Austin, Angela (2017) Forgotten Children: Scotland's Colonial Child Servants, 1680 - 1760
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Austin, Angela (2017) Forgotten children: Scotland's colonial child servants, 1680 - 1760. MPhil(R) thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8562/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten:Theses http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Forgotten Children: Scotland's Colonial Child Servants, 1680 - 1760 Angela Austin Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters of Philosophy in Scottish History School of Humanities College of Arts University of Glasgow 10 January, 2017 Abstract This thesis focuses on children sent from Scotland to the American colonies to work as servants between 1680 and 1760, with a particular emphasis upon those who were shipped against their will or without the consent of their families. It primarily examines the shipment of child servants to the Chesapeake and Middle colonies of North America, which were selected due to the availability of source material in these areas. Most of the work that has been done on indentured servants thus far has primarily focused on those from England, while research on child emigration has concentrated on children from England or Ireland. Virtually nothing has been written about children sent to the colonies from Scotland. Kidnapping, a problem in England since the reign of Charles II, became an issue in Scotland during the latter half of the seventeenth century. This thesis considers reasons for this shift in focus, and the factors contributing to the rise of the kidnapping industry in Scotland. It examines differences in English and Scottish law, as well as cultural and political influences at work during this time. Additionally, it takes a closer look at some of the people involved in carrying out this trade on both sides of the Atlantic. Chapter 1 discusses the restrictions on Scottish trade with the Americas in order to help explain the pressures facing Scottish traders which tempted many to engage in illicit trading activities, including the shipment of undocumented servants. Chapter 2 is a case study of two prominent merchant families, the Trents and the Coutts, and the evidence linking them to activities of this nature. Because extensive evidence has been drawn from the legal records of Aberdeen, from which some six hundred boys and girls are estimated to have been abducted during one six year period, 1740 – 1746, Chapter 3 examines the cultural and political situation of Aberdeen in the 1740s. Chapter 4 is a case study of some of the children taken from that town and the events relating to these abductions. My data has been compiled over an extensive research base, including a wide range of government records on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as family histories, birth records, land records, wills, contemporary letters, colonial-era newspapers, biographies, autobiographies, personal ledgers and diaries, indentured servant records, records of ship voyages, and data gleaned from colonial court order books. Many of these sources have never before been referenced regarding the transportation of child servants. The main point of this thesis is to provide a more complete picture of the shipment of child servants in Scotland during the colonial era, those involved, and the factors which contributed to the operation of the trade in children. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5 Chapter 1 An Analysis of the Pressures Facing Scots Traders 1680-1760……..................................15 Chapter 2 Trent and Coutts: A Case Study of Two Scottish Merchant Families………………………….25 Chapter 3 The Aberdeen Affair: A Tale of Government Corruption…………………………………………..36 Chapter 4 Driven Like Sheep Through the Streets: The Aberdeen Children……………………………….44 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….59 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………………62 Acknowledgements My warm regards and deepest gratitude to my supervisors Professor Karin Bowie and Professor Martin MacGregor for their invaluable guidance, patience, and encouragement throughout the process. Thank you for believing in me enough to take a chance this research, and for your advice on not only academic research, but on work/life balance and adapting to life in Glasgow. Many thanks also to Dr. David Dobson at the University of St. Andrews for his helpful suggestions regarding resources on Scottish emigration and child servants, as well as for specific information related to some of the merchants, ships, and voyages discussed in this dissertation. Dr. Dobson. Richard Bapty at the University of Glasgow Library and the staff at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh assisted me in locating resource material I would not have discovered without their help, for which I am extremely grateful. 5 INTRODUCTION In Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel Kidnapped, set in the mid-eighteenth century, a young boy is tricked by a close family member into boarding a ship bound for the Carolinas. Once on board, he finds himself held against his will, to be sold as an indentured servant. What many fail to realize is that Stevenson’s novel, one of the best known literary adventures of all time, was actually based on the true story of James Annesley of Dublin, who was kidnapped in 1727 at the age of twelve and sold by his uncle into thirteen years’ servitude in the colonies. James, known as Jimmy, returned in 1742 to prosecute his uncle in a case which electrified public interest across Britain and Ireland.1 The fact is the Annesley story was a familiar one in this era. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, child servants from all parts of Britain and Ireland were shipped to the Americas, many unwillingly, by both the state and their own families. This study focuses on children from Scotland who were sent as labourers to the colonies between 1680 and 1760, with particular emphasis on the practice of selling children without the consent of their family. This paper will look primarily at children sent to North America, focusing on the Chesapeake and Middle colonies. This region was selected due to a higher availability of accessible source material in these colonies, and because of the particularly strong networks between Scottish merchants in these areas and traders in Scotland. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the Carolinas, along with Boston, ranked second to Virginia as destinations for indentured servants embarking from Scotland, based on a survey I have conducted of accessible colonial and Scottish newspapers, as well as extensive ship data compiled by David Dobson.2 A number of Scottish servants did also sail from ports in England, which were not included in this survey. 1 Campbell Craig (lessee of James Annesley, Esquire), Memoirs of An Unfortunate Young Nobleman: Return’d From Thirteen Years Slavery in America, Where He Had Been Sent By the Wicked Contrivances of His Cruel Uncle (London: J. Freeman, 1743); A. Roger Ekirch, Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010); Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain’s White Slaves in America (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2007), pp. 232 – 232; Jon Henley, ‘Stranger Than Fiction: The True Story Behind Kidnapped’, The Guardian (February 18, 2010); Simon Edge, ‘Kidnapped by a ruthless Lord’, The Daily Express (March 1, 2010). 2 David Dobson, Ships from Scotland to America 1628 – 1828, vols. 1 – 4 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1990 – 2011); Joseph T. Buckingham, Specimens of newspaper literature: with personal memoirs, anecdotes, and reminiscences (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850); Andrew Bradford, ed., The American Weekly Mercury, 1686 – 1742 (Philadelphia, Colonial Society of Pennsylvania); The Boston Newsletter, no. 1, 1704 - 1760 (Boston: John Campbell and Bartholomew Green); Benjamin Mechom and James Parker, eds., The Connecticut Gazette, 1755 – 1760 (New Haven); Milton M. Klein, ed. The 6 The time frame 1680 to 1760 covers the majority of child servants sent to the colonies from Scotland. Prior to the late seventeenth century, child servants were more likely to be English in origin, with numbers of servants from England declining dramatically in the latter part of that century.3 Data compiled from over 3,000 indenture forms filed at the London Guildhall puts the number of recorded servants aged 15 and under emigrating from English ports at only 38 between 1718 and 1759, or less than one per year.4 The Universal Etymological English Dictionary, published in 1737, defines a kidnapper as ‘one that decoys or spirits (as it is commonly called) children away, and sells them for the Plantations.’5 The modern Cambridge Dictionary definition is ‘one who illegally takes a person away by force’, while the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition is ‘seizing and detaining or carrying away by unlawful force or fraud’.6 It should be noted that during the colonial era, not all children shipped against their will were illegally abducted. Pauper children and orphans were often collected by the government and transported to the Americas, as were those convicted of a crime. There are records pertaining to children who were transported from jails and prisons. However, because of the legality of detaining those who were merely indigent or fatherless during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is difficult to prove how many non-felon child servants were Independent Reflector, or, Weekly essays on sundry important subjects, more particularly adapted to the Province of New-York, by William Livingston and others (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963); W.