Johanna Smith’s letter to her father, from the colony of Virginia in 1660, represents a key primary source of historical value. Its exemplary evidence poignantly records the conditions, and plight of white indentured servants in the period. Johanna is afraid, doubting whether her father had even received her letters. This essay focuses the discussion on the working and labor-class conditions, particularly concerning the plight of whites under the auspices of indentured servitude. Johanna (1661) writes “The plantation grows good tobacco for England. I also tend to the small house garden, the kitchen, and the house. My labors are many” (Smith, Letter to father, n.p.). The task of this assignment also includes commentary from both servant and master viewpoints.
Miss Johanna Smith, a young white woman living in early colonial Virginia, felt her life within indentured servitude predicted an uncertain future for her. Johanna frequently felt afraid living in such unfamiliar circumstances in which her security (physically and financially) were tenuous at best – and downright dangerous at worst. According to historian authors Murrin, et al. the areas of the Carolinas and Virginia may have been deemed ‘settled,’ but hostile conflicts with neighboring Indians made settlements always subject to attacks. Regarding the nature of poor working conditions in the 1600s, the courts failed to address labor situations white indentured servants faced. Murrin et al. state that the legal system in 1641 Massachusetts largely protected resolutions for criminal cases, although “Massachusetts seldom executed anyone for a crime against property” (Murrin, Liberty, Equality, Power, p. 61). It is important to keep in mind that England actually had founded the first several colonies, of the original thirteen, prior to 1640.
Therefore, early struggles for power and rulership in the new colonial territories involved Britain, independence-minded colonists, Indians, and the presence of slaves. Make no mistake. England held definite plans to develop commerce in the region. The labor class of white servants fell to the mercy of their so-called masters and slaveholders. The noted historian Howard Zinn, notes the particular situation of the white labor force in 1660s-colonial days as being insufficient in their numbers. In other words, there were not enough of them to efficiently work the land, manage the households, and function in other types of physical labor. Johanna’s letter bears this fact out when she bemoans the harsh conditions of her household, as a “dreadful” place (Smith, Letter to father, n.p.). Zinn further describes that many free white settlers were forced, by declaration of a sort of “martial law” which organized “them into work gangs” (Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Chapter 2, n.p.). The labors, as you can see, truly were many.
The situation in terms of working conditions were so poor that many of the white servants deserted the colonial plantations, running away to join the native Indians. Hostility and uncertainty were so great that the colonists were encouraged to burn down Indian villages, kill them, and set their cornfields afire – in order to firmly gain control over the land. Another dangerous circumstance presented itself in the form of British soldiers, attempting to gain firm commercial control from their early settlements. A complex mix of power struggles retained an atmosphere of danger and mistrust. Although in the 1660s black slavery imports and designs had not quite reached its height, but their presence was beginning to grow. Given the difficulties of retaining white labor servitude, black slavery according to Zinn, was the answer. Meanwhile, to expand an understanding of the mounting labor duties, the British were unashamed in their abuses of “many Dutch civilians” in what the area currently known as New York (Murrin, Liberty, Equality, Power, p. 64). One can only imagine what daily life must have been like for poor Johanna Smith. Baking bread, tending the garden, mending and washing laundry by hand, and perhaps building fences and chicken coops marked her world.
So far we had learned that labor needs were so scarce in the early pioneering days of 1660s colonial life, it was not uncommon for white indentured servants to be forced (in martial law style) into field work. Although these white persons forced into workers gangs technically were considered free, Johanna already was aware of different classes of people. She viewed white fieldworkers as of the ‘lower’ classes. It is interesting to note that in light of Johanna’s miserable condition, which was quite precarious, she saw fit to look down her nose at other whites who were fieldworkers. Some historians would argue that blacks initially entered early 1660s-colonial America as indentured servants. However, there is scanty evidence to support this. White indentured servants were at least granted a legal contract which would end their servitude in five years. The black slaves as a whole, never enjoyed this option. Other disadvantages of the black slaves included a stripping of their languages, separation from families, viciously denied all human dignity. Black skin color, therefore, evolved to signify and justify a perpetual cruel brand of slavery which the world had never seen before. One article astutely notes that, regarding most of recorded historical accounts “The inference was then made that blacks called servants must have had approximately the same status as white indentured servants” (Inner City, Chronology of the History of Slavery: 1619-1789, n.p.). However, the masters and white indentured servants possessed their own respective views of the situation.
According to Johanna’s letter to her father, she did not trust the masters – or more accurately described as landowners, or slaveholders. From reading the letter, you get the idea she neither liked them nor felt they behaved in a civil manner. Her perspective indicated that she could not even trust them to make sure her letters would be delivered. Johanna certainly recognized that the entire operation was designed to churn commercial profits from the plantation. Little else mattered. But Johanna Smith is well aware that black slaves were to increasingly be purchased to work the hard and consistent fieldwork, establishing the free-labor system of several hundred years that built the economic foundation of the future United States.
The masters’ view of the labor situation of those whites indentured to servitude surely was secondary. They had so many other pressing concerns, like not being killed or attacked by Indians. The other pressing concern of the landowners, or so-called ‘masters,’ promoted a keen interest in buying as many black slaves as soon as they could afford. They held a supreme dedication to expanding black-slave based fieldworkers because it signified greater profits, and the potential for enormous wealth. Several times with repeated emphasis, Smith states in her letters a fear of her situation and that she must always be “vigilant” (Smith, Letter to father, n.p.) Who knows how deep her situation really goes? She most likely feared death by an Indian attack, or even being raped by one of the so-called ‘lower-class’ fieldworker whites. Her letter does not make it clear. But she probably wrote them in haste, looking over her shoulders at every moment.
In conclusion, the 1660s colonial period of American history reinforces the concept of a tenuous circumstance for most white indentured servants. The period outlined an even more ominous precursor for the plight of a hundreds-year-long predicament for black people and their progeny. In any case, working conditions of the poor imported indentured servants from England provided a weak and uncertain position of their circumstances. A great deal of them may also have been exposed to dying from infectious diseases, which some would argue, were imported into the Americas by the colonists.
Works Cited
“Chronology of the History of Slavery: 1619-1789.” Innercity.org Inner City – An Independent
Research Education Project, n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Murrin, John M Liberty, equality, power: A history of the American people. 6th ed. Boston:
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
Smith, Johanna. “Letter to father.” Class Handout. History: 40A. (Professor Name.) College
Zinn, Howard. “Chapter 2: Drawing the Color Line,” A people’s history of the United States:
1492-2001. New ed. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. 23-38. Print. *NOTE: {the Zinn
text was only available in online-reference form, thereby page numbers were substituted
for ‘chapter 2’ identification}.
