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Renticeship and Economic Herland and Seventeenth- Ronald W renticeship and Economic herland and Seventeenth- Ronald W. Hovvar History Department Mlsslsslppl College Education in colonial America involved parents and education took place almost always within the family preachers, pedagoguesand public officials striving to setting. Parentseither trained their own children, or else impart learning, literacy, and occupational skills. Theirs apprenticed them out to relatives, or friends, or acquain- was the most awesome of responsibilities. They were tances in this or that particular trade or profession. The preparing the young for life and labor in a strange new government might intervene on behalf of poor children, wor1d.t As in British North America, the principal educa- but the result was much the same:apprenticeship within tional institution in New Netherland was the family. In . the family setting.6 the 165Os,after the Dutch West India Company gave up its monopoly of commerce and made land available on We know that the family was almost exclusively rather generous terms, families came to replace single responsible for occupational education. Unfortunately, men and women as the most likely immigrants to New we do not have much precise information about the Netherland, whose population increased sharply. process. Relatively little scholarly research has been Nicasius de Sille, the newly-appointed provincial done on economic education in New Netherland; not secretary,wrote in 1653that “children and pigs multiply much more is known about the way the young were here rapidly and more than anything else.“” preparedfor labor in early New York. Indeed, the sources are widely scattered,and the task of finding and inter- The pervading emphasis on family life in Dutch preting the pertinent data is surely daunting. Yet the culture is well known, and as the remarkable work of effort ought to be made. By doing so in even the limited Alice Kenney has demonstrated,much the samefamily and admittedly preliminary way which follows, we ethos was transplantedand flourished along the banks of might gain fresh insight into the peoples of New Nether- the Hudson. But whether the settlers were Dutch or not, land and seventeenth-century New York, their family the plain fact is that the primitive stateof society in early values and attitudes toward childrearing, and their America placed extraordinary demands upon them as responsesto both English conquestand economic expan- parents3 Indeed, Director General Petnts Stuyvesant, sion?l recognizing the limitations of governmental powers, I looked to the family as the first line of defenseagainst heresy, hedonism, and social instability. His efforts to In both England and the Netherlands, the primary suppress rowdy and immoral behavior, regularize means of occupational training was apprenticeship. marriage practices, and provide preachersand teachers There were basically two kinds of apprentices. On the werecertainly intended to strengthenfamily life. Follow- one hand were youngsters, usually boys of fourteen or ing Roman-Dutch law, he made sure that the rights of older, whoseparents voluntarily bound them out to learn any child who had lost one or bothparents were protected a trade.On the other were poor, orphaned,or illegitimate and that usually entailed appointing guardians4 children involuntarily bound out by public officials con- cerned primarily with finding decent homes for them. Thinking in terms of social order as well as economic Among the latter, occupational training was distinctly prosperity, Stuyvesant expected young New Nether- secondaryto custodial care. In either case,the apprentice landers to learn a trade. Their parents did too. In fact, the was bound by law to serve his master,who stood in loco family in the Dutch colony, like the family in the Dutch parentis, for a minimum number of years.8England’s Republic, was usually very dedicated to preparing its Statute of Artificers of 1562 called for at least seven offspring, both male and female, to preserveand advance years of service; the term varied in the UnitedProvinces. the family’s economic interest.5 Whatever the cir- Thus, while serving craft and professional guilds, cumstances of the children involved, occupational apprenticeship also enabled public officials to protect 205 Fig. 36. Indenture of Marritje Hans to Philip Gerritsen. From NYCM: Vol. 2, p. 11la. Courtesy of Manuscripts and Special Collections, New York State Library, Albany, NY. APPRENTICESHIP AND ECONOMIC EDUCATION 207 society by arranging for the care of disadvantaged from the purely occupational to the partly educational youths. There was one primary difference in the develop- indenture. Marritje was to serve the Gerritsens, husband ment of apprenticeship in England and the Dutch and wife, for three years, during which time they would Republic. By the time of the West India Company, give her “board, lodging and the necessaryclothes, and reading, writing, and sometimesarithmetic were usually also have her taught sewing, in such a manner as a father included among the skills that Dutch apprenticeswere to should or might do with his child . .*‘12 be taught. In England, literacy skills were seldom a part of the indentures, though the Puritans in New England, The population growth of the 1650s brought more like their Calvinist kinsmen in the Dutch Republic and artisans and merchants and a greater demand for their New Netherland, included literacy instruction in appren- wares to New Netherland. It also widened the oppor- ticeship agreements9 tunities for occupational training. Perhaps because Stuyvesant insisted that all legal documents be clearly As elsewhere in colonial America, the guild system drawn and registered, indentures began to state more was not transferred to New Netherland. Apprenticeship precisely than ever before their educational require- was to develop there through a mixture of custom and ments.For instance, Evert Duyckingh agreedin 1648 to expedience. From the beginning, the children of mer- take Comelis Jansen,whose father had been killed in the chants and artisans were taught the family trade by their late Indian wars, as an apprentice for eight consecutive parents or other relatives. However, clearly defined years. Besides providing the necessary food, clothing, apprenticeship agreements calling for occupational and shelter, Duyckingh promised “to teach [Comelis training do not begin to appearin the official record with Jansen]the tradeof a glazier or such [other] tradeas Evert any regularity until the 1650s. Before that time, the can and to have him taught reading and writing.“13 indentures simply emphasized the work that the youth Reporting to the Orphanmastersin 1661 on the situation was expected to perform-not learn how to do-or else of his orphaned brothers and sister, Jeremias Janzen legally transferredthe child to another couple becauseits Hagenaarexplained that his brother Arien, age 14, was original parents were unable to sustain the family unit. remaining with him to learn the family trade of car- Consider the contract made by seamanCornelis Jansen, pentry. Hoping to gain someexperience in retail sales, who in 1639bound out his young son Jan for sevenyears Comelis van Schelluyne, with his father’s approval, to JacobHendrick Harmansen,a farmer living nearNew- bound himself in January 1663 to serve Jan Comelissen town. No mention is made of Jan’s mother, and her van der Heyden “in merchandising, keeping books and absencemay have precipitated the indenture, whereby whatever appertains thereto, which service shall con- Harmansen promised to “take care of the boy as if he tinue till the first day of Septembernext.” Besidesboard were his son,” and Jansenpromised to leave his son with and lodging, Comelis was to receive a new suit of clothes Harmansen without trying to get him back for the said and a present at the end of his service, plus whatever time. So the son had a home while the father very likely knowledge in running a shop he might pick up.t’ returned to the sea,” Apprenticeship was valuable for more than the trade In most of the early indentures involving children, the that was learned.Personal contacts were madethat could emphasis is on servitude rather than training. For ex- be of vital importance in converting occupational skills ample, in I640 JamesClaughton sold the indenture of his into a successful livelihood. Tavern keeper Daniel servant boy, Jan Duytse, to Pieter Come&en. The boy L&hoe paid what he called “a good sum” to get his was to work for eleven consecutive years. Although stepson, I-Ierman Jansen Swaartvegar, apprenticed to a Comelissen was a house carpenter and Jan probably surgeonin New York. But it was worth it. While learning learned a trade while serving out his indenture, Comelis- surgery, Herman was also meeting potential patients.16 sen paid 130 guilders for the boy’s labor, with no Although not apprentices in any legal sense, several provisions that he educate him in any way. What Jan young New Netherlandersgot their start in the service of learned was not the issue.Nor was occupational training Patmon van Rensselaer.Others worked for rising mer- specified in many similar indentures.” However, now chants like Frederick Philipse, Olaf Stevenson van and again, there would appear a fleeting reference to Cortlandt, Comelis Melyn, or David de Vries. Connec- some form of occupational education. The 1644 inderi- tions then, as now, were very important. Anticipating the ture of Marritje Hans, daughter of Hans Jansen,to Philip many economic alliances that would later be forged
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