On Fri, 5 Nov 2010, Christoph Reuss wrote: > Malcolm Blackmore wrote: > > The MacGregor side of my > > family were evicted at gunpoint from the Highland croft they rented and > > forcibly placed on a boat at Aberdeen to be sent as indentured labour to > > America. > > Interesting. Are you saying there was __white slavery__ in America?
Pretty much. although indentured labour was supposed to be paid, and to terminate upon completion of the debt obligation, in many cases it was contrived in such a way that it was a life sentence. The main distinctions between it and true slavery were that 1) children weren't the property of the employer, to sell out from their parents, and 2) if a labourer escaped, and got far enough away, he/she could blend in with the white population and disappear. In fact, I rather suspect the primary reason for using african slaves was the convenient skin marker that made it impossible for the labour to ever be free of pursuit. See also the "home children" of Canada, shipped out from England, who were child slave labour, provided with only room and board, and confined to work, usually as farm labour, for their "guardians" til they were 18. Some lucked out and were treated as well as the guardians' own children might have been, but others suffered horrendous conditions, only to be turned out on the streets malnourished and destitute upon reaching adulthood. > Methinks the MacGregors would have had the option to return to Europe > soon. And before being evicted, they would have had the option to get > rich. ;-} I imagine Malcolm can set you straight here, but the answer is generally no. Getting back to europe was pretty much out of the question, but making a new life in the new world and having success, was a possibility if not for the labourers, then at least for their children. That is, if they survived long enough... Another very interesting story along these lines is the saga of the crofters who were subject of rescue attempts by Lord Selkirk, who tried to provide them with homesteading land in southern Manitoba, in the very early years of the 19th century, when there was no overland route from the east coast, and the ships were to deliver 1000 settlers via Churchill in Hudson's Bay. The many attempts by fur-trading companies, principally the Northwest Company, to thwart his rescue plans on two continents, including fraud, bribery, intimidation, and finally murder by wholesale massacre with a mercenary militia, make a very eye-opening story of the brutality of life two centuries ago. -Pete _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
