Interesting. Thomas Cardwell came as an indentured servant at age 21,
in 1636; he was a barrel maker and was initially in the employ of a
man in Keoghtan [now the city of Hampton]. On the ship's passenger
list there are many indentured servants who paid 6 shillings passage
each, but his passage was 11 shillings, which must have given him a
more comfortable passage (relatively speaking) than the other people,
who must have been in the equivalent of "steerage." He later lived in
Middlesex County Va.

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Jan 3, 2007, at 9:27 AM, Katharine Harbury wrote:

> The term, "servant" or "indentured servant," in the 17th-century
> held a
> different meaning - I believe it was used in the context of an
> "employee" instead of a "servant" as we know it today.  This was why
> Adam Thorowgood was described both as a "servant" (employee) and a
> gentleman.  Many younger sons of nobility came to Virginia as
> "indentured servants," and no stigma was attached to it.  The more
> modern meaning of "servant" only came later.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joe Chandler
> Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 12:07 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: a question about transporting new colonists
>
> To the previous information I would add the following:
>
> (1) A headright does not necessarily mean that the person for whose
> passage was paid was an indentured servant. I seriously doubt that
> Adam
> Thorowgood was an "indentured servant," although he is described as a
> "servant" in the muster of Edward Waters in Jan-Feb 1624/5, having
> arrived in the "Charles" in 1621.
> Indeed, he was described as a "gentleman" when he bought 150A on the
> north side of Hampton Roads on December 30, 1626. His status was such
> that he married Sarah Offley, who was (as has been noted) the daughter
> of one Lord Mayor of London and granddaughter of another. Her father
> invested more than L100 in the Virginia Company ca. 1618/19,
> perhaps in
> response to the major change of administration of the Company that
> occurred then. I suspect Adam's status was akin to a clerk or
> aide-de-camp to Waters while Adam got acclimated to Virginia (going
> through one full year's cycle and surviving the climate and other
> threats to life).
>
> (2) Headrights were also awarded for persons merely visiting in the
> colonies -- it was the transit for which the headright was earned,
> even
> though not everyone transported stayed.
>
> (3) Headrights were also fungible, much like bearer bonds are today.
> They could be sold (and often were) by simple endorsement on the
> face or
> the back and sometimes passed through several hands before being
> redeemed. Ship captains also acquired headrights for transporting
> individuals for free, often to fill out the passenger spaces on their
> ships for later redemption (investments) and/or to provide a
> sufficient
> number of souls to meet contract requirements for which the captain
> had
> been advanced funds by a planter in Virginia.
>
> jc
>
>
>
> --- Douglas Deal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Barbara's response nicely summarizes the difficulties inherent in
>> using land patents and headrights for genealogical purposes. The
>> larger historical significance of the system is pretty clear, though.
>> The idea was to reward--with land grants--those immigrants who paid
>> for their own passage to the colony and for that of others, whether
>> family members, servants, or (for several decades, at least) slaves,
>> at the rate of 50 acres per person transported (self plus others).
>> Those whose passage was
>> thus paid did not get the land, except for a spell in certain other
>> colonies, such as Maryland where it was part of a servant's freedom
>> dues (until 1683, if I remember correctly). For most of the colonies,
>> including Virginia, the headright system rewarded the wealthiest with
>> even more wealth. In Virginia, it helped build a landed elite that,
>> conveniently, was rewarded for bringing more labor into the colony.
>> Political conflict in the decades before and after 1700 revolved,
>> much
>
>> of the time, around the abuses and inequalities that the practices of
>> land distribution entailed. Anthony Parent's recent book, Foul Means,
>> treats some of this story in detail.
>>
>> Doug Deal
>> History/SUNY-Oswego
>>
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