and understand their lives.
Background
The term indentured servant arose in the context of a system for financing immigration
to North America primarily during the colonial period. Europeans who could not afford
passage to America sold themselves to merchants and seamen in exchange for
transportation to the colonies.[2] This arrangement was spelled out in a contractcalled
an indenturein which the emigrant agreed to work without compensation for a fixed
term, typically four or five years.
Servants often entered into such contracts freely but sometimes merchants and ship
captains, in a practice called spiriting, kidnapped impoverished children and youths,

forcing them into an indenture.[3] Shiploads of these volunteers and victims disembarked
in colonial port towns and along river banks, where ship masters sold them to plantation
owners and others who needed workers. These strangers became the servants masters
and literally owned them for the duration of their contracts.[4]
Labor shortages in Americas middle colonies enabled indentured servitude to flourish
there for more than 150 years. Increased African slave imports during the eighteenth
century triggered its decline. By the early 1800s the system had disappeared among
Britons coming to the United States.[5]
The origins and destinations of indentured servants varied widely. They embarked from
many European countries, including England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
Settlers used them as laborers primarily in the middle, southern, and West Indian
colonies but the custom prevailed in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Records in
the diverse countries of origin and the colonial destinations of these servants vary greatly.
This article will focus on servants from England who were imported to the Chesapeake
Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia.[6]
Indentured servants resembled other groups of colonial migrants, including African
slaves and transported convicts. Indentured servants, in fact, often were called white
slaves.[7] All three groups experienced mistreatment. The groups also differed. Convict
servants were the only group whose emigration and unpaid labor were penalties imposed
for criminal behavior.[8] Whether indentured servants were voluntary or forced
laborers, their indentures were temporary, unlike the Africans, who were enslaved for
life. Table 1 compares some characteristics and privileges of indentured servants with
transported convicts and free immigrants.

Social historians, who have laid the groundwork for understanding the lives and
migrations of indentured servants as a whole, have made broad generalizations
concerning the birthplaces of those in Maryland and Virginia.[9] They have had to rely on
a narrow sample of servant origins to understand the group. One historian has stated that
the backgrounds of the vast majority [of Chesapeake colonists] are forever lost.[10] This
is not necessarily true. Genealogical methods can be used to trace origins of many more
such servants and other colonial settlers of the area and create a better sample from
which to understand the social origins and experiences of Chesapeake colonists.
Geographic Factors
Most English servants left the country from three major portsBristol, Liverpool, and
Londonwith a minority emigrating from smaller cities, including Bideford,
Dartmouth, Exeter, Lyme, Newcastle, Plymouth, Poole, Portsmouth, Southampton,
Weymouth, and Whitehaven.[11] The principal ports had differing years of heavy
emigration. London served as a key point of departure during the entire colonial period.

Bristol rose to prominence during the mid-1600s, followed by Liverpool in the late
1600s to early 1700s.[12]
Surviving lists suggest that many indentured servants came into these cities from within a
fifty-to sixty-mile radius (figure 3).[13] Consequently, a researcher who knows a
servants port of departure but not the previous residence might learn the place of origin
by studying records from surrounding jurisdictions.
Previous Residences of Indentured Servants Departing from Bristol,
England for the New World, 1654-1686

Figure 1. Sources: Place-name index in Peter Wilson Coldham, The Bristol


Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations (Baltimore: Genealogical
Publishing Co., Inc., 1988), 447-458. Map created using GenMap UK
software.
In the Chesapeakes early days, indentured servants worked close to rivers and the
Atlantic coast, often in tobacco cultivation. In contrast, during the 1700s, many planters
preferred African slaves for field labor and sold the servants to backcountry landowners.
Notorious soul drivers, who treated indentured servants cruelly, transported many of
them inland.[14]
Personal characteristics and cultural traditions of the English Chesapeake colonists
including speech, person-and place-naming customs, religion, architectural patterns,
social graces, and settlement patternswere similar to many found in southern and
western England. Comparative historians have concluded from these parallels that most
Chesapeake colonists came from those English regions.[15] In fact, however, the specific
roots of the upper classes are better known than those of their servants. In addition,
customs characteristic of the upper classes may have trickled down. The precise origins
of lower-class indentured servants, which may have affected their contribution to
Southern culture, are largely unknown. Historians and genealogists should generate a
wider sample of indentured servants birthplaces to learn whether they came from the
same areas as the aristocrats.
Researchers trying to identify English origins of indentured settlers in colonial Maryland
and Virginia face several challenges:
Because indentured servants rarely traveled in groups of relatives and neighbors, unlike
immigrants who paid cash for their passage,[16] tracing associates to identify their origins
seldom succeeds.
Record destruction and the servants lower-class status compel researchers to extricate
and synthesize fragmented bits of information from a variety of sources.
Researchers need skills in reading old handwriting and interpreting underused records
to understand original sources concerning indentured servants.
Despite the complex undertaking, family historians can locate the English origins of
indentured servants if they know what records are available and can find them on both
sides of the ocean.
American Sources
Researchers tracing any immigrant should exhaust American sources before searching
abroad. Colonial American records may identify an ancestor as an indentured servant or
may provide details of that persons life, including the port of departure or place of

origin. The identification may also rest upon indirect evidence. A remark like paid
freedom dues, for example, denotes previous indentured servant status.
Few statewide indexes name indentured servants. Unless researchers know a county of
residence, they will need to undertake painstaking county-by-county searches of a variety
of records. American sources identifying indentured servants include church registers,
court records, deeds, servant contracts, journals and other personal narratives, land
patents, merchant account books, newspapers, passenger lists, and probate records.
Church Registers
Pursuant to ordinances passed in 1660, Virginia suppressed all religions except the
Church of England, to which most Virginia colonists belonged.[17] Surviving colonial
parish registers from the Chesapeake areaprimarily from Virginia contain baptismal,
marriage, and burial entries for thousands of colonists. Transcriptions of most of the
records have been published and are indexed in the International Genealogical Index
(IGI).[18] Because the IGI omits descriptive data, researchers must consult the register to
see if an entry contains an occupational title like servant appended to a name.
Extant colonial Anglican parish burial registers often identify indentured servants by
status. For example, seventeenth-century burial records for Christ Church Parish,
Middlesex County, Virginia, name dozens of them who died in harsh conditions before
completing their terms.[19] Colonial laws forbade the servants to marry during their
contracted labor terms without permission. Consequently, few of them appear in
marriage registers.[20] Marriage restrictions also decrease chances of finding parents
identified as indentured in infants christening records, except those for illegitimate
children resulting from illicit liaisons.
Court Records
Court cases resulting from misdeeds may identify indentured servants who violated the
law.[21] Infractions include conceiving a child out of wedlock, which was not uncommon
because the servants were not allowed to marry without permission, and assaulting a
master. For example, in 1742, Thomas Webster petitioned the Northumberland County
Court concerning his servant, Patrick Martial, seting forth that the sd servant abused
him by words & Blows Contrary to Law, Judgment is granted that the sd Webster against
the sd Martial, his servant, for one years service for his sd offence after his other time of
service expired.[22] Many indentured servants were undoubtedly abused, as were
African slaves. Although relatively few cases concerning the abuse appear on court
dockets, researchers nevertheless should check for records.
Court records may also document the confiscation or temporary alienation of an
indentured servant to pay off a masters debt.[23] For example, according to Kent
County, Maryland, court proceedings dated 1655, Henery Carline (Attorney to Mr.

Thomas Hawkines) [did] Assigne ouer [over] all the Right tittle & Intreast of a Certaine
seruant [servant] named James Gunsseill, with his Indenturesto John Deare.[24]
Deeds
Owners could sell their indentured servants.[25] The recording of such sales in deed
books is unusual, but researchers should not overlook the possibility of a deed record
documenting the sale of an ancestor who was indentured.
In Maryland, freed servants received fifty-acre freedom dues. For example, on 14
November 1673, Came Thomas Broxam of Dorchester County and proved Right to
fifty acres of Land for his time of Service performed in this Province.[26] The servants
often sold this property quickly, which also created a deed record of their former
indentured status. One researcher noted that 5,000 servants entered Maryland each
decade in the late 1600s and between 1669 and 1680 a count in the books shows that
1249 servants proved their rights, each to fifty acres of land as freedom due. Of these,
869 immediately, or very soon after the proof, assigned their rights to others.[27]
Indentured Servant Contracts
Because freed indentured servants probably had little incentive to preserve their
contracts, which were loose manuscripts, few servant indentures survive in America.[28]
(Many exist in England, however. See the discussion, below, under English Sources.)
In exceptional cases, clerks in the Chesapeake copied indentures into court records.[29]
Unlike Pennsylvania clerks, however, they did not compile the servant contracts in book
form.[30]
Journals and Personal Narratives
Most contracted servants arrived in America impoverished and uneducated.[31] Few had
the skills to create personal accounts and narratives of their experiences. An exception is
John Harrower, an educated Scot who emigrated from England. His journal describes his
fall into indentured servitude, the transatlantic passage, mistreatment of fellow servants,
on-deck sale of servants in Virginia, soul drivers, conditions for obedient servants
during the term of indenture, and his attempt to maintain contact with his wife and
children in the Shetland Islands.[32] Another man, Richard Frethorne, wrote his parents
in England in 1623 and described dismal conditions in Jamestown.[33] Such narratives,
although scarce, may be located in archival and historical society collections.
Land Patents
Under a headright system, the British crown awarded land to individuals for bringing
others to the colonies. Typically ship captains and merchants received fifty acres for each
indentured servant they transported. In Virginia, the colonial land office and county
courts issued headright certificates. As a form of currency, a certificate might have

changed hands several times until an applicant submitted it with a request for a land
patent. Records of certificates issued by the land office no longer exist, but those issued
by county courts may be found in surviving county court order books. Often the
applicant submitted the certificate several years after the passengers arrived in the
Chesapeake, so the date of the land patent does not necessarily indicate a recent
arrival.[34]
Indentured servants and other passengers are named in registers that scrupulously
document the crowns land grants to those who transported immigrants.[35] Indexes to
these colonial land patents exist for both Maryland and Virginia.[36]
The lists typically provide names only, but researchers may be able to extrapolate
additional data. For example, average ages of persons listed in surviving indentured
servant contracts indicate that the majority of male servants left England between the
ages of fifteen and twenty-four.[37] Extending the typical pattern to those whose ages
were not recorded provides their approximate birth years, which may help identify them
in English records.
Merchant Account Books
Colonial merchants maintained ledgers recording business transactions. Some of these
account books have survived and contain references to indentured servants. For example,
an entry in Edward Dixons ledger, dated 22 July 1743, reports paid Mary Welch for
her Freedom Dues.[38] The books themselves may be found in archives, historical
societies, and libraries throughout the country. In some cases, microfilm publications are
available.[39] Others are indexed and abstracted in periodicals and books.[40]
Newspapers

Figure 2. Runaway Indentured Servant Advertisement. Source: Maryland Gazette, 17


November 1764, MSA SC 2731, Maryland Gazette collection, Maryland State Archives,
Annapolis.
Alongside notices for masters seeking fugitive slaves, colonial newspapers published
advertisements for runaway servants. Many identify the servants name, age, and
birthplace. For example, when John Cyas ran away in Talbot County, Maryland, in
1768, his master reported his occupation, height, complexion, age, English county of
origin, and last residence in England as well as the ship in which Cyas had immigrated
and the date it landed.[41] See figure 2. Such advertisements often list the county or
region of origin to encourage colonists to be alert to strangers speaking a distinguishing
dialect. Many eighteenth-century newspapers have survived. Indexes and finding aids
facilitate identifying indentured servants in both Maryland and Virginia newspapers.[42]
Passenger Lists
Colonial newspapers, land patents, and labor contracts may disclose the name of a ship
on which servants traveled.[43] Such passengers rarely are identified, however, in the
few colonial lists that survive on either side of the Atlantic. Some records differentiate
indentured servants from convicts. For example, the scribe on the ship Elizabeth & Ann,

which sailed from Liverpool, England, to Yorktown, Virginia, in 1716, distinguished


between political rebels transported as indentured servants and those not indentured.[44]
Probate Records
Indentured servants may be named in wills because their masters could bequeath them as
property. For example, in 1662 John Neuill [Nevill] of Charles County, Maryland,
gentleman, devised personal property to his son-in-law John Lambert. The property
included livestock and boath the saruants [servants].[45]
Inventories in both testate and intestate proceedings may name indentured servants and
assign them a value.[46] One example is the inventory of Mr. Thomas Haukins
[Hawkins], of Popplers Island, Kent County, Maryland, dated 1656, which lists three
servants: Mary Bally, Thomas Simons, and Henery Wharton. The estates appraisers
noted the length of time remaining on their contracts and valued each servant
differently.[47] The reference to contracts indicates that the three were indentured.
Even without such a reference, however, researchers should recognize servants in an
inventory as indentured because wage-earning household servants could not have been
valued like property.
English Sources
Most indentured servants in the Chesapeake originated as lower-class Britons, a
population depicted as a faceless, depersonalized mass, as mere names.[48]
Nevertheless, genealogists may be able to find the English birthplaces and families of
American servants in records that give some context to their lives. Available sources
include church registers, indentured servant contracts, manor records, parish chests,
probate records, surname sources, tax lists, and urban occupational records.
Church Registers
In theory, researchers should be able to find a christening record for every English
immigrant to colonial America, including indentured servants. Typically, the records
provide a baptismal or birth date and name the infants parents. Researchers must locate
the correct parish, however, from among more than eleven thousand Anglican parishes.
Uncounted nonconformist congregations (such as Baptist, Presbyterian, and Quaker) also
operated in England in the 1600s and 1700s.[49]
Many of the American or British records discussed in this article might identify an
indentured servants parish of origin, enabling the researcher to find the servants
christening record with little difficulty. One study, however, suggests that only about
half of the servants correctly identified their birthplace.[50] Many named neighboring
townslarger than their actual native villageswhen communicating information to

registrars.[51] Researchers who do not find the baptismal entry in the indicated parish
should search the surrounding countryside.
Other possibilities exist. Genealogists who know the port of embarkation but not the
parish may find the servant recorded in the registers of a parish near the port. As
mentioned previously, many emigrants originated within sixty miles of the port from
which they departed.[52] Alternatively, if a researcher has sufficient identifying
information or if a servants surname is unusual, a parish of origin may be found in
national indexes like Boyds Marriage Index,[53] British Isles Vital Records Index,[54]
Great Card Index,[55] International Genealogical Index,[56] National Burial Index,[57]
and Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills Index.[58] Countywide marriage indexes
produced by English genealogical societies also may help place an indentured servant in
an English parish.[59]
Even when the servants home parish is known, a researcher may not find the desired
church record. The English civil war and interregnum in the mid-1600s wreaked havoc
on record keeping. Registration decreased after the war, perhaps because the new
government frightened or replaced experienced parish clerks.
Regardless of the cause, many birthsincluding those of future indentured servants
went unrecorded during these turbulent decades. Moreover, even the aforementioned
indexes to church records taken together are incomplete for the pertinent time periods.
Researchers should search burial and marriage registers as well as the christening
records. Negative findings in a burial register can support the identity of presumed
ancestors, showing that they neither died in infancy nor remained in the parish longer
than expected. Finding a death record might disprove a presumed identity. Uncovering a
marriage record, on the other hand, might not necessarily discredit a possible match.
Indentured servants sometimes abandoned their English spouses and families to emigrate.
Bristols mayor in 1662 reported, Some are husbands that have forsaken their wives,
others [are] wives who have abandoned their husbands; some are children and
apprentices run away from their parents and masters.[60] Genealogists, therefore, may
find records of spouses and families on both sides of the ocean for one indentured
servant.
Indentured Servant Contracts
To stop the involuntary spiriting of children and youth into indentured servitude, the
British government required clerks in each port to record servant contracts, which they
compiled into registers.[61] In addition to the servants name, the records might contain
any of the following details:

Name and occupation of the agent to whom the servant was bound
Date of the contract and the term of service
Servants birthplace and age
Servants father or mother

Servants occupation
Person the servant will serve abroad
Witnesses to the contract
Ships name and destination

Information in the surviving contracts varies greatly, and few report the servants
birthplace. Others name the port where the servant had lived temporarily as the prior
residence, whether it is accurate or not. For example, Alexander Steward, who sailed to
Virginia in 1774 as an indentured servant, identified London as his former
residence.[62] He had lived there less than four months, however, and his place of origin
was the Shetland Islands.[63]
[Update: Grant, Murphy, and Salerno made important discoveries about tracing the
origins of indentured servants listed in English indentured servant registers by searching
for these individuals' christenings in Church of England parish registers - they were not
always born in the places specified in their contracts. Grant found that 8% of the servants
from Devon listed in an early Dartmouth passenger list dated 1634 were born where
they ultimately resided. Murphy learned that out of 70 servants leaving Devon in the late
1650s, only 33% were born in the parishes identified as their final residences in Bristol
contracts. Salerno sought the christenings of 70 servants from Wiltshire who left during
the same decade, and found that approximately 50% born where they had last
resided. Genealogists must keep these facts in mind; the places listed in these contracts
were not birthplaces, rather final places of residence, or else, villages and towns situated
nearby their rural parishes of origin. Grant explained these discrepancies as portrayals of
the high rates of geographic mobility among laboring-class English youths during the
seventeenth century.]

Surviving contracts and registers name only a small percentage of all indentured servants
who went from England to the Chesapeake.[64] Relatively few of the volumes have
survived but they represent Englands major ports and a range of years. See table 2. The
principal extant lists of indentured servant contracts and a master index have been
published.[65] Minor collections, some of which have not been published, may exist
among parish-level records in the west of England.[66] Abstracts of fifteen thousand
contracts concerning servants leaving from London and Bristol are online.[67] Images of
the contractsfor servants going to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the
Caribbeanare in repositories with Virginia Colonial Records Project microfilms.[68]

Manorial Records
Between twenty-five thousand and sixty-five thousand manors existed in medieval
England. Their boundaries did not coincide with those of the eleven thousand
contemporary ecclesiastical parishes, and manors created their own records, which begin
several centuries before parish registration.[69] The poor, including families of many
future American indentured servants, appear in these records as manorial tenants,
participants in local squabbles, and scofflaws.
Genealogists must pinpoint a specific location to know which manors records to search
and must have a working knowledge of scribal abbreviated medieval Latin to interpret
them. Most manorial records have not been microfilmed or indexed and must be
searched on site. The multi-volume Victoria County History, arranged by county, is a
helpful resource for determining the manorial jurisdictions where ancestors might have
lived.[70] The Manorial Documents Register identifies repositories that house manorial
records.[71]
Parish Chest Records
Aside from parish registers, which provide primarily birth, marriage, and death
information, Anglican parish chest records may give glimpses into the lives of lower-class
Britons in the 1600s and 1700s. These documentsincluding apprenticeship indentures,
churchwardens accounts, settlement papers, removal orders, overseers of the poor
accounts, bastardy bonds, and poor rate bookscan reveal biographical and genealogical
details about a servants life before indenture and emigration.[72]
County record offices house most parish chest documents. Microfilms of many
manuscripts are available from the Family History Library where they may be catalogued
as Church Records,Poorhouses, poor law,or Parish Chest Records. Many English
county record offices have generated countywide name indexes to such records, but a
nationwide index does not exist. Researchers therefore must know the servants county
or parish of origin to locate the records.
Probate records
Because servants probably came mainly from lower-class households, their fathers and
relatives in England would typically have left fewer wills than better-off folk.[73] At the
time indentured servants were emigrating, English probate processes fell under
ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Researchers looking for probate records for servantsfamilies
must therefore determine the jurisdictions where testators filed their wills.
Surname Sources

Indentured servantssurnames may help to identify their origins. Most surnames in


England are uncommon.[74] Many are rare and often are peculiar to a locality from
which the name derives. English families, including those of indentured servants, usually
resided for generations near the places where their surnames originated and were
clustered, especially before the Industrial Revolution.
Several nationwide indexes are helpful in researching indentured servant origins by
linking English surnames to locations where they were concentrated in the 1600s and
1700s. Mentioned previously, such resources include the International Genealogical
Index,[75] British Isles Vital Records Index,[76] National Burial Index,[77] Prerogative
Court of Canterbury Wills Index,[78] Boyds Marriage Index,[79] and Great Card
Index.[80] Especially valuable for unusual surnames, the compilations provide starting
points for research in England. In addition, compendia of Stuart-era location spellings can
aid researchers seeking origins connected to specific surnames.[81]
The Protestation returns of 164142 are lists of males over age eighteen who swore
oaths of allegiance to the King, Parliament, and the Church of England.
They survive for roughly one-third of the English population and, where they have been
published and indexed, provide countywide name indexes. The House of Lords Record
Office in London possesses the existing returns, and researchers have created a finding
aid for published transcriptions.[82]
A commercial computer program enables researchers to manually enter data from the
International Genealogical Index to create surname distributions in the 1600s and
1700s.[83] Software can also display distribution maps by county or registration district
for all of the surnames found in the 1881 census of England, Scotland, and Wales.[84]
The Guild of One-Name Studies, which defines its objective as locating every occurrence
of a specific surname and its variants throughout the world, can also be helpful. Many of
its members have generated lists of all known British emigrants who carried their
surnames and have begun to trace their families.[85]
Tax Lists
The marriage act tax, collected by the British crown in the middle 1690s to finance King
Williams War, serves as a census that names the head of household, spouse, and
children in each family in Bristol and most of London. Unfortunately this source does not
survive for other cities. The enumeration identifies the specific parishout of 17
possibilities in Bristol and 110 in greater Londonin which a future indentured servant
might have lived.[86] The Bristol records for 1696 and the London register for 1695 are
indexed.[87] The records are available on microfilm.[88]
English citizens paid lay subsidiesa form of taxfrom the Middle Ages to the 1600s.
Among the taxpayers listed are people who later would become indentured servants.[89]

Researchers can find the majority of subsidies in the exchequer records at the British
National Archives, which provides an online guide to published and unpublished laysubsidy holdings by jurisdiction but not a personal name index.[90]
Families of prospective indentured servants may also be found in records of a hearth tax
taken from 1662 through 1689.[91] The lists name householders with hearths and some
of the poor who were exempt. An ongoing project is microfilming, indexing,
transcribing, and publishing these rolls.[92]
Urban Occupational Records
Most indentured servants had become city residents before emigrating from England.
Urban occupational sources during the 1700s, when the demand for specialized labor was
high, may name prospective indentured servants, especially among apprentices.
Uncompleted apprenticeship terms may signify emigration.[93]
From 1710 to 1811 the British government charged a nationwide tax on apprentices. The
resulting records can help pinpoint immigrant origins. A partial index, covering 1710
through 1774, is available on microfilm.[94] In addition, major port cities maintained
records of apprentices, some of whom may have emigrated as indentured servants.
Boyds Inhabitants of London (also called
Citizens of London) indexes, among others, those learning crafts and trades in the
capital during this time.[95] A commercial Web site also provides an index to three
hundred thousand London records that typically name apprentices, parents (usually
fathers), and masters.[96] The city of Bristols records document tradesmen from 1532
forward. Apprenticeship oaths name the father and previous residence of those who
came to the city for training.[97] Liverpool also maintained apprenticeship registers.[98]
Focused Projects
Peter W. Coldham and the late P. William Filby are among the immigration experts who
have recognized the need to bring colonial immigration records within easy grasp of
genealogists. To that end each has compiled more than twenty volumes. Most of
Coldhams books focus on criminal indentured servants, but five list non-convicts.[99]
Filbys Passenger and Immigration Lists Index dwarfs all other immigration
projects.[100] Many individuals indexed in his compilation arrived as indentured servants
during the colonial period and, as shown in table 2, these volumes index all known
published English labor contracts.
A Brigham Young University project is in progress to locate all surviving emigration
records created in the British Isles. The initiative, still in its infancy, promises to help
family historians find English ancestors, including indentured servants.[101] Similarly,
volunteers with the Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild are transcribing all extant
immigrant passenger lists to publish online. Some,

which date to the colonial period and cover British vessels, include passengers identified
as indentured servants.[102]
[Addition: since the publication of this article, the Immigrant Servants Database has been
launched.]
Several authors have published works documenting the English origins of early colonists
in Maryland and Virginia. They include numerous references to indentured
servants.[103]
Conclusion
Many Chesapeake area colonists were indentured servants born in England. Some
voluntarily signed contracts agreeing to work without monetary compensation for a fixed
number of years in exchange for transatlantic passage. Others were forced into such
agreements. Personal motivations aside, eventuallyafter their liberationthey began
new lives in a new country. Countless survivors worked for hire, married, started
families, and acquired personal estatesand became ancestors to millions of Americans.
Tracing these laborers lives and origins will contribute to identifying more ancestors and
understanding the geographic and social origins of many American colonists.
Nathan W. Murphy, AG; Opal Court, Block B, 13B; 60 Lancaster Road; Leicester,
LE1 7HA, UK; nmurphy@pricegen.com. Mr. Murphy, who is accredited in English and
southern United States research, has received specialized training in tracing immigrant
origins and deciphering early modern English and Latin texts. He recently earned a B.A.
in Family History and Genealogy from Brigham Young University, where he was a
research assistant in the Immigrant Ancestors Project. He attends the English Local
History M.A. Programme at the University of Leicester.
Endnotes
1. David Hackett Fischerciting Wesley Frank Craven, White, Red and Black: The
Seventeenth Century Virginian (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1971),
5reports that more than 75 percent of Virginias colonists arrived as indentured
servants. See David Hackett Fischer, Albions Seed: Four British Folkways in America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 227.
2. Abbot Emerson Smith, Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in
America, 16071776 (1947; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
1998), 325.
3. Clifford Lindsey Alderman, Colonists for Sale: The Story of Indentured Servants in
America (New York: Macmillan, 1975), 2852. Chapter 3 covers children who
were spirited (kidnapped) and brought to America as indentured servants.
Chapter 4 covers the practice of snatching poor people in Ireland and Scotland

and forcibly exporting them as white slaves. Aldermans bibliography identifies


additional publications on this topic.
4. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 22123.
5. The following works outline the period of American history when indentured
servitude was replaced by free and slave labor: Charlotte Erickson, Leaving
England: Essays on British Emigration in the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1994); Aaron S. Fogleman, From Slaves, Convicts, and
Servants to Free Passengers: The Transformation of Immigration in the Era of the
American Revolution, Journal of American History 85 (June 1998): 4376; David
W. Galenson, The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An
Economic Analysis, Journal of Economic History 44 (March 1984): 126; and
Henry A. Gemery, Markets for Migrants: English Indentured Servitude and
Emigration in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Colonialism and
Migration: Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery, ed. P. C. Emmer (Dordrecht,
The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986) 3354.
6. For books and collections regarding indentured servants in Pennsylvania, see
Daniel Meaders, Eighteenth-Century White Slaves: Fugitive Notices, vol. 1,
Pennsylvania, 17291760 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993); Farley
Grubb, Runaway Servants, Convicts, and Apprentices Advertised in the Pennsylvania
Gazette, 17281796 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992); Sharon V.
Salinger, To serve well and faithfully, Labor and Indentured Servants in Pennsylvania,
16821800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); and County of
Chester., Pa., Chester County Archives: Indentured Servant and Apprenticeship
Records, 1700 1855 (RG 4100.038). Also, a fee-based Web site provides an
index to a colonial Philadelphia newspaper. See Accessible Archives Inc.,
Pennsylvania Gazette 17281800.
7. Louis Ruchames, The Sources of Racial Thought in Colonial America, Journal of
Negro History 52 (October 1967): 25960.
8. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 22123.
9. James Curtis Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Studies, 1895); David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly, Bound Away:
Virginia and the Westward Movement (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,
2000); Eugene Irving McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland, 16341820 (1904;
reprint, Westminster, Md.: Heritage Books, 2003). For an interactive simulation
depicting the process of becoming an indentured servant in London and traveling
to the new world, see Thinkport, Exploring Marylands Roots: Classroom
Resources.
10. James Horn, Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century
Chesapeake (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 26.
11. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 30737. The appendix titled The Number and
Distribution of Indentured Servants tabulates the numbers and origins of
indentured servants. For a list of minor English ports operating during the
colonial period, see Peter Wilson Coldham, The Complete Book of Emigrants 1700

1750 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992), vii. For the international
trade experience of historic Bristol, Hartlepool, Liverpool, London, and
Southampton, see National Maritime Museum, Hartlepool Borough Libraries,
Liverpool Libraries and Information Services, Bristol City Council, and
Southampton Reference Library, Port Cities U.K.
12. Paul G. E. Clemens, The Rise of Liverpool, 16651750, Economic History
Review, new series, 29 (May 1976): 21125.
13. Fischer, Albions Seed, 23640; and Horn, Adapting to a New World, 3948, 6976,
8081, 42021. Both scholars draw conclusions from the surviving London and
Bristol registers.
14. Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of
the Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 347; and Smith, Colonists in
Bondage, 25660. Bailyn generated a map showing the trading circuits of soul
drivers in the Virginia backcountry who drove servants as far inland as the
Bedford County courthouse.
15. Fischer, Albions Seed, 207418.
16. Horn, Adapting to a New World, 2224.
17. Fischer and Kelly, Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement, 4647.
18. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, International Genealogical
Index. To learn which parish register baptisms and marriages for Virginia and
Maryland are on the IGI, the year ranges, and the batch numbers, see Hugh
Wallis, IGI Batch NumbersBritish Isles and North America.
19. National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Virginia, The
Parish Register of Christ Church, Middlesex County, Va. from 1653 to 1812 (Richmond:
Wm. Ellis Jones, Steam Book and Job Printer, 1897), 710, 2122, 31, 36, 39,
53. Some of those named might have been servants who were paid wages rather
than those who were indentured in exchange for transatlantic passage.
20. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 27074.
21. Ibid., 104, 130, 231, 24344, 24647, 257, 261, 268, 386, and 391, reference
court cases concerning indentured servants in Anne Arundel and Baltimore
counties, Maryland, and Gloucester, Lancaster, Northumberland, Spotsylvania,
and Stafford counties, Virginia.
22. W. Preston Haynie, Records of Indentured Servants and of Certificates of Land:
Northumberland County, Virginia, 16501795 (Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1996),
285. This page contains a transcription of Northumberland Co. Order Book
173743: 244, County Court, Heathsville, Va.
23. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 233.
24. J. Hall Pleasants and Louis Dow Scisco, Proceedings of the County Courts of Kent
(16481676), Talbot (16621674), and Somerset (16651668) Counties (Baltimore:
Maryland Historical Society, 1937), 68.
25. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 233.

26. Abbot Emerson Smith, The Indentured Servant and Land Speculation in
Seventeenth Century Maryland, The American Historical Review 40 (April 1935):
46970.
27. Ibid.
28. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 18, writes in reference to indentured servant term
contracts: For one living the life of a laborer in the plantations it was not always
an easy matter to keep possession of these small scraps of paper. The Virtual
Jamestown Web site contains a transcription of the labor contract of Richard
Lowther, 1627, found in the Preston Davie papers, Mss1D2856a2, Virginia
Historical Society, Richmond. See Richard Lowther Servant Indenture, Virtual
Jamestown.
29. Pleasants and Scisco, Procedings of the County Courts of Kent (16481676), Talbot
(16621674), and Somerset (16651668), 124, 248, 375, and 622, identify four
contracts registered in the court proceedings of colonial Maryland.
30. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 225, discusses a Pennsylvania book in which officials
registered the terms of indentured servants. See John Gibson and William Fisher,
Record of Indentures of Individuals Bound Out as Apprentices, Servants, etc.; and of
German and Other Redemptioners in the Office of the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia,
October 3, 1771 to October 5, 1773 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
1973).
31. Farley Grubb, Fatherless and Friendless: Factors Influencing the Flow of English
Emigrant Servants, Journal of Economic History 52 (March 1992): 85108.
32. Edward Miles Riley, The Journal of John Harrower: An Indentured Servant in the Colony
of Virginia, 17731776 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1963).
33. Richard Frethorne, The Experiences of an Indentured Servant, Virtual
Jamestown.
34. James W. Petty, Seventeenth Century Virginia County Court Headright
Certificates, Virginia Genealogist 45 (JanuaryMarch 2001): 322; and 45 (April
June 2001): 11222.
35. Patent Series of the Maryland Land Office, Maryland State Archives, Annapolis;
microfilms 0,013,063143, Family History Library (FHL), Salt Lake City, Utah.
Also, Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 405, writes, The twenty-six volumes of Land
Books in the Land Office, Hall of Records, covering the period from 1633 to
1680, contain the names of more than 21,000 immigrants, nearly all servants,
who were registered during that period for the purpose of obtaining headrights.
Also, Patents 16231774, 42 vols., Library of Virginia, Richmond; FHL
microfilms 0,029,31859.
36. For Maryland, see Gust Skordas, The Early Settlers of Maryland: An Index to Names of
Immigrants Compiled from Records of Land Patents, 16331680, in the Hall of Records,
Annapolis, Maryland (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1968); and Carson
Gibb and Gust Skordas, A Supplement to The Early Settlers of Maryland: Comprising
8680 Entries Correcting Omissions and Errors in Gust Skordas, The Early Settlers of
Maryland. (Annapolis: Maryland State Archives, 1997). For Virginia, see Marion

Nell Nugent, Denis Hudgins, and Virginia Genealogical Society, Cavaliers and
Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants, 1623 1776, 7 vols.
(Richmond: Virginia Genealogical Society, 193499).
37. Horn, Adapting to a New World,3537.
38. Ruth Sparacio and Sam Sparacio, Abstracts of the Account Books of Edward Dixon
(Merchant of Port Royal, Virginia), vol. 1, 17431747 (McLean, Va.: The
Antient Press, 1990), 2.
39. For example, Records of John Glassford and Company, 17431886, Colchester
Store, 175869; microfilm publication, 71 rolls (Washington: Library of
Congress Photoduplication Service, 1984).
40. Edgar MacDonald, A Merchants Account Book: Hanover County, Virginia,
174344, Magazine of Virginia Genealogy 34 (Summer 1996): 18587; Richard
Slatten, A Merchants Account Book: King and Queen County, Virginia, 1750
1751, Magazine of Virginia Genealogy 28 (February 1990): 6164; and Sparacio
and Sparacio, Abstracts of the Account Books of Edward Dixon.
41. Runaway indentured servant advertisement, Maryland Gazette, 17 November
1764, MSA SC 2731, Maryland Gazette collection, Maryland State Archives,
Annapolis.
42. Lester J. Cappon and Virginia F. Duff, Virginia Gazette Index, 17361780
(Williamsburg, Va.: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1950); and
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Past Portal: Colonial Williamsburgs
Portal to American History. Also, Richard J. Cox, Maryland Runaway Convict
Servants, NGS Quarterly 62 (June 1980): 10514; 68 (September 1980): 23233;
68 (December 1980): 299304; 69 (March 1981): 5158; 69 (June 1981): 125
32; 69 (September 1981): 20514; and 69 (December 1981): 293300. Also,
Karen Mauer Green, The Maryland Gazette, 17271761: Genealogical and Historical
Abstracts (Galveston, Tex.: Frontier Press, 1989).
43. Doreen M. Hockedy, Bound for a New World: Emigration of Indentured
Servants Via Liverpool to America and the West Indies, 16971707, Historic
Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 144 (1995): 11535.
44. Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, Ship Elizabeth and Ann.
45. Pleasants and Scisco, Proceedings of the County Courts of Kent (16481676), Talbot
(16621674), and Somerset (16651668), 32930.
46. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 233.
47. Pleasants and Scisco, Proceedings of the County Courts of Kent (16481676), Talbot
(16621674), and Somerset (16651668), 1012.
48. David Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England
16031660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), viii.
49. Mark D. Herber, Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family
History (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1998), 88.
50. Anthony Salerno, The Social Background of Seventeenth-Century Emigration to
America, Journal of British Studies 19 (Autumn 1979): 33.

51. Anthony Salerno, The Character of Emigration from Wiltshire to the American
Colonies, 16301660, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1977, 45.
52. Fischer, Albions Seed, 23640; and Horn, Adapting to a New World, 3948, 6976,
8081, 42021.
53. English Origins, Boyds Marriage Index, 15381940.
54. British Isles Vital Records Index, CD-ROM (Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2000).
55. Great Card Index, ca. 11001900, Society of Genealogists Library, London,
U.K.; FHL microfilms 1,938,1962,220,319 and 2,220,325, items 110.
56. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, International Genealogical Index.
57. National Burial Index for England and Wales, CD-ROM (Bury, U.K.: Federation
of Family History Societies, 2004).
58. The National Archives, About the Wills, provides a link to search the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills index covering the years 13841858.
59. For a listing of available countywide marriage indexes accessible through
correspondence with English genealogical societies, see Jeremy Gibson and
Elizabeth Hampson, Marriage and Census Indexes for Family Historians (Baltimore:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001).
60. Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 8283.
61. William Dodgson Bowman, N. Dermott Harding, and R. Hargreaves-Mawdsley,
Bristol and America, A Record of the First Settlers in the Colonies of North America 1654
1685: Including the Names with Places of Origin of More Than 10,000 Servants to
Foreign Plantations Who Sailed from the Port of Bristol to Virginia, Maryland, and Other
Parts of the Atlantic Coast, and Also to the West Indies from 1654 to 1685 (Baltimore:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1970), viiiix, 1516; and Smith, Colonists in
Bondage, 7174.
62. For Stewards indentured servant contract, see Weekly Emigration Returns,
17731774, piece 47/9/5457, Various Establishments and other Registers, HM
Treasury, The National Archives, Kew, U.K.
63. Riley, The Journal of John Harrower, 17, 168, 177.
64. Fischer, Albions Seed, 227.
65. Peter Wilson Coldham, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations,
16541686 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988); The Complete Book of
Emigrants, 16611699 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1990); The
Complete Book of Emigrants 17001750 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
1992); The Complete Book of Emigrants, 17511776 (Baltimore: Genealogical
Publishing Co., 1993); and Emigrants from England to the American Colonies, 17731776 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988). Also, Elizabeth French, List
of Emigrants to America from Liverpool, 1697-1707 (1913; reprint, Baltimore:
Genealogical Publishing Co., 1969); and P. William Filby, Passenger and
Immigration Lists Index (Detroit: Gale Research, 19812004).
66. Peter Wilson Coldham, e-mail message to author, 20 September 2004.
67. Virtual Jamestown.

68. Quarter Sessions Records: Servants Indentures, microfilms 56769, and


Servants to Foreign Plantations, microfilms 768 and 898, Virginia Colonial
Record Project, Library of Virginia, Richmond. See John T. Kneebone et al., A
Key to Survey Reports and Microfilm of the Virginia Colonial Records Project (Richmond:
Virginia State Library and Archives, 1990), 2: 54344, 620.
69. Herber, Ancestral Trails, 497.
70. The contents of forty-five volumes of this series currently appear on the Internet.
See Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, British
History Online.
71. The National Archives, Manorial Documents Register. The entire index has not
yet been digitized but the card index may be searched at the National Archives in
Kew, Surrey. Once a researcher establishes a specific place of origin, it will lead
to many sources for tracing English ancestors.
72. Herber, Ancestral Trails, 285301. W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest: A Study of the
Records of Parochial Administration in England (Chichester: Phillimore, 1983), 84
119, 188241.
73. Salerno, The Character of Emigration from Wiltshire,56, reports finding the
will of an indentured servants wealthy father in Wiltshire.
74. Bryan Sykes and Catherine Irven, Surnames and the Y Chromosome,American
Journal of Human Genetics 66 (March 2000): 141719.
75. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, International Genealogical Index.
76. British Isles Vital Records Index.
77. National Burial Index for England and Wales.
78. The National Archives, About the Wills, provides a link to search the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills index.
79. English Origins, Boyds Marriage Index, 15381940.
80. Great Card Index, ca. 11001900,Society of Genealogists Library, London,
England; FHL microfilms 1,938,1962,220,319 and 2,220,325, items 110.
81. [Survey of English place-names], 75 vols. (Nottingham, U.K.: English Place-name
Society, 192498). For individual titles and authors, see English Place-Name
Society, List of Publications.
82. Herber, Ancestral Trails, 411; and J. S. W. Gibson and Alan Dell, The Protestation
Returns 16412 and Other Contemporary Listings: Collections in Aid of Distressed
Protestants in Ireland; Subsidies; Poll Tax; Assessment or Grant; Vow and Covenant; Solemn
League and Covenant (Birmingham, U.K.: Federation of Family History Societies,
1995).
83. Steven Archer, Genmap UK, computer software (Dartford, Kent, U.K.: Archer
Software, 2002).
84. Steven Archer, Surname Atlas (Dartford, Kent, U.K.: Archer Software, 2003).
85. Guild of One-Name Studies.
86. The 110 London parishes include thirteen outside the citys walls. The
assessments from seventeen London parishes are missing. See David Victor Glass,
London Inhabitants Within the Walls, 1695 (Leicester: London Record Society,

1966), xlii. For an attempt to replace the missing data, see A Supplement to the
London Inhabitants List of 1695 Compiled by Staff at Guildhall Library, Guildhall
Studies in London History 2 (April and October 1976).
87. Elizabeth Ralph and Mary E. Williams, The Inhabitants of Bristol in 1696 (Bristol:
Bristol Record Society, 1968); and Glass, London Inhabitants within the Walls, 1695.
88. For Bristol, see William and Mary, Tax on Marriages, Births and Burials, and
Bachelors and Widowers for War on France and Other Reasons, 16961706,
in Poll Tax and Aid to the Crown, 16621834, Record Office, Bristol, England;
FHL microfilm 1,749,357, items 811. For London, see Assessment Taxes upon
Births, Marriages and Burials in Accordance with An Act of Parliament for the
Various Parishes, City of London Record Office; FHL microfilms 0,574,64651.
89. Salerno, The Character of Emigration from Wiltshire, 45, reports finding
several indentured servants in Wiltshire subsidies.
90. The National Archives, E 179 Database: Records Relating to Lay and Clerical
Taxation.
91. Ibid. A guide to the extant hearth tax rolls are included in this online resource.
92. Roehampton University, The Hearth Tax Project.
93. E. H. Bates Harbin, Quarter Sessions Records for the County of Somerset, vol. 3,
Commonwealth 16461660 (London: Harrison, 1912), lvii, 358. An apprentice
was brought before the Quarter Sessions in 1658 because he and another young
man attempted to emigrate to America as indentured servants before completing
their apprenticeship terms. After arriving in Bristol, one of the young men
changed his mind and returned home, while the other emigrated.
94. Inland Revenue Office, Apprenticeship Books of Great Britain: Town Registers,
October 1711January 1811 and Country Registers, May 1710September 1808,
and Indexes to Apprentices, 17101774 and Indexes to Masters, 17101762,
London Public Record Office; FHL microfilms 0,477,62437 (indexes) and
0,824,63384 (registers).
95. Percival Boyd, comp., Pedigrees with Index of London Citizens, abt. 1600
1800, manuscript, The Society of Genealogists, London; FHL microfilms
0,094,515645.
96. British Origins, London Apprenticeship Abstracts 14421850.
97. Apprenticeship Records, 15321988, Record Office, Bristol, U.K.; FHL
microfilms 1,565,024;1,565,063; 1,565,064, items 13; 1,565,065, items 15;
1,565,066; 1,565,102, item 1; 1,597,442, items 25; 1,597,443; 1,702,212,
item 1; and 1,749,551, items 34.
98. Apprentice Enrollment Books, 17071881, Record Office, Liverpool, U.K.;
FHL microfilm 1,647,413, items 47.
99. Coldham, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 16541686; The
Complete Book of Emigrants, 16611699; The Complete Book of Emigrants 17001750;
The Complete Book of Emigrants, 1751 1776; and Emigrants from England to the
American Colonies, 17731776.

100.
Filby, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index. This index is available
online. See Gale Research, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s1900s,
MyFamily.com.
101.
Immigrant Ancestors Project, Discover Your Immigrant Ancestors, Center
for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University.
102.
Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, Bringing Our Ancestors Home.
103.
Robert W. Barnes, British Roots of Maryland Families and British Roots of
Maryland Families II (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 19992002); Robert
W. Barnes et al., Colonial Families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Westminster,
Md.: Family Line, 19962004); John Frederick Dorman, Adventurers of Purse and
Person: Virginia, 16071624/5, 3 vols. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
2004); and Elise Greenup Jourdan, Early Families of Southern Maryland
(Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 19922004).

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