C. PROTECTION OF CHILDREN AGAINST ABUSE BY MASTERS

1. A doubtful case, Salem, 1639

John Winthrop, The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, ed. J. Savage (Boston, 1853), I, 318-319.

At the court of assistants, one Marmaduke Perry, of Salem, was arraigned for the death of one [blank] his apprentice. The great inquest found the bill for murder; the jury of life and death could not agree; so they were adjourned to the next court, and Perry was let to bail by the governor and some other of the magistrates after the court. At the court in December, the prisoner appeared, and the jury, being called, had further evidence given them, which tended to the clearing of Perry; yet two of the jury dissented from the rest, who were all agreed to acquit him. In the end it had this issue, that these two were silent, and so the verdict was received. The cause was this: The boy was ill disposed, and his master gave him unreasonable correction, and used him ill in his diet. After, the boy got a bruise on his head, so as there appeared a fracture in his skull, being dissected after his death. Now, two things were in the evidence, which made the case doubtful; one, the boy was charging his master, before his death, to have given him that wound with his meat yard and with a broomstaff (for he spoke of both at several times;) the other was, that he had told another, that his hurt came with the fall of a bough from a tree; and other evidence there was none.

2. Master reportedly executed for murder of servant, Boston, 1643

"Rev. John Eliot's Records of the First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts," in Sixth Report of Boston Record Commissioners (Boston, 1881), p. 187.

There happened (by God's providence) a dreadful example of God's judgement this year upon one William Frankling who belonged to Boston town. . . But he spent his sabbath at our town, being nearer, and after a season desired to join to our church and had approbation so to do, and was received.

But Satan presently did enter into him and having a boy whom he had bought for some years time, and proving sick and naughty, after he was joined to the church he grew more passionate, cruel, and fierce against him, though he had been sharp before, yet unknown or undisposed to us. But now he grew outrageous, so that by sundry cruel stripes and other kinds of ill usage, the boy died under his rigorous hand, and that (by a strange providence of God and his own folly) at Boston, as if God meant to bring him on the stage for an example to all others. For which sin that day [and] month that he was admitted, he was excommunicated, and though much pains were taken to have brought him to repentance and reconciliation to the church, yet all in vain; he protesting partly to deny and partly to mince his cruel actions towards the boy. So that in that estate he was executed at Boston as public records will show.

3. A battered child, Plymouth, 1655

Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of Plymouth Colony, Court Orders, III (Boston, 1855), 71-72.

John Walker was about twelve years of age; Latham, the master, was subsequently found guilty of manslaughter and ordered "burned in the hand" and "all his goods confiscate."

We, whose names are underwritten, being appointed a jury by Master John Alden to view the dead body of John Walker, servant to Robert Latham, of this town, and to find the cause how he came to his untimely end:

We, upon due search and examination, do find that the body of John Walker was blackish and blue, and the skin broken in divers places from the middle to the hair of his head, viz., all his back with stripes given him by his master, Robert Latham, as Robert himself did testify; and also we found a bruise of his left arm, and one of his left hip, and one great bruise of his breast; and there was the knuckles of one hand and one of his fingers frozen, and also both his heels frozen, and one of the heels the flesh was much broken, and also one of his little toes frozen and very much perished, and one of his great toes frozen, and also the side of his foot frozen; and also, upon the reviewing the body, we found three gaules like holes in the hams, which we formerly, the body being frozen, thought they had been holes; and also we find that the said John was forced to carry a log which was beyond his strength, which he endeavoring to do, the log fell upon him, and he, being down, had a stripe or two, as Joseph Beedle doth testify; and we find that it was some few days before his death; and we find, by the testimony of John Howland and John Adams, that heard Robert Latham say that he gave John Walker some stripes that morning before his death; and also we find the flesh much broken of the knees of John Walker, and that he did want sufficient food and clothing and lodging, and that the said John did constantly wet his bed and his clothes, lying in them, and so suffered by it, his clothes being frozen about him; and that the said John was put forth in the extremity of cold, though thus unabled by lameness and soreness to perform what was required; and therefore in respect of cruelty and hard usage he died; and also, upon the second review, the dead corpse did bleed at the nose.

1. Salem, Massachusetts, ca. 1680-1685

Records of Essex County, VIII (1921), 302-303.

Phillip Fowler was presented for abusing his servant, Richard Parker, and although court justified any person in giving meet correction to his servant, which the boy deserved, yet they did not approve of the manner of punishment given in hanging him up by the heels as butchers do beasts for the slaughter, and cautioned said Fowler against such kind of punishment. He was ordered to pay costs.

2. New York City, 1683

R. B. Morris, ed., Select Cases of the Mayor's Court of New York City, 1674-1784 (Washington, 1935), p. 182.

The plaintiff declared against the defendant for detaining his apprentice and servant from him to his damage nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings. The defendant pleaded that the apprentice was his son and that by reason of the plaintiff's ill usage towards him by unreasonable correction he was forced to leave his service and come to his father where he now is. After full hearing of both parties the Court ordered that the said apprentice do return to his master and serve his time according to indenture, and if the plaintiff for the future shall misuse him by undue or unreasonable correction on proof made thereof, he shall be freed from his service. The plaintiff to pay the costs.

1. Massachusetts, 1640 Mass. Records, 1,311.

Samuel Hefford, having been much misused by his master Jonathan Wade, he is freed from the said master Wade and is put to John Johnson for three years, and to have 6£ wages paid, and for the other 11/2 years, it is referred to the Court.

2. Maryland, 1660. Md. Archives, LIII, 410-411.

Master Arthur Turner, being summoned to give a reason why the orphan John Ward hath been so ill treated in his house, insomuch that the voice of the people crieth shame thereat, and also to bring the said Ward and his indenture to the court with him, all which accordingly here were produced. . .

The said Ward, with a most rotten filthy, stinking, ulcerated leg that even loathed all the beholders thereof, his apparel being all ragged and torn and his hair seemed to be rotted off with ashes, whose indenture is as followeth:

This indenture, made the twentieth day of April in the year of our Lord God 1652 between Arthur Turner of the one party and John Ward on the other party, witnesseth that the said John Ward doth hereby covenant and grant to and with the said Arthur Turner, his executors and assigns, from the day of the date hereof for and during the term of time until I, the said John, be at the age of twenty years, to serve in such service and employment as the said Arthur Turner shall [me] employ; in consideration whereof the said Arthur Turner doth covenant and grant to and with the said Ward to find and allow his meat, drink, and apparel, and lodging, with other necessaries during the said term, and at the end of the said term to pay unto him double apparel, three barrels of com, a cow, and a sow, with fifty acres of land, and if in case the said Arthur cannot bring the said John to reading in the time of his service, then the said Arthur doth covenant and bind himself to teach the said John the trade of a cooper or a carpenter. . .

John Nevill sworn and examined in open court sayeth that he knew John Ward ever since he came into the country, which is seventeen years ago, and that he was then to his judgment about four or five years old, and further sayeth not.

Mr. William Marshall declares upon oath, that to the best of his judgment, John Ward was about nine or ten years old when he came to master Turner.

It is therefore ordered that the said Ward should be free from the said Turner.

3. Salem, Massachusetts, 1674

Records of Essex County, V (1916), 417-419.

In this case the father of an abused apprentice sought reimbursement from the master for the cost of caring for and treating the boy. Verdict was rendered for the plaintiff.

Writ: Hugh March, Sr., of Newbury v. Benjamin Lowle of Newbury for not keeping his servant Hugh March, Jr., and for not providing for him sufficiently in time of his sickness, also for not teaching him his art or trade according to indenture…

Indenture, dated September 29, 1674, Hugh March, son of Hugh March of Newbury, of his own will and with the consent of his parents was apprenticed to Benjamin Lowle of Newbury, blacksmith, for six years, to learn the trade of a blacksmith, and said Lowle was to perfect him in writing and casting accounts, in reading English and in the trade of making or mending locks. . .

Daniel Ela deposed that he saw the young lad Hugh March at said March's house in Newbury when Mr. John Dole was called to treat him and they did not expect him to live through the night. He was lame in his knee for fifteen months and his thigh was very painful night and day, the flesh and bones being very sore. Deponent saw him often and was called to dress the leg, and Hugh had gotten so much cold and numbness, together with his melancholy, that all the means they used did no good for a long time...

Jonathan March deposed that when his brother was sick at Lowle's house, "I was riding along in the street, and about the midway between my father's house and the house of Benjamin Lowle I met with Benjamin Lowle. He asked me whither I was going with a pillion beside me. I said, to his house for to fetch my brother, if you will let me have him. He made me this answer, 'that's very well,' and no more that I do remember. Then I went to the house and asked his dame whether she would let me have my brother to carry him home and she said yes. She went to him and fitted on his clothes and helped him down the stairs, and she and her mother helped him upon the horse and wrapped the clothes about him and I brought him home. . . I did lay with him two nights at his master Lowle's house when he was sick, and…the thing he lay on was a cotton wool bag, or such like thing, filled with chaff and straw and upon it was a piece of old curtain, and his covering was an old cotton rug and a sheet which was all the bedclothes he had, in the coldest winter night that came...

Judith March deposed that she went to Lowle's to see her son Hugh, and told said Lowle that she was busy and could not attend to him and that he must have a doctor for him. When the doctor came he said the place was not fit for a sick person to be in on account of the coldness of the room. "His dame urged me to take him home. I was not willing and gave her reason for it, as that we were building of our house and had many workmen to lodge, besides the occasions of the ordinary. And her answer was to me: she could not attend him to go up and down the stairs; therefore, urged me very hard to take him, and said he would be better contented with me for he did nothing but lie and cry yesterday almost all day long. So he was fetched from thence and remains with us to this day. . ."

Elizabeth Broune, formerly a servant to Hugh March and of Jonathan March his son, testified that the continual hearing of his doleful crying out night and day for a long time was a great distraction to the family, and his attendance was extraordinary. And for a long time. . . his parents, the Doctor, and we did think that he would not have lived until the morning. And helping sometimes to carry him from the bed to the fire and sometimes lifting him to and fro and leading him, it was for a long time most of the whole family's work to attend him . . . Hugh March, Junior, came in to his father's house one bitter cold night in the winter foregoing and was asked from whence he came. He said from Rowley, and coming to the fire, in a little time, cried out and was not able to stand still. His mother seeing what kind of breeches he had on (which was two stiff leather things like boards about him) she put her hand to see whether he had any drawers on and there was nothing but a rag. . .

And the inside of the thigh. . . so rough, not like flesh, but like some rough board.

4. New York City, 1726

Cases of The Mayor's Court of New York City, p.185.

Upon hearing the Complaint of William Lewis an Apprentice to John Schutz of this City, Barber and Wigmaker, against his Master for Immoderately Correcting him without any Just Cause, and upon hearing the said John Schutz in his Defence, and it Visibly Appearing to this Court that the Said John Schutz hath Immoderately Corrected the said Apprentice: It is the Opinion of the Court that the Said William Lewis be discharged from his Said Apprenticeship.

Protection of servants against mistreatment, Virginia, ca. 1700

Beverley, Virginia, pp. 271~274.

Because I have heard how strangely cruel and severe the service of this country is represented in some parts of England, I can't forebear affirming that the work of their servants and slaves is no other than what every common freeman does. Neither is any servant required to do more in a day than his overseer. And I can assure you with a great deal of truth that generally their slaves are not worked near[ly] so hard, nor so many hours in a day, as the husbandmen and day laborers in England. An overseer is a man, that having served his time, has acquired the skill and character of an experienced planter, and is therefore entrusted with the direction of the servants and slaves.

But to complete this account of servants, I shall give you a short relation of the care their laws take that they be used as tenderly as possible.

By the laws of their country.

1. All servants whatsoever have their complaints heard without fee or reward, but if the master be found faulty, the charge of the complaint is cast upon him, otherwise the business is done ex officio.

2. Any justice of peace may receive the complaint of a servant, and order everything relating thereto till the next county court, where it will be finally determined.

3. All masters are under the correction and censure of the county courts to provide for their servants good and wholesome diet, clothing, and lodging.

4. They are always to appear, upon the first notice given of the complaint of their servants, otherwise to forfeit the service of them until they do appear.

5. All servants' complaints are to be received at any time in court without process, and shall not be delayed for want of form, but the merits of the complaint must be immediately inquired into by the justices; and if the master cause any delay therein, the court may remove such servants, if they see cause, until the master will come to trial.

6. If a master shall at any time disobey an order of court, made upon any complaint of a servant, the court is empowered to remove such servant forthwith to another master who will be kinder, giving to the former master the produce only (after fees deducted), of what such servants shall be sold for by public outcry.

7. If a master should be so cruel as to use his servant ill that is fallen sick or lame in his service, and thereby rendered unfit for labor, he must be removed by the church wardens out of the way of such cruelty, and boarded in some good planter's house till the time of his freedom, the charge of which must be laid befor the next county court, which has power to levy the same from time to time, upon the goods and chattels of the master. After which, the charge of such boarding is to come upon the parish in general.

8. All hired servants are entitled to these privileges.

9. No master of a servant can make a new bargain for service or other matter with his servant, without the privity and consent of a justice of peace, to prevent the master's overreaching or scaring such servant into an unreasonable compliance.

10. The property of all money and goods sent over thither to servants, or carried in with them, is reserved to themselves and remain[s] entirely at their disposal.

11. Each servant at his freedom receives of his master fifteen bushels of corn (which is sufficient for a whole year), and two new suits of clothes, both linen and woolen; and then becomes as free in all respects and as much entitled to the liberties and privileges of the country, as any other of the inhabitants or natives are.

12. Each servant has then also a right to take up fifty acres of land, where he can find any unpatented. But that is no great privilege, for anyone may have as good a right for piece of eight.

This is what the laws prescribe in favor of servants, by which you may find that the cruelties and severities imputed to that country are an unjust reflection. For no people more abhor the thoughts of such usage than the Virginians, nor take more precaution to prevent it.