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Authors: Andrea Stuart
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paying their passage to the colony. The system had spread rapidly across the Americas, only dying out when these same colonies embraced African slavery.
Of the servants who found themselves on Barbados, some were volunteers, some were felons or prisoners of war; some were English, others Scottish or Irish, a few were German, Dutch or even French. (Indeed, so many people were dispatched to the island that the term “to be Barbadosed” swiftly gained popular currency.) The Irish were particularly plentiful because of the frequent food shortages, high unemployment and English military disruption in their homeland. In the 1650s their numbers were swollen further by a huge number of Irish prisoners of war; indeed, nearly 7,000 Irishmen were transported to the island during the Cromwellian period. But in the context of the traditional hostilities between the English and Irish, the large numbers of indentured servants who were arriving from Ireland provoked particular alarm among the planters. According to one historian they wereregarded as “a principal internal enemy, at times more dangerous and feared than Africans.” As early as 1644 the settlers sought to create legislation to limit their numbers. It was unsuccessful and tensions continued to grow. Irish servants who misbehaved were treated horribly by the authorities; in 1656 Cornelius Bryan was sentenced to “21 lashes on the bare back” for remarking, while refusing a tray of meat, that “if there was so much English blood in the tray as there was meat, he would eat it all.” After he had recovered from his punishment, Bryan was arrested and deported for his anti-English remarks.
A new plan by the legislature to control the Irish made it an offence to sell them firearms and decreed that any Irish servant found travelling without a pass could be conveyed by any English person to the nearest constable, who was empowered to whip him and return him to his plantation. Over the years, the government adopted wave after wave of measures to curb recalcitrant Irish servants who had caused “great damage to their masters” by their “unruliness, obstinacy and refractoriness.” None of these measures was effective, and the Barbadian authorities’ fear of “that profligate race” would later prove justified after a number of Irish rebellions occurred, sometimes in partnership with African slaves.
It wasn’t only the Irish who inspired distrust, however. Servants of all nationalities caused alarm. Those who remained on the island after the completion of their indentureship were considered an especial threat to public order. Unable to afford land, many turned to crime, drink and disruptive behaviour. But the servants who did leave the island, whether in search of pastures new, on military expeditions or even to join the pirate “brotherhood,” were also a worry. Later, when the black slave population had increased, the haemorrhaging of white servants threatened to create an imbalance of black men over white, sparking paranoia in the planters, who feared the slaves would become so numerous they could not be controlled.
Wherever they came from, it is fair to say that indentured servants had no idea of the conditions under which they would live and work, or how vulnerable and powerless they would be. Although they had signed a contractual document—the indenture—that set out mutual obligations, the reality of bound service was a highly unequal power relationship. Servants found themselves constrained by repressive locallegislation that imposed severe punishments for the slightest infractions and provided them with very little redress under the law. If they stole, left their plantations without permission or did anything that impeded their ability to work—such as break a limb—they were penalized. Masters could corporally punish their servants, or trade them without consultation. Richard Ligon noted that it was common for planters to “sell their servants to one
Of the servants who found themselves on Barbados, some were volunteers, some were felons or prisoners of war; some were English, others Scottish or Irish, a few were German, Dutch or even French. (Indeed, so many people were dispatched to the island that the term “to be Barbadosed” swiftly gained popular currency.) The Irish were particularly plentiful because of the frequent food shortages, high unemployment and English military disruption in their homeland. In the 1650s their numbers were swollen further by a huge number of Irish prisoners of war; indeed, nearly 7,000 Irishmen were transported to the island during the Cromwellian period. But in the context of the traditional hostilities between the English and Irish, the large numbers of indentured servants who were arriving from Ireland provoked particular alarm among the planters. According to one historian they wereregarded as “a principal internal enemy, at times more dangerous and feared than Africans.” As early as 1644 the settlers sought to create legislation to limit their numbers. It was unsuccessful and tensions continued to grow. Irish servants who misbehaved were treated horribly by the authorities; in 1656 Cornelius Bryan was sentenced to “21 lashes on the bare back” for remarking, while refusing a tray of meat, that “if there was so much English blood in the tray as there was meat, he would eat it all.” After he had recovered from his punishment, Bryan was arrested and deported for his anti-English remarks.
A new plan by the legislature to control the Irish made it an offence to sell them firearms and decreed that any Irish servant found travelling without a pass could be conveyed by any English person to the nearest constable, who was empowered to whip him and return him to his plantation. Over the years, the government adopted wave after wave of measures to curb recalcitrant Irish servants who had caused “great damage to their masters” by their “unruliness, obstinacy and refractoriness.” None of these measures was effective, and the Barbadian authorities’ fear of “that profligate race” would later prove justified after a number of Irish rebellions occurred, sometimes in partnership with African slaves.
It wasn’t only the Irish who inspired distrust, however. Servants of all nationalities caused alarm. Those who remained on the island after the completion of their indentureship were considered an especial threat to public order. Unable to afford land, many turned to crime, drink and disruptive behaviour. But the servants who did leave the island, whether in search of pastures new, on military expeditions or even to join the pirate “brotherhood,” were also a worry. Later, when the black slave population had increased, the haemorrhaging of white servants threatened to create an imbalance of black men over white, sparking paranoia in the planters, who feared the slaves would become so numerous they could not be controlled.
Wherever they came from, it is fair to say that indentured servants had no idea of the conditions under which they would live and work, or how vulnerable and powerless they would be. Although they had signed a contractual document—the indenture—that set out mutual obligations, the reality of bound service was a highly unequal power relationship. Servants found themselves constrained by repressive locallegislation that imposed severe punishments for the slightest infractions and provided them with very little redress under the law. If they stole, left their plantations without permission or did anything that impeded their ability to work—such as break a limb—they were penalized. Masters could corporally punish their servants, or trade them without consultation. Richard Ligon noted that it was common for planters to “sell their servants to one
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