Indentured servants faced a tough road to get to the new land. Mittelberger wrote a telling account of the whole process that occurs on the trip to the new world. He told of the horrors and tragedy that befalls all members from crew to passengers and the rules that applied to paying for passage. The process once they make it to Philadelphia is quite similar to how Slaves were treated when brought over to America.
Mittelberger wrote about the very process of transporting indentured servants from Rotterdam and Amsterdam and how things were on the ships. From reading this account of the travel conditions it seemed to me that, at first, he was never on one of these ships and was just getting an account from a person who did travel. On second glance though where he describes the passage of “Children from 1 to 7 years rarely survive the voyage. I witnessed…” I decided that he did acquire this knowledge first hand and it is indeed his own personal account of the voyage. I do not take issue with anything he wrote and believe all of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did put some things in here to sensationalize certain parts of the voyage. One such instance in which I am referencing is when he discusses throwing children that had died into the sea he described them as being “devoured by the monsters of the sea”. I know what he meant by this statement it just makes it seem more extreme and invokes images of giants squids and sea monsters as opposed to ordinary things such as sharks and the like.
While reading through this piece written by Mr. Mittelberger I couldn’t help but imagine myself on that boat and how I would react to all the situations. First off I know for certain I would not be able to stand being that close to so many people for that long. I have recently discovered I am somewhat claustrophobic and the small space you have to sleep in would be too small for me to handle, more than likely. I also do not think it would invoke a positive reaction in me to see all those sick and dying children. That would more than likely consume all my thoughts and dreams and that along with the being stuck in one place feeling would tend to cause a man to go mad. If you manage to get through this with your mind intact you have to hope you can keep healthy once you get close to land. If I made it all the way the Philadelphia docks, healthy, then I had a high probability of being bought and working to pay off my passage. Before I read this account from Mittelberger I always viewed indentured servants as a sort of contract based people that just worked for free essentially and were not treated too bad. However, after taking a look in the book titled “Give me Liberty: An American History” by Eric Foner I have a sort of different view on the matter. According to Foner in his book Give Me Liberty “Elizabeth Sprigs, an indentured servant in Maryland who described being forced to work “day and night…then tied up and whipped” and “Given the high death rate, many servants did not live to the end of their terms”(Foner Pg. 52). This sort of changed my view on it. I always knew it was rough getting the America, but didn’t know it was that bad once they got there also. Thinking of this from my own perspective in the time period I don’t know if I could of handled that. If I had come over around the age of 10-15 and had to work until I was 21? That’s pretty brutal, especially given the person that purchased me. They could be nice or just plain vicious. It would all be up to luck and chance really. I saw mention in the book that one owner mention something about indentured servants that were lazy or ran away. I could see me being one of the ones that ran away. Especially since it also was said that the “Freedom Dues” sometimes weren’t even enough money to buy land and get started. If I had the feeling that that was the case I would definitely consider abandoning the place and running as far away as I could. Anything would be better than risking dying while working without having enough to gain to buy my own land, in my opinion.
There is quite an interesting similarity in Slavery and Indentured Servitude and some things that are of course different.
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