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Redemptioners were European
immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
s, generally in the 18th or early 19th century, who gained passage to
American Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centur ...
(most often
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
) by selling themselves into
indentured servitude Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment, ...
to pay back the shipping company which had advanced the cost of the transatlantic voyage. British indentured servants generally did not arrive as redemptioners after the early colonial period due to certain protections afforded them by law. Redemptioners were at a disadvantage because they negotiated their indentures upon arrival after a long and difficult voyage with no prospect to return to their homelands.


History

Up until the
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, some convicts from the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
were
transported ''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film. Plot In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she wou ...
to the
American Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centur ...
and served out their time as indentured servants before receiving an official
pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...
. Labor was in demand in North America and so free persons were also recruited. Those who could not afford to pay their own way, came under
indenture An indenture is a legal contract that reflects or covers a debt or purchase obligation. It specifically refers to two types of practices: in historical usage, an indentured servant status, and in modern usage, it is an instrument used for commercia ...
s which obligated them to work for no wages until their land and sea transportation and other expenses had been covered. Because of
abuse of the system Gaming the system (also rigging, abusing, cheating, milking, playing, working, or breaking the system, or gaming or bending the rules) can be defined as using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to, instead, manipulate the system ...
, which included lying to recruits and even
shanghaiing Shanghaiing or crimping is the practice of kidnapping people to serve as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as ''crimps''. The related term ''press gang'' ...
them, the
British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...
enacted laws protecting British subjects from the worst abuses. The law required that the specific terms and conditions of servitude be approved by a magistrate in Great Britain, and that any indentures not bearing a magistrate's seal were unenforceable in the colonies. This resulted in British indentured servants becoming less attractive to potential colonial masters. A similar law was passed in Ireland in an act of Parliament whereby in return for passage to America, the servant gave the purchaser of his indenture all rights to his labour for an agreed period of time, usually four years. Once a candidate for indentured servitude was identified, the emigration agent or visiting ship captain negotiated a binding contract detailing the terms and benefits, and the contract presented before a local magistrate. Non-British immigrants had no such protections. If they used the redemptioner system, they were forced to negotiate their indentures with their future master at the worst possible time, before they were allowed to leave a stinking, vermin-infested ship at the end of a long voyage. A few early 18th-century Europeans, typically German-speaking immigrants to the American Colonies, later sent for family members in the old world by agreeing with the shipping companies to "
redeem Redemption may refer to: Religion * Redemption (theology), an element of salvation to express deliverance from sin * Redemptive suffering, a Roman Catholic belief that suffering can partially remit punishment for sins if offered to Jesus * Pi ...
" their loved ones off the arriving vessel by paying the passage —more or less a form of
COD Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...
for human cargo. Ships' owners soon saw this as a lucrative opportunity. They recruited Europeans to
emigrate Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
without payment up front and allowed anyone in the new world to redeem the travelers. The fare was set by the shipping company and the prospective master bargained directly with the immigrant to determine how many years he or she would work to pay off the "
loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...
" of the fare. More than half of 18th- and early 19th-century German-speaking immigrants came as redemptioners. To fill empty holds, poor Europeans were recruited onto ships in
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
by “Neulaender” (singular = Neulander) or “new worlders” who had worked out their time as indentured servants in the colonies. Neulaender received a commission for each person they brought to the ship so they were not always a trustworthy source of information about how the program would work for the emigrant. The Neulaender were dressed in fancy clothes to impress the peasants as they wandered about Germanic countries to begin recruiting. The vast majority of these poor go-now-pay-later travelers were not redeemed by family members, so the term is misleading in that most paid for their emigration with their own toil, tears, and sometimes their life. In America their labour was considered a good to be lawfully bought and sold until their indentures matured. The big differences between redemptioners and African slaves, were that redemptioners came of their own accord (even if misinformed) and that they had some legal rights and an “out of indentures” date to look forward to. An example of how the indentured servant was viewed is the 1662
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
law that forced both slave and indentured servant females who bore children by their masters to serve after their indentures for an additional two years for the local
churchwarden A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish or congregation of the Anglican Communion or Catholic Church, usually working as a part-time volunteer. In the Anglican tradition, holders of these positions are ''ex officio'' members of the parish b ...
s no penalty was specified for their masters. On the other hand, a Virginia law of the same year stipulated that "any servant giving notice to their masters (having just cause of complaint against them) for harsh and bad usage, or else for want of diet or convenient necessaries...
hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gr ...
have remedy for his grievances." Abuse of redemptioners on board ship is well documented. If a person died after half way across the Atlantic, the surviving family members had to pay the deceased’s fare as well as their own. Their baggage was often pilfered by the crew. Many travelers started their journey with sufficient funds to pay their way but were overcharged so that they arrived with a debt to settle and they also had to be redeemed. If the ship needed to sail before some of the passengers’ indentures had been sold, an agent in the American port kept them confined until a buyer presented himself. The redemptioners who became indentured servants ended up working as farm laborers, household help, in workshops, and even as store clerks. They were typically prevented from marrying until after their term of service. Often, the terms of separation after the contract stipulated that the servant receive a suit of clothing and sometimes a shovel and/or an axe. Also, some contracts required the master to teach the servant to read and write from the
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
. Conditions were sometimes harsh as evidenced by the lists and paid announcements for the return of escaped servants in contemporary newspapers. The
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
ships always stopped first in the U.K. (often at
Cowes Cowes () is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina, facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east bank. The two towns are linked by the Cowes Floa ...
) to clear British customs, before proceeding to the Colonies. A list of indenture registrations in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
from 1772 to 1773 survives and reveals that most worked five to seven years to pay their masters off (The Bible allowed no more than seven years term of any contract,
BibleGateway Deuteronomy 15:12-18 and this influenced both the law and public opinion).


Accounts

The only two surviving first-person accounts by redemptioners were published in September 2006 in the book ''Souls for Sale: Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America''. By coincidence, they both arrived in Philadelphia on the ship ''Sally'' in the fall of 1772. John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl Buettner were recruited in Baltic states, Baltic cities and shipped as virtual prisoners to Rotterdam, originally to be delivered to ships of the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
departing for
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. Their handlers missed that opportunity so they settled for handing them over to a ship bound for Pennsylvania. Over time, Germans out of indentures formed German-American societies and one important activity for them was to lobby for humane regulations and policing of the shipping companies. The German immigrant to
Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
,
Gottfried Duden Gottfried Duden (May 19, 1789 – October 29, 1856) was a German emigration writer of the early 19th century. His famous book ''Bericht über eine Reise nach den westlichen Staaten Nordamerikas und einen mehrjährigen Aufenthalt am Missouri in d ...
, whose published letters (1829) did much to encourage German-speaking emigration to the U.S. in the 1800s wrote about the redemptioners. “The poor Europeans who think they have purchased the land of their desires by the hardships endured during the journey across the sea are enslaved for five, seven, or more years for a sum that any vigorous day laborer earns within six months. The wife is separated from the husband, the children from their parents, perhaps never to see each other again.” By the time Duden published his letters, the redemptioner system was all but dead. As many as 50% to 70% of Germans coming to America in the 1700s came as redemptioners.


See also

*
Slavery in the colonial United States Slavery in the colonial history of the United States, from 1526 to 1776, developed from complex factors, and researchers have proposed several theories to explain the development of the institution of slavery and of the slave trade. Slavery stron ...
*
Indentured servitude in the Americas Indentured servitude in British America was the prominent system of labor in the British American colonies until it was eventually supplanted by slavery. During its time, the system was so prominent that more than half of all immigrants to Britis ...
**
Indentured servitude in Pennsylvania Indentured servitude in Pennsylvania (1682-1820s): The institution of indentured servitude has a significant place in the history of labor in Pennsylvania. From the founding of the colony (1681/2) to the early post-revolution period (1820s), inde ...
**
Indentured servitude in Virginia Indentured servitude in continental North America began in the Colony of Virginia in 1609. Initially created as means of funding voyages for European workers to the New World, the institution dwindled over time as the labor force was replaced w ...
*
Indian slave trade in the American Southeast Native Americans living in the American Southeast were enslaved through warfare and purchased by European colonists in North America throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, as well as held in captivity through Spanish-organized force ...
* Gottlieb Mittelberger *
Plantation Act 1740 The Plantation Act 1740 ( referring to colonies) or the Naturalization Act 1740 are common namesMichael Lemay, Elliott Robert BarkanU.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History, pp 6-9. (1999) used for an act of the ...
* Nationality law in the American Colonies


Further reading

Karl Frederick Geiser
Redemptioners and indentured servants in the colony and commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Supplement to the
Yale Review ''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...
, Vol. X, No. 2, August, 1901.


References

* * * * * {{refend


External links


Legal status of indentured servants


* A ttp://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/r/RedemptionersAm3791.html Register of German redemptionersis available for research use at the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...
. It consists of two volumes dating from 1785-1804 and 1817-1831 that contain the names of and further information on German immigrants who became indentured as servants in Philadelphia in order to repay the cost of their trans-Atlantic voyage. 19th-century colonization of the Americas History of immigration to the United States Indentured servitude in the Americas Social history of the United States