W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1976 British convict servant labor in colonial Virginia Frederick Hall Schmidt College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Schmidt, Frederick Hall, "British convict servant labor in colonial Virginia" (1976). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623697. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-vm9x-jr96 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76-28,440 SCHMIDT, Frederick Hall, 1937- BRITISH CONVICT SERVANT LABOR IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA. The College of William and Mary in Virginia, Ph.D., 1976 History, United States Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1976 FREDERICK HALL SCHMIDT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BRITISH CONVICT SERVANT LABOR IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Frederick Hall Schmidt 1976 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPROVAL SHEET This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Author Approved, August 1976 Richard Maxwell Brown C lj ■ ) <LL^ Thad W. Tate Edward P. Crapol 'V^_______ vJk ;_____ Z kM' v-x Victor Liguori Department of Sociolci Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. for Betty and Carl iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ................................................... v CHAPTER I. THE IMAGE OF THE CONVICT: CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL............................ 2 CHAPTER II. BRITISH ORIGINS OF CONVICT SERVITUDE . 16 CHAPTER III. LEAVING GREAT B R I T A I N ...................33 CHAPTER IV. ENTERING THE COLONY....................... 65 CHAPTER V. SOLD AND DRIVEN: FACING A NEW LIFE.... 104 CHAPTER VI. THE CONVICT'S LABOR.......................168 CHAPTER VII. LIFE BEYOND THE J O B .................... 219 CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION ............................... 272 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................ 287 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE Every historical inquiry is to a great degree a coopera­ tive endeavor, and the author takes this opportunity to thank the "chief cooperators" by name. I am happy to extend my thanks first of all to my committee, every one of whom has helped me from time to time over the period of my research and writing. My special thanks go to my chairman, Richard Maxwell Brown, who gave long and full consideration to the original topic, provided me with continuing encouragement as my work progressed, and gave many hours to read and criticize each chapter, talking over each proposed change with me in order to achieve the best possible dissertation I was capable of writing. In all of this Dick Brown has been a patient, thoughtful, and eminently fair dissertation director. I am also happy to thank Dale Benson, for originally suggesting the topic to me, Bernard Sheehan, who read my first seminar papers on convicts, and whose thoughtful remarks and insights taught me more than he could know, and Don Jackson, for his unwavering support and patience. Among the people in research facilities and libraries with whom I have worked none has been more helpful than Edward M. Riley, Director of Research for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Ed Riley gave enthusiastic assistance whenever v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. it was requested in the finest spirit of academic sharing, and among his fine staff, Harold B. Gill, Jr. introduced me to local Virginia history and alerted me to its many hazards, while Marylee McGregor and Nancy M. Merz not only made avail­ able manuscripts and microfilm, but made suggestions for further searching and took care of my inquiries regarding con­ victs in English records. The staffs of the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary, the Virginia His­ torical Society, the Virginia State Library, the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia, and the Maryland Hall of Records were all quite helpful and cooperative. During my doctoral work I received a Society of the Cin­ cinnati Research Fellowship, a DuPont Graduate Research Fellow­ ship, and a research grant from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, all of which were extremely helpful in allowing me to carry on my research on this topic. Among the many scholars who were responsible for my being in a position even to write a dissertation, my special thanks go to: Gwin Kolb, who did his best to teach me how to write the English language; to R. Richard Wohl, to whom history was more than a discipline; to Walter Arnstein, who, as teacher and as dean, always displayed a sincere interest in his stu­ dents; to Staughton Lynd, who taught by example; and to Richard J. Hooker: teacher, scholar, mentor, friend. No scholar can develop his thoughts alone, and for their intellectual stimulation and personal support my everlasting appreciation is extended to Art, Bill, Bob, Carl, Carolyn, Don, Gerry, Howard, Joy, Mac, Mick, Peter, Sarah, Victoria, vi with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and most of all to Barney. Nor could I have come even part way toward this goal without the intellectual, personal, and financial support of my parents, to whom this work is dedi­ cated. And lest the patient reader begin to wonder if, after this exceedingly talented and distinguished honor roll, the author had anything whatever to do with the writing of this dissertation, let him be assured that the author contributed the errors. Finally, in reflecting upon the sources of my interest in the phenomenon of history, I am grateful to the late Ada Peters McKee, of Churchill Forest Preserve, who introduced her grandnephew to local history in DuPage County, Illinois, where he played as a boy among the ruins of the cabin built by old man Churchill, first European settler in DuPage County. It was among those crumbling cabin logs on the Jensen farm and the Indian flints along the DuPage River that history spoke to a young boy; what follows is an attempt by the grown man to say something in return. vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTKACT While Great Britain banished convicted felons to America throughout the seventeenth century, few came to Virginia be­ fore 1718, when a parliamentary act laid the basis for the legal sentence of transportation to the American colonies. Between twenty and thirty thousand convicts were thenceforth transported to America, at least ten thousand of whom were shipped to Virginia. The banished convict was placed by the English court or sheriff in the charge of a local merchant, who would ship him with as few as a handful or as many as 150 fellow convicts on a tobacco ship returning to Virginia, and the convicts5 death rate on the crossing was about fifteen percent. A number of the larger convict transports experienced convict uprisings at sea, but only a few succeeded. Those convicts who survived the crossing were sold out of the ship by receiving merchants, and while some convicts were sold to soul-drivers in wholesale lots, most were bought by their new owner-employers within a week or two of their arrival.