One of the striking things I think I remember from John Demos's A Little Commonwealth 30 years ago was his depiction of colonial New England families indenturing their teen-age children to one another as a an aid to parenting.
Jon Kukla

>Indentures at such young ages were a kind of placement -- foster care is
>somewhat analogous -- for orphans or children of indigent parents.  The
>provision of bound labor was the payment for the master who took on the
>charge; the obligation of training in some skill was to ensure that such
>children would be economically self-sufficient adults and not on the poor
>rolls. It was not adoption because that would entail the transference of
>parental rights.
>
>
>David Kiracofe
>College of Charleston
>
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