Mr. Quimby bought him at the wharf out of a redemptioner ship.
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A merchant could take legal action, but this course of action could consume much time and did not always bring the defected redemptioner to "justice." As Grubb noted, "They [the merchants] eventually solved the problem by keeping redemptioners on board until payment was rendered and by requiring payment within 10 to 14 days of arrival."Grubb, "Redemptioner Servants," 585. While the period of repayment was later extended to 30 days, this policy increased the likelihood of the redemptioner being indentured, since such constraints inhibit his/her ability to make contact with relations.Grubb, "Redemptioner Servants," 586.
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That's Black Jim Lewis, that stole me away from home and sold me for a redemptioner.
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The Sot-Weed Factor gives a much less rose-colored account of the life of a redemptioner.
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And if my father came out a redemptioner, and worked his way, so had old Mr. Dulany.
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Indeed, a provision for education was not uncommon in the contracts of indentured redemptioners in general.Herrick, White Servitude, 210-211. The system of redemptioner servitude also appeared among migrants from the Britain.Grubb, "Redemptioner Immigration to Pennsylvania, Evidence on Contract Choice and Profitability," The Journal of Economic History 46, no.
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This proprietor, who is now so wealthy, came over a redemptioner, and owes his present wealth to his industry and frugality.
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Quite a diverse group of large and small, Philadelphia and non- Philadelphia merchants, were engaged in shipping German immigrants to Philadelphia. When the ships docked at Philadelphia the redemptioner servants were consigned to local merchants who collected the amounts due from their sale. Prepaying passengers did not have to be consigned. A few merchants specialized in the trade.
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The very young, between the ages of ten and fifteen, have to serve until they are twenty-one, however.Gottlieb Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania, trans., Oscar Handlin and John Clive (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960), 17–18. Thus, unlike the above forms of indentured servitude, the terms of sale for redemptioner servitude had a "fixed" price but a "variable" length of service.Grubb, "The Market for Indentured Immigrants," 857.
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Shafer was born in 1712 in the Rheinland-Pfalz in present-day Germany. He was among tens of thousands of German Palatines who escaped conditions of war and poverty in southwestern Germany throughout the eighteenth century and journeyed up the Rhine River to Rotterdam seeking passage to the New World.For histories of the Palatine emigration, see: Knittle, Walter Allen. (1937). Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration: A British Government Redemptioner Project to Manufacture Naval Stores.
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With this "transition" in the national compositions of indentured servants came a shift in the particular "form" of the institution. In the 1720s the "redemptionist system" began to replace the older structure, a subject to be discussed below. This type of indentured servitude provided the greatest source of labor by the end of the 18th century.Farley Grubb, "The Auction of Redemptioner Servants, Philadelphia, 1771-1804: An Economic Analysis," The Journal of Economic History 48, no.
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Lyon attended school in Dublin, after having been born in nearby County Wicklow, Ireland. Some sources indicate that his father was executed for treason against the British government of Ireland, and Lyon worked as a boy to help support his widowed mother. He began to learn the printer and bookbinder trades in 1763, but emigrated to Connecticut as a redemptioner in 1764. To pay his debt, he worked for Jabez Bacon, a farmer and merchant in Woodbury.
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Mary was either an indentured servant or a redemptioner and was of Irish descent. Both his and Mary Higgins' servitude were documented within Harford County, Maryland. Godfrey is said to have been a man of above average intellect, who could read and write. This is referenced numerous times within Cambria County documents by the notation that Godfrey Wilmore wrote the document and witnessed it by his signature, whereas the other parties sign by their mark "X".
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This form of indentured servitude had a particularly prominent role in the Pennsylvania market; Philadelphia became a chief port in which redemptioner servants were procured by buyers from across and outside of the colony/state.Salinger, "To serve well and faithfully", 21. During the early stages of the system, redemptioners had the liberty to leave the ships and seek out relations who would repay their debts. However, such an arrangement proved problematic, as some redemptioners did not return.
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Other aspects distinguished redemptioner system from its indentured counterparts as well. Among these points of contrast, the "most remarkable difference between the two," as Abbot Smith noted, "was…that the redemptionist system applied generally to people who emigrated in whole families, bringing their goods and chattels with them and seeking a new home."Smith, Colonists in Bondage, 22 Certain merchants preferred this arrangement because it diffused the risks and losses stemming from mortality rates during the passage.
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Lynch's father left his native Ireland and emigrated to the English Colony of Virginia in about 1725 as an indentured servant, called a "redemptioner" in the nomenclature of the day. Upon arrival to the New World, Lynch's contract of indenture was sold to a wealthy planter living in Caroline County. Lynch remained with the planter for his fixed term of servitude, winning in the process not only his freedom but also the hand of the planter's daughter, Sarah Clark, in marriage. With the financial assistance of the elder Clark, the Lynches themselves became planters of tobacco on a large scale, farming well over 7,000 acres of Virginia land.
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Whereas servants indentured in Britain had a fixed contract length before their sale in the colonies/states, an indentured redemptioner would negotiate the terms of the contract with the buyers. Gottlieb Mittelberger, a German migrant who travelled with redemptioners on a ship to Philadelphia, has provided a description of this process, :[T]hey [the redemptioners] negotiate with them [the buyers] as to the length of the period for which they will go into service in order to pay off their passage, the whole amount of which they generally still owe. When an agreement has been reached, adult persons by written contract bind themselves to serve for three, four, five, or six years, according to their health and age.
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David Galenson, for example, said the fact "that the great nineteenth-century migration of Europeans to the Americas was composed of free individuals and families appears to have been a consequence of both falling transportation costs and rising European income levels." Galenson, "Indentured Servitude in the Americas," 25. Farley Grubb approached the issue from a different perspective; he contended that the demand model fails to provide a satisfactory explanation because employers still paid high prices for indentured (redemptioner) servants. Analyzing specifically German migration in the 19th century, Grubb attributed the end of indentured servitude to the ability of immigrant families in the United States to finance the transportation of relatives through remittances, a "system" facilitated by the declining price of passage–fare.
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