Station One: Punishment for Runaways
Typical punishment for indentured servants who tried to run away was a whipping and an extended
contract. For example, if a servant ran away and was gone for one day, he was whipped and one
week would be added to his service time. However, by the late 1630’s some colonies allowed
owners to hang servants if they were caught running away. Despite this law, many runaways were
still punished with whipping and increase time. The punishments did get more severe, for example
service could be extended up to seven years.
Station One: Punishment for Runaways
“Runaway servant entries in York County, Virginia records, for example, reveal punishments of
twenty, thirty, or more "lashes on his bare shoulders" for a runaway servant, or additions of years,
sometimes twice the original number or more, to the first contract.” (Crandall Shifflett, professor at
Virginia Tech)
Station Two: Other Punishable Offenses
It was typically illegal for an indentured servant to get married or have children during their time of
service. Women who became pregnant were usually forced to extend their service to make up for
any time lost while pregnant or caring for the child. The woman was also expected to serve more
time in order to repay her master for providing basic needs (food, clothing, etc.) for the child she
had. Marriage was also illegal. “When a serf has an opportunity to marry in this country, he or she
must pay for each year which he or she would have yet to serve” (Gottlieb Mittelberger).
Station Two: Other Punishable Offenses
“Maryland spelled out specific punishments for servants becoming pregnant during their terms of
service. As early as 1684, An Act Concerning those Servants that have Bastards provided that a
servant unable to prove paternity would be held responsible for costs imposed on her master. If
paternity could be established and the father was also a servant, he was held responsible for one-half
the costs. If a freeman were the father, he was responsible for the entire cost.” Servants could pay
their master back (for providing the baby with basic clothes, food, etc.) through more work.
(Crandall Shifflett, professor at Virginia Tech)
Marriage was also illegal. “When a serf has an opportunity to marry in this country, he or she must
pay for each year which he or she would have yet to serve” (Gottlieb Mittelberger).
Station Three: Rights of Indentured Servants
Masters were expected to treat their servants reasonably. However, there were no specific laws
guiding the treatment of servants. Some servants took their masters to court for unfair treatment, for
breaking the contract (extending it without reason), or failing to provide freedom dues. There are
many documented cases where the servants won and their masters were forced to pay a fine. Other
times, the master won and the servants could be whipped for complaining. The results of the case
often depended on the judge because the law in most colonies not clear about treatment of servants.
Station Three: Rights of Indentured Servants
Servants could take their master to court if they felt the master had violated the original contract or
treated the servant too harshly. There are accounts of servants winning cases and also accounts of
servants losing cases. Historian Barbara Bigham wrote:
“In 1700, Catherine Douglas of Lancaster County, Virginia, learned that the courts would listen to
and judge a case impartially, without bias against a penniless bonded servant. She filed a petition
claiming that in England she had signed a four-year indenture with John Gilchrist in exchange for
her passage. Gilchrist in turn sold her to Mottron Wright for a seven-year term. Although her own
copy of the indenture had been destroyed, Catherine was able to produce three witnesses who
testified that they had seen the original and that it had indeed specified four years… the Court
decided in Catherine’s favor; she was set free after serving her four years.”
Station Six: Daily Life & Resources
Richard Frethorne, an indentured servant in the 1623, wrote the following:
Life in the colonies “is such that it causeth much sickness, [such] as the scurvy and the bloody flux
and diverse other diseases, which maketh the body very poor and weak. And when we are sick there
is nothing to comfort us; for since I came out of the ship I never ate anything but peas, and loblollie
(that is, water gruel)…. A mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve for four men, which is
most pitiful… people cry out day and night – Oh! That they were in England without their limbs –
and would not care to lose any limb to be in England again [people would give up an arm or a leg to
be back in England]”
Station Four: Daily Life
Richard Frethorne, an indentured servant in the 1623, wrote the following:
“And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death,
except [in the event] that one had money to lay out in some things for profit. But I have nothing at
all–no, not a shirt to my back but two rags (2), nor clothes but one poor suit, nor but one pair of
shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap, [and] but two bands [collars]. … For as strong beer in
England doth fatten and strengthen them, so water here doth wash and weaken these here [and] only
keeps [their] life and soul together. But I am not half [of] a quarter so strong as I was in England,
and all is for want of victuals; for I do protest unto you that I have eaten more in [one] day at home
than I have allowed me here for a week. You have given more than my day’s allowance to a beggar
at the door;”
Station Four: Daily Life
Elizabeth Sprigs, Indentured Servant from England 1756. Letter home:
“What we unfortunate English People suffer here is beyond the probability of you in England to
Conceive, let it suffice that I one of the unhappy Number, am toiling [working] almost Day and
Night, and very often in the Horses drudgery [very hard labor],”
Station Six: Daily Life & Resources
Elizabeth Sprigs, Indentured Servant from England 1756. Letter home:
We had “scarce any thing but Indian Corn and Salt to eat and… [we are] almost naked no shoes nor
stockings to wear, and the comfort after slaving during Masters pleasure, what rest we can get is to
rap ourselves up in a Blanket and ly upon the Ground, this is the deplorable Condition your poor
Betty endures”
Station Five: Daily Life
In 1623, Richard Frethorne (an indentured servant) wrote a letter to his father. He described some
terrible hardships, but also wrote that one couple had taken pity on him and, when he traveled to
Jamestown to do work for his master, they treated him very kindly.
“If Mr. Jackson had not relieved me, I should be in a poor case. But he like a father and she like a
loving mother doth still help me. But that Goodman Jackson pitied me and made me a cabin to lie in
always when I [would] come up, and he would give me some poor jacks [fish] [to take] home with
me, which comforted me more than peas or water gruel. Oh, they be very godly folks, and love me
very well, and will do anything for me.”
Station Five: Daily Life of Skilled Indentured Servants
George Aslop was an indentured servant who sold his services as a craftsmen. He had more skills
than most indentured servants so he probably worked as a mechanic or as another type of artisan.
Aslop wrote the following:
“For know, That the Servants here in Mary-Land of all Colonies, distant or remote Plantations, have
the least cause to complain, either for strictness of Servitude, want of Provisions [supplies], or need
of Apparel: Five dayes and a half in the Summer weeks is the alotted time that they work in; and for
two months, when the Sun predominates in the highest pitch of his heat, they claim an antient and
customary Priviledge, to repose [rest] themselves three hours in the day within the house, and this is
undeniably granted to them that work in the Fields.”
Station Seven: Survival Rates and Life after Servitude
“For those that survived the work and received their freedom package, many historians argue that
they were better off than those new immigrants who came freely to the country. Their contract may
have included at least 25 acres of land, a year's worth of corn, arms, a cow and new clothes. Some
servants did rise to become part of the colonial elite, but for the majority of indentured servants that
survived the treacherous journey by sea and the harsh conditions of life in the New World,
satisfaction was a modest life as a freeman in a burgeoning colonial economy.” (PBS)
Station Seven: Survival Rates and Life after Servitude
Richard Frethorne, an indentured servant, said that most of the servants he came with were now
dead: “our plantation is very weak by reason of the death and sickness of our company. For we
came but twenty for the merchants, and they are half dead just; and we look every hour when two
more should go. Yet there came some four other men yet to live with us, of which there is but one
alive;”