Indentured Servant

In preparing last week's sermon, the terms "servant, slave and tenant" came up in the Gospel lesson. So I did a little research to find out more about these terms, and I came across some interesting information about my own family history, as well as my wife's family history. I did some research via Wikipedia to find out more about my ancestor, John Howland.

John Howland was a passenger on the Mayflower.  He signed the Mayflower Compact and helped found Plymouth Colony. He fell overboard but was rescued by the sailors. I am glad he got back on board, or I would not be here today! At about mid-voyage the ship entered equinoctial gales and under instructions of the ship's master, Governor Carver directed that no one without official authority would go on deck. The ship was in danger and Howland, carrying some emergency message from the governor to the ship's master, was washed overboard.

Howland signed the first written constitution for a representative government 'of the people, by the people, for the people'. After the passengers came ashore John Howland became assistant to the governor over the new independent state created under the compact. The act of Governor Carver in making a treaty with the great Indian Sachem Massosoit was an exercise of sovereign power and John Howland was the assistant.

Howland was an indentured servant and the executive assistant and personal secretary to Governor John Carver and accompanied the Separatists and other passengers when they left England to settle in Plymouth, Massachusetts. John Carver, the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, to whom he was indentured and his wife survived the winter of 1620-21. However, the following spring, on an unusually hot day in April, Governor Carver, according to William Bradford, came out of his cornfield feeling ill. He passed into a coma and "never spake more". His wife, Kathrine, died soon after her husband. The Carvers' only children died while they lived in Leiden and it is possible that Howland inherited their estate. After Carver's death, he became a freeman. In 1624 he was considered the head of what was once the Carver household when he was granted an acre for each member of the household.

My wife's family has a story of indentured servitude as well. George Hempleman was born in Germany in 1732. His father was Lord Hempleman, a rich man with a large estate. George fell in love with Margarette Duffy, a peasant girl, the daughter of one of the peasants who lived on one of the farms of Lord Hempleman. The two knew they would be forbidden to marry in Germany, so they decided to run away to America and begin a new life together. When they reached the ocean, they had no money for the trip to America. So they made arrangements with a company there to carry them to America by agreeing to allow the company to sell them as indentured servants when they arrived in America.

They landed in Richmond, Virginia in 1752. George was sold to a cotton planter in the Carolinas, and Margaret to a tobacco farmer near Richmond. The two did not know if they would ever see each other again, but they planned that they would. The agreement was that they would meet each other after their four years of servitude at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. This church later became famous for Patrick Henry’s speech delivered there – “Give me liberty or give me death.”
George’s time of servitude was difficult, and his health suffered because of it. Margarette was more fortunate, and she fared better over the years. The family historian, George Whitely writes of their reunion:

Neither had heard from each other until their time of servitude had expired, but true to their promise, each started for Richmond and the little old church. Margarette Duffy being only a short distance from Richmond reached there first, and went directly to the church, attending every service regularly, hoping soon to see her lover return. Finally one cold, crispy morning as she sat watching ever passer through the door, she saw a stout, young German man coming through the door, pause for a moment, look around, seemingly looking for someone that he did not see, then he sat down, and draw from his hands a pair of white mittens, and laid them across his knees; immediately Margarette Duffy recognized those mittens as the ones she had knit in Germany and gave to her lover, George Hempleman. Time had wrought such changes in these folks that it was no wonder neither knew the other, but at the close of the service, those two wanderers were reunited. ("History of the Hempleman Family")

The two were married in that very church soon after their reunion. A side-note – the family settled near the Little Miami River a few miles west of South Charlestown, Ohio in the 1800s.

So how did indentured servitude work? Indentured servitude was a labor system whereby young people paid for their passage to the New World by working for an employer for a certain number of years. It was widely employed in the 18th century in the British colonies in North America and elsewhere. It was especially used as a way for poor youth in Britain and the German states to get passage to the American colonies. They would work for a fixed number of years, then be free to work on their own. The employer purchased the indenture from the sea captain who brought the youths over; he did so because he needed labor. Some worked as farmers or helpers for farm wives, some were apprenticed to craftsmen. Both sides were legally obligated to meet the terms, which were enforced by local American courts. Runaways were sought out and returned. About half of the white immigrants to the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries were indentured.

While slavery and human trafficking carry the strong negative images and connotations, as they rightfully should, there is more to being a servant than just those images. God calls us to a life of servitude, to place our trust in God and God's care. And we are more than just servants of God, we are also called God's beloved, and through the waters of baptism, we receive the title of Child of God. And as God's children, inheritors of all of the blessings of God - love, forgiveness, peace and life.

God is good.
All the time!

Peace,
Pastor Charlie