Agreed.

jc


--- Douglas Deal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 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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