Douglas Deal raises some really interesting questions about the status of
"servant" and the uses of the term. Perhaps it is important to observe that
the law governing wage labor was called "master and servant" law (or
something like that) down at least through the 18th century. In the newly
independent US "master" got jetisoned much quicker than did "servant," with
New York wage laborers preferring the Dutch term "baas" (our "boss.")
A question to consider is what was the relationship between striving to
become independent (yeoman, journeyman artisan, etc.) and the striving to
become a master? Could the same man or woman hold these two ambitions at
the same time. Was the North which slowly abandoned slavery in the late
18th and early 19th centuries, different in this regard than the South in
which slaveholding was central?
Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Deal" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: a question about transporting new colonists
> Re "servants":
>
> There is no way to determine what baggage was attached to the term
> "servant" except via close examination of the context and all relevant
> particulars. In early America, the slave was often called a "servant,"
> while his master--if devout--was a "servant of Christ." Large numbers of
> immigrants to America were "servants," some with indentures, some
> without. If "servant" still had some negative connotations by the 19th
> century, so did "employee"... or for that matter any term for wage
> labor, which was no one's goal in life (perpetual dependency). For some
> interesting discussions of "servants" and their status in colonial
> times, see Richard Morris, Government and Labor in Early America; C. B.
> Macpherson, Democratic Theory; and Christopher L. Tomlins, Law, Labor,
> and Ideology in the Early American Republic.
>
> Doug Deal
> History/SUNY Oswego
>>
>
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