Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America, 1946.

COMPULSORY LABOR

In the first place, the Elizabethan statutes maintained the principle of compulsory labor for able-bodied persons falling into certain designated categories.1 The Statute of Artificers provided that persons between twelve and sixty not employed otherwise were to be servants in husbandry. Youths refusing to serve as apprentices were subject to impressment. Any one below the rank of yeoman was forbidden to withdraw from an agricultural pursuit in order to be apprenticed to a trade.2 In the Elizabethan act for the punishment of rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars3 wandering persons and common laborers who refused to work at the ordinary rate of wages were included, along with beggars, peddlers, palmists, gypsies, fences, petty chapmen, and others, in a comprehensive list of persons who fell into these categories and were subject to whipping and to sentence to labor in the house of correction. Children of persons who could not maintain themselves were to be taught a trade and set to work, for the mercantilists strongly advocated the labor of women and children of the worklng classes. In short, those living "without a calling" were compelled to work or were punished by the criminal machinery.4

It is readily understandable why the colonies, constantly short of manpower and pervaded by that intense resentment of idleness often associated with pioneer lands, should have largely taken over this program. Not alone in Puritan New England was idleness stigmatized as "the parent of all Vices,"5 but throughout the length and breadth of the North Atlantic seaboard idleness was discountenanced. As in the Elizabethan code, Rhode Island classified together "any Rougs, vagabonds, Sturdy beggars, masterless men, or other Notorious offenders whatsoeuer."6 Penn's Frame of Government provided that "all children within this province of the age of twelve years, shall be Taught some useful trade or skill, to the end none may be idle, but the poor may work to live, and the rich, if they become poor, may not want."7 Colonial almanacs were studded with aphorisms on the sinfulness of being unemployed. "Leisure is the Time for doing something useful," Poor Richard put it. The Ameses, father and son, remind their readers that "The Law of Nature so ordains, Toil, and be Strong." "By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread," the colonial child entered in his copybook.8

Early statutes generally punished idleness by whipping or fine,9 but later enactments provided for forced labor10 or commitment to the workhouse?11 Where the unemployed were recent arrivals, statutes authorized their transportation to the colony whence they came.12 Some of these statutes were frankly based upon the Tudor and Stuart legislation; others borrowed the identical phraseology of some of these English enactments. A Virginia act of 1672 directed the justices of the peace to "put the lawes of England against vagrant, idle and disolute persons in strict execution."13 An act of the same province of 1728 incorporated the principle laid down in 39, 40 Eliz. c. 4 by including in its definition of vagabonds "all persons, able in body, and fit to labour, and not having wherewithal otherwise to maintain themselves, who shall be found loitering, and neglecting to labour for the usual and common wages."14 In 1750 the legislature of Rhode Island resolved to introduce into the colony all the British statutes "related to the poor and relating to masters and their apprentices, so far as they are applicable in this colony, and where we have no law of the colony."15 The effectiveness of such statutes in curbing demands on the part of workmen for higher wages was dependent upon the degree of vigilance exercised by the justices. A New Haven quarter sessions court in 1688 cited the statutes of Elizabeth and James I regarding vagabonds as being in operation in the colony; to bring about proper observance of the statutes the town constables were instructed to publish the court order that "none may plead Ignorance in not doeing their duty."16 In the main these statutes and local regulations were strictly enforced by the courts and town authorities, who were diligent in seeing that laborers were employed and "attended to their callings."17

The compulsory labor program was by no means confined to the unemployed. Generally in the colonies all male inhabitants between sixteen and sixty were required to work on certain occasions during the year on public works projects.18 In the Northern colonies this compulsory labor program embraced master as well as servant, freemen as well as inhabitants.19 In addition to public works projects, Massachusetts, in order to assure a food supply for the colony during the Pequot and King Philip's Wars, impressed men to carry on "the husbandry of such persons" as were in the armed services.20 At the same time men in the militia might be subject to assignment to labor projects. An act of 1646 authorized the constables of every town to require artificers and handicraftsmen "to work by the day for their neighbours in mowing, reaping of corn and inning thereof." This law was justified by the fact that the harvest of hay, corn, flax, and hemp usually came so close together "that much losse can hardly be avoyded." Compensation was to be paid by the farmers to their conscripted workers. A fine of double the usual daily wage was fixed for noncompliance, "provided no artificer or handycrafts-man shall be compelled to work . . . whiles he is necessarily attending on the like business of his own."21 New Haven colony provided that the governor or magistrates could require the captain on training day to send as many fit men as the public work required. For this work they were to be reimbursed "vpon just pay." All private contracts were "suspended" until the public service was performed, after which they were to return to their full force as if the presse had not bin."22 The burgomasters and schepens of New Amsterdam actually avoided a private contract committing men to go into service in Virginia on the ground that the governor had impressed the defendants for public work.23 The Duke's Laws authorized the sending of warrants to any justice, and by the justices in turn to the town constable, to procure "so many Labourers and Artificers as the warrant shall direct," at wages judged proper by the constable and overseers. Provision was made "that no Ordinary Labourer" should be compelled "to work from home ibove one week."24 It should be noted that the Massachusetts act of 1646 and this provision of the New York code were discriminatory as they applied only to the working class.

In the early days of settlement Virginia authorized the general impressment of inhabitants for public service, but provided that such impressment was to be conducted "least burthensome to the people, and most free from partialitie."25 The Grand Council of South Carolina in 1672 required all persons, with a few exceptions noted, to work at planting until the next crop had been gathered. Loiterers were liable to be disposed of by the council to the care of some industrious planter.26 Occasionally Southern county courts required tithables to do the farm work for those who went off to fight.27 However, the general practice as to require the master to send his "laboring servant or slave" for public works projects.28 Masters of two or more tithable male laboring servants were excepted from such public works.29

A Maryland impressment act for the building of a town house provided that the housekeepers be required to contribute "stuff, workmanship, labor or tobacco in such manner and after such rates proportional to each man's personal estate" as the authorities assessed, and that no man, "artificers excepted," be pressed to labor on the building before November and after February, the artificers and laborers "to have such for their work as are reasonably used within the colony."30 Under this project the artificers and laborers really carried the load of personal service. In 1699 that colony set a fine for laborers refusing to obey the overseer and for masters who refused to send all their taxable male servants to him.31 An act of 1750 required the overseers of iron works one out of every ten laboring persons to the overseer of the highways.32 In colonial, Revolutionary, and post-Revolutionary South Carolina laborers could be conscripted for public works,33 and in Georgia slaves were included among the "hands" impressed for road work.34 Hence, the conclusion may be drawn that, except for the early settlement years, impressment for service on public works in the Southern colonies was a class obligation involving principally laborers, servants, and sIaves.

The kind of public works projects for which labor could be impressed included, first and foremost, road and highway construction and repair.35 The courts were vigilant in seeing that the impressment was equitably administered and that inhabitants were not compelled to labor on the highways "but in their Respective Turns Justly and Equally as the said Law Directs."36 When a person had not completed his share of the work, some of the towns authorized the constable to hire other labor and held the absentee liable for the wages of such hired hands as well as for the constable's time; elsewhere he could pay a definite rate -- two or three shillings a day -- in lieu of personal services. In the Northern colonies the size of one's estate often determined the extent of one's obligations for road work. This in effect amounted to an assessment, which in some colonies could be worked off at a specified daily rate of pay.37 The obligation to work on roads has carried down to the twentieth century, and in recent years the compulsory requirement that certain persons labor annually on public highways has been held not to violate prohibitions against involuntary servitude, but is considered in the same category as training in the militia.38 The inhabitants might also be impressed to work on bridges39 or fortifications,40 required to construct or repair dams, weirs, and dikes,41 clear a commons, make a pound, or set up a sufficient fence,42 deepen or broaden a river's channel,43 cut brush,44 build a meeting house,45 cart materials for the parsonage,46 and repair prisons, stocks, whipping posts "or other Instruments of Justice."47 The wages to be paid for such work were set by the local authorities.48

Forced labor for private profit was legal during the colonial period.49 In order to induce an entrepreneur to engage in an undertaking desired by the locality, the authorities might promise him that he could count upon impressed labor. To dig a channel three entrepreneurs asked the New Haven colony in 1644 to "grant them 4 dayes worke for every man in the towne from 16 to 60 yeares olde." The government agreed, and permitted "those that cannott worke, to hyre others to worke in their stead," but required "those that can, to worke in their owne person."50 In Newark, as an inducement to the entrepreneurs to set up a corn mill the town offered them "3 days Work of every Man and Woman that Holds an Allotment in the Town."51 This is one instance where women as well as men were required to perform public work.

In the course of time it was shown to be thoroughly unrealistic to insist upon compulsory labor unless permanent employment was available. The enclosures, the rising cost of living consequent upon the Financial Revolution, and the marked fluctuations in the business cycle were creating a serious unemployment problem in England. It was less than objective, in view of changing social and economic conditions, to maintain, as did certain leading mercantilists, that poverty was due to a defect in character. If the "duty to labor" was to be fulfilled and local communities, so far as possible, freed of the burden of caring for the unemployed, a more constructive program was essential. The statute of 1535-36 first recognized the principle that work should be provided for the able-bodied. In the absence of any mechanism this law remained largely a dead letter until the establishment of such workhouses as the Bridewell in London.52 By an act of 1575-76 this institution was made a part of the national program of poor relief. We are indebted to the parochial reports, diligently gleaned by Sir Frederic Eden, for a description of these insanitary, vermin-infested workhouses, which generally concentrated on the manufacture of textiles and often imparted a small amount of trade instruction.53 The London Bridewell offered training in a considerable number of trades.54

The workhouse program was also introduced in the colonies. As early as 1658 PIyrhouth colony passed an act providing for a house of correction where vagrants, idle persons, rebellious children, and stubborn servants who refused "to work to earne theire own bread" were to be employed.65 During the latter part of the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century royal instructions were issued to colonial governors to have laws enacted for the erection of workhouses; this fact, coupled with the increase of unemployment and poverty in many colonial communities, explains the conspicuous trend toward the workhouse system in eighteenth-century American towns.56 The general Parliamentary law of 1722 giving permission to parishes to establish workhouses57 may well have served as a model for some of the colonial legislation. By the middle of the eighteenth century workhouses had been erected in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.58 The Montgomerie charter of 1731 authorized the New York City authorities to erect an almshouse, which, when completed in 1735, was used as both a house of correction and a workhouse for "Beggars, Servants running away or otherwise misbehaving themselves, Trespassers, Rogues, Vagabonds, and poor people refusing to work."59 With the establishment of Workhouses, short-term labor sentences were frequently imposed for minor offenses.60

The nonimportation agreements were a fillip not alone to domestic manufactures but also to the promotion of plans for the employment of the poor on such favored or subsidized projects as the manufacture of woolens, linen, and cotton goods. By the eve of the Revolution leading colonial towns had set up establishments for such manufacturing. These projects, privately operated, undoubtedly drew upon the town workhouses and helped lighten the local community's poor relief burden, while at the same time assuring a cheap labor supply.61


Notes

1 Vagrants under the act of 1547 were subject to branding and a two-year sentence as a "slave." Stat. at Large (Pickering), V, 246. This statute was repealed within two years because of its severity, but in 1572 a statute made vagabonds found at large liable to one year's service to responsible property owners willing to give bond to maintain them. If no property owner would accept a culprit, he was to be whipped and burnt through the gristle of the right ear. Death was the penalty for a third offense. Ibid., VI, 299, 311, 392.

2 See also 12 Ric. II, c. 5 (1388). For the rationale of this restriction, see R. H, Tawney and Eileen Power, eds., Tudor Economic Documents (London, 1924), I, 354, 355.

3 39, 40 Eliz. c. 4.

4 For example, the overseers of Turvile declared that one spinster's refusal to enter the service they had found for her on the ground that she was unwilling to labor was "of ill example to lazy and thriftless people." She was committed to the workhouse. G. R. Crouch, ed., Calendar to the Buckingham Session Records (Aylesbury, 1935), II, 222. See also HMC, Rep., XIV, Pt. VIII, 193; "Manchester Sessions, 1616-1622/3," Record Society, Publications, XLII (1901), 58 (1618).

5 See report adopted by the town of Boston in 1769. Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Reports (Boston, 1876-), XVI, 273, 274.

6 Early Records of the Town of Providence (20 vols., Providence, 1892-1909), XVII, 5, 6 (1682).

7 Pa. Arch., I, 42. To discourage idleness Philadelphia suppressed theatrical performances. M.C.C. Phila., 1704-76 (Philadelphia, 1847), p. 523 (1750). Cf. also Pa. Col. Rec., IX, 166 (1764). In Southern towns the sale of liquor to servants as well as slaves was sharply curtailed. Norfolk C. C. Mins., f. 11 (1738); S.C. Gazette, Oct. 31, 1774; Ordinances of the City Council of Charleston, S.C. (Charleston, 1802), pp. 15, 149. Cf. also Gazette of the State of S.C., Dec. 12, 1785, and Mass. Centinel, Dec. 23, 1786.

8 Sam Briggs, The Essays, Humor, and Poems of Nathaniel Ames, Father and Son, of Dedham, Massachusetts, from their Almanacks, 1726-1775 (Cleveland, 1891), pp. 258, 260, 261 (1755), 274 (1757), 377 (1766), 412 (1770). It must be borne in mind, as Carl Van Doren points out, that the earlier Poor Richard was not always on the side of calculating prudence. On the eve of his execution a burglar exhorted the good citizens of Boston to:

Shun vain and idle Company;
They'll lead you soon astray;
From ill-fam'd Houses ever flee,
And keep yourselves away.
With honest Labor earn your Bread,
While in your youthful Prime;
Nor come you near the Harlot's Bed,
Nor idly waste your Time.
. . . .
The dreadful Deed for which I die,
Arose from small Beginning;
My Idleness brought poverty,
And so I took to Stealing.

Broadside, Pa. Hist. Soc, also in Ola E. Winslow, ed., American Broadside Verses from Imprints of the 17th and 18th Centuries (New Haven, 1930). See also Sister Monica Kiefer, "Early American Childhood in the Middle Atlantic Area," Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., LXVIII (1944), 5. Conservative ministers attacked the evangelical fervor of the Great Awakening on the ground that religious meetings kept the multitude from their work. See L. W. Labaree, "The Conservative Attitude toward the Great Awakening," WMCQ, 3d ser., I, 341-343.

9 For typical examples see Plymouth Col. Rec., XI, 32, 90 (1639), 143, 144 (1658), 206 (1661-63); R.I. Col. Rec., III, 452 (1702); Conn. Pub. Rec., I, 528 (1650), VI, 82 (1718).

10 See N.C. Laws of 1755, c. 4; Laws of 1760, sess. 4, c. 13; Laws of 1766, c. 17; Laws of 1770, c. 79 -- on failure to betake himself to some "lawful calling," the vagrant was to be hired out for one year. Virginia, by executive order in 1692, impressed idle seamen. Henrico O.B., lib. I, f. 491 (1692). For conscription of vagrants into the armed services, see S.C. Stat., IV, 51, 52 (1758); Hening, IX, 216, 217 (1776); N.C. State Rec., XXIV, 157 (1778). See also Critchton's case, Guilford, lib. 1781-88, f. 10 (1781). Cf. also S.C. Gazette, Dec. 2, 1773, Dec. 12, 1785; Charleston Ordinances, pp. 141, 143 (1796).

11 For workhouse statutes, see infra, pp. 12, 13.

12 The New England Confederation had set an example by a mutual agreement to this end. Conn. Pub. Rec., 1678-89, p. 489 (1673). See also N.Y. Col. Laws, II, 56 (1721); Allinson, N.J. Acts, pp. 418, 419 (1774); but cf. Newcastle, Del., Court Rec. (Lancaster, 1904), I, 421 (1680). For the transportation to the West Indies of an "idle person that refuseth to work," see Boston Town Rec., VII, 162 (1683).

13 Hening, II, 298 (1672); VMH, IX, 374. Cf. also act of 1619, implying the right of the governor to conscript servants. L. G. Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Virginia, 1606-1625 (New York, 1907), p. 273. Barbados made provision in 1652 for putting vagrants to work in defense of the island. Richard Hall, Acts Passed in the Island of Barbados, 1643-1762 (London, 1764). By an act of 1688, authority was given to any two justices to bind out any loose, idle, or unsettled persons under the age of twenty-one to apprenticeship "in the manner prescribed by the Stat. 5 Eliz. c. 4." Ibid., No. 83, cl. IV.

14 Hening, IV, 208-214 (1728).

15 R.I. Col. Rec., V, 288 (1750).

16 New Haven Q.S., New Haven Co. Court, lib. I, f. 4 (1688).

17 For typical prosecutions for vagrancy and idleness, see York, Me., Sess., York Deeds, V, Pt. II, f. 51 (1695); Assistants, II, 14 (1631), 70 (1637), 84 (1639), 123, 126 (1642); Plymouth Col. Rec., I, 163 (1640), II, 36 (1642), III, 127 (1658), delinquent debtor; Boston Town Rec., II, 132, 133; Boston Selectmen Rec., 1701-15, p. 17 (1701); New Haven Co. Court, lib. I, 1666-98, f. 54 (1672); Hartford Co. Court, "Conn. Prob. Rec.," lib. Ill, f. 166 (1677); Hartford Co. Court, lib. 1706/7-18, f. 91 (1709); New London Co. Court, lib. Ill, f. 47 (1672); Conn. Superior Court Rec., lib. 1710-49, f. 68 (1712); Newport Court of Trials, lib. I, f. 141 (1701); Gravesend, L.I., Town Rec., lib. IV, 1662-99, f. 25 (1669); N.Y.G.S., lib. 1694-1731/2, f. 524 (1730), 1722-42/3, f. 272 (1739); Burlington, West Jersey, Court Bk., f. 79 (1688); Monmouth, N.J., C.P. and Q.S., lib. 1688-1721, f. 443 (1718); Talbot, Md., Co. Court, lib. NN, No. 6 (March 5, 1687); York, Va., O.B., 1706-10, f. 83 (1707).

18 See, e.g., Records of the Town of Southampton, 1639-1870 (6 vols., Sag Harbor, N.Y., 1874-1915), I, 41 (1644); Records of the Town of Jamaica, LI., 1656-1751 (3 vols., New York, 1914), I, 61 (1674); "Newark Town Rec., 1666-1836," NJ. Hist. Soc., Coll., VI, 60 (1675).

19 See Assistants, II, 38 (1633); Conn. Pub. Rec., II, 229; New Haven Col. Rec., I, 55, 227, 231; Providence Town Rec., II, 94 (1656); R.N.A., V, 105 (1664).

20 "Early Records of the Town of Dorchester, 1632-87," Boston Rec. Commissioners, 4th Rep. (Boston, 1880), p. 32 (1637), where the order applied also to masters whose servants had gone into military service. See also Mass. Bay Rec., V, 78 (1676), where the conscripts were to be compensated at a rate of 18d. a day for their work "to be payd by the respective persons for whom they worke." For the impressment of artificers and laborers for military duties, see infra, pp. 279 et seq.

21 The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, 1648 (Cambridge, 1929), p. 55; Mass. Bay Rec., II, 180-181. 12 Ric. II, c. 5 (1388) was a good precedent for such conscription.

22 New Haven Col. Rec., 1638-49, p. 213 (1645).

23 R.N.A., V, 131 (1664).

24 N.Y. Col. Laws, I, 38 (1665).

25 Hening, I, 196 (1632).

26 Journal of the Grand Council of South Carolina, 1671-1680, ed. A. S. Salley, Jr. (Columbia, 1907), p. 27.

27 Accomac, Va., O.B., I, f. 105 (1638).

28 See Hening, X, 368 (1780).

29 Ibid., VI, 66 (1748); X, 164, 165 (1779).

30 Md. Arch., I, 75 (1639).

31 Ibid., XXII, 546-554 (1699).

32 Ibid., XLVI, 294 (1749). In the West Indies Negroes could be impressed. CSPA, 1681-85, 259, p. 499; No. 1291, p. 511 (1683). A master might be required to send one Negro out of every twenty or thirty.

33 S. C. Stat. (Cooper and McCord), IV, 441 (1728); Gazette of the State of S.C., Feb. 9, 1780; March 16, 1786.

34 Chatham Co. Court Mins., lib. 1774-79 (1774); lib. 1781-85 (1783, 1786); lib. 1782-90, f. 252 (1786). For the impressment of Negroes for public works elsewhere, see M.C.C., I, 225, 226 (1691); Tonyn to Knox, Sept. 26, 1778, Turnbull MSS, Shelburne Transcripts, St. Augustine Hist. Soc.

35 Compulsory labor on highways was enforced throughout contemporary England. See 14 Car. II, c. 6; Mary S. Gretton, "Oxfordshire Justices of the Peace in the Seventeenth Century," Oxford Rec. Soc, Publications, XI (Oxford, 1934), lxvii, lxviii.

36 N.Y.G.S., lib. 1694-1731/2, f. 546 (1732); lib. 1732-62, f. 82 (1738).

37 For the general practice, see

James Parker, Conductor Generalis or the Office, Duty and Authority of Justices of the Peace (Andrew Bradford: Philadelphia, 1722), p. 123.
For orders, prosecutions, and assessments, see
Maine Prov. and Court Rec., I, 304 (1667); York Sess., lib. VI, f. 402 (1715);
Gloucester Co. Court Rec., Vermont Hist. Soc, Proceedings, 1923-25, pp. 171, 172 (1773); Worcester, Mass., G.S., lib. 1778, f. 425;
Records of the Court of Nathaniel Harris, Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County . . . 1734-61 (Watertown, Mass., 1938), pp. 59, 60, 62, 64, 65 (1741);
Boston Town Rec., II, 62, 63 (1641);
Muddy River and Brookfine Rec., 1634-1889 (4 vols., Brookline, 1875-89), pp. 90, 171;
Watertown Rec. from 1634 (3 vols., Watertown, 1894-1904), III, 219; IV, 35, passim;
Records of the Town of Lee, 1777-1801 (Lee, Mass., 1900), pp. 20, 107.
See also
New Haven Town Rec., I, 354-356, 391 (1658-59), rates payable in labor or money levied "in every man's proportion";
Providence Town Rec., III, 55 (1664);
N.Y.G.S., lib. 1683-94 (1694); lib. 1694-1731/2, f. 322 (1716);
Westchester G.S., Westchester Co. Hist. Soc, Coll., II, 40-42 (1687), 74, 75 (1693);
Dutchess G.S., Bk. C, 1758-66, f. 67 (1764); Bk. E, 1771-75 (1771);
Records of the Town of East Hampton, L.I., 1648-1900 (5 vols., Sag Harbor, N.Y., 1887), I, 27 (1652), 71 (1654);
Jamaica Town Rec., I, 26 (1663), 31 (1673), 34 (1683), 137 (1685);
Records of the Town of Brookhaven (3 vols., New York, 1930-32), Bk. C, pp. 15 (1693), 43 (1704) 51 (I707), 207 (1738);
Brookhaven Town Rec., 1662-79, I (New York, 1925), 95 (1704);
Southampton Town Rec., III, 332 (1790);
Newark, N.J., Rec., N.J. Hist. Soc, Coll., VI, 20, 21 (1669), 52 (1674);
Burlington, West Jersey, Court Bk., f. 19 (1684); N.J. Gazette, Oct. 28, 1778.

In Philadelphia prior to 1712 the inhabitants were obliged to "Send Able Labourers" to work on road construction projects, but the common council, for reasons of economy, authorized overseers to take 1s. 6d. from those who were willing to pay to be excused from a day's labor. M.C.C., Phila., p. 80.

For instances of forced labor on the roads in Pennsylvania, see
Bucks Q.S., lib. 1715-53, f. 373 (1745);
Records of the Courts of Chester Co., 1681-97 (Philadelphia, 1910), p. 244 (1691);
Lancaster Road and Sess. Docket, No. 3, 1760-68 (1761);
West Chester Q.S., lib. 1714-23 (1715).
For Delaware, see
Some Records of Sussex, Del. (Philadelphia, 1909), pp. 65 (1682), 116 (1684).
For examples of impressment for road and highway projects in the South, see, e.g.:
Virginia:
Caroline O.B., 1732-40, Pt. II, f. 439 (1737), 1777-80, f. 6 (1777);
Charles City O.B., 1655-65, f. 357 (1663);
Fairfax O.B., 1768-70 (Lib. of Cong.), f. 74 (1768);
Fincastle O.B., 1773-77 (1773, 1776).
North Carolina:
Bertie, lib. 1724-69 (1732, 1736, 1758);
Bute, lib. 1767-76, fols. 79 (1769), 361 (1775);
Cartaret, lib. 1764-77 (1764, 1768);
Caswell, lib. 1770-80 (1777), 1777-81 (1777);
Craven, lib. 1767-75 (1768);
Guilford, lib. 1781-88 (1782, 1783);
Rutherford, lib. 1780-82 (1782);
Tyrrell, lib. 1770-82 (1777).
Occasionally motions of inhabitants for exemption from forced labor on the roads were considered (Onslow, lib. 1741-49, f. 37 [1741]), and frequently overseers of the roads were indicted for not doing their duty; see, e.g., Rex v. Daniel, Halifax Reference or Prosecution Docket, lib. 1759-70 (1770). During the Revolution, South Carolina imposed a fine of $200 for failure to respond to a call for work on roads, bridges, etc. S.C. Gazette, Feb. 24, 1779.

38 In re Dassler, 35 Kan. 678 (1886), at p. 684; Dennis v. Simon, 41 Ohio St. 233 (1894); Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S. 328 (1916). But cf. Rex v. Gay, Quincy Rep. (Mass.) 91-93 (1763), which decided that a capias would not issue in Massachusetts for neglect in mending a highway. This decision was indicative of a trend away from impressment for public works by the end of the colonial period.

39 Plymouth Col. Rec., III, 13 (1652); Essex, VI, 317 (1677).

40 Boston Town Rec., II, 8 (1635); Mass. Bay Rec., IV, Pt. II, 42, 43 (1662); R.N.A., VII, 30, 31 (1673); Albany Mayor's Court Mins., J. Munsell, Annals of Albany (10 vols., Albany, 1850-59), II, 98 (1687); M.C.C., I, 329-330; Hening, II, 257, 258 (1667); Jamaica Council Mins., CSPA, 1693-96, p. 133 (1693).

41 Derby, Conn., Rec., 1655-1710 (Derby, 1901), p. 121 (1681); Southampton Town Rec., I, 40 (1644); Brookhaven Rec., 1662-79, I, 117 (1674); Newcastle, Del., Court Rec., I, 57 (1677); Pa. Stat. at Large. IV, 265 (1734).

42 Conn. Pub. Rec., 1678-89, p. 91 (1681); Derby, Conn., Rec., 1655-1710, p. 120 (1681); York Court of Associates, York Deeds, Pt. I, f. 19 (1676); Brookhaven Rec., 1662 -- 79, I, 53 (1678).

43 Gazette of the State of S.C., Oct. 21, 1778.

44 Jamaica Town Rec., I, 145 (1691).

45 Derby, Conn., Rec., 1655-1710, p. 127 (1682); Jamaica Town Rec., II, 344 (1693).

46 "Kingston Dutch Rec.," N.Y. State Hist. Assn., Proceedings, XI, 40, 41 (1662).

47 Plymouth Col. Rec., XI, 164 (1658), 258 (1682).

48 For example, in New Castle, Del., wages and hours were fixed; in 1767 they were 3s. for a day's work from 7 A.M. to 6 P.M. The wages were raised to 4s. in 1770, and both wages and hours scales appear to have been retained until the Revolution. In 1778 the wages were raised to 18s. reflecting inflationary developments. Newcastle Town Rec., lib. I, fols. 26, 28, 30, 34, 42, 43, 45.

49 While in the Spanish colonies a distinction was made between the "public service" industries, comprising chiefly agriculture, mining, and public works, in which forced Indian labor could be required, and other occupations in which compulsory service was prohibited, nevertheless the mita system of native forced labor employed under Spanish rule was far more extensively adopted than the English system of impressment of European colonists. See J. J. Carney, "The Legal Theory of Forced Labor in the Spanish Colonies," University of Miami, Hispanic-American Studies, No. 3 (1942), pp. 26, 27, 29, 30. One argument raised by labor leaders in opposing national service legislation during World War II was that forced labor for private profit was involuntary servitude, and therefore unconstitutional.

50 New Haven Col. Rec., 1638-49, p. 143.

51 N.J. Hist. Soc, Coll., VI. 30, 31 (1670).

52 E. M. Leonard, The Early History of English Poor Relief (Cambridge, 1900), pp. 30-36, 65; Buck, Politics of Mercantilism, p. 91. For Coke's endorsement of the workhouse program, see Lipson, Econ. Hist, of Eng., III, 426.

53 Sir Frederic M. Eden, The State of the Poor, ed. A. G. L. Rogers (New York, 1929); Oliver J. Dunlop, English Apprenticeship and Child Labour (New York, 1912), p. 248.

54 Leonard, op. cit., p. 354. For Coke's endorsement of the workhouse program, see Lipson, op. cit., III, 426.

55 We have no information about the operations of this institution. Plymouth Col. Rec., XI, 120 (1658). Cf. also Boston Town Rec., VII, 157, 158 (1682), 204 (1690).

56 See L. W. Labaree, Royal Instructions to British Colonial Governors (New York, 1935), I, 342, 343; Md. Arch., VIII, 279, XXII, 287; VMH, XXVIII, 44.

57 Stat. 9 Geo. I, c. 7 § iv; Eden, op. cit., pp. 47-51, passim; Sir George Nicholls, A History of the English Poor Law (London, 1904), II, 16-17.

58 For colonial legislation establishing workhouses, see Mass. Acts and Resolves, I, 67 (1692-93), 654 (1710-11), II, 756; III, 108, 926, V, 46; Acts and Laws of New Hampshire, I, 73 (1718); Conn. Pub. Rec., V, 383, VII, 127, 530, VIII, 137-139, 505, X, 159, 206, XIII, 237; R.I. Col. Rec., IV, 365, V, 157, 378, VI, 598; Allinson, N.J. Acts, pp. 179 et seq. (1748); Pa. Stat. at Large (Mitchell and Flanders), V, 84, 85 (1749), VII, 15 (1766), 85-88 (1767); Pa. Col. Rec., XIV, 354 (1785); Hening, VI, 475 (1755); S.C. Stat, VII, 90.

For local regulations of workhouses, spinning schools, etc., including commitments, see Boston Selectmen Rec., 1701-15, p. 20 (1702), 1716-36, pp. 66, 108, 137, 275, 293, 296, 297; Boston Town Rec., VIII, 93, 96, 97, 101 (1712-14), 147-148 (1720); M.C.C., N.Y., III, 362, IV, 308 (1736); D. M. Schneider, The History of Public Welfare in New York State, 1609-1866 (Chicago, 1938), pp. 119-120. Philadelphia as early as 1712 provided for the establishment of a workhouse to employ the idle poor. M.C.C., Phila., pp. 80, 229, 230, 279. See also comment in Phila. Directory, 1794. According to the vestry records, six Virginia parishes had workhouses or poorhouses before the American Revolution. See G. F. Wells, Parish Education in Colonial Virginia (New York, 1923), p. 66. See also Bristol Parish Vestry Book and Register, 1720-89 (Richmond, 1898), p. 160. As early as 1735 the Charleston, S.C, grand jury returned that, for want of a workhouse to punish the idle, the poor were flocking to the town. S.C. Gazette, March 23-30, 1734. See also presentments of 1768, Ibid., Jan. 25-Feb. 1, 1768; S.C. Council J., 1764-68, fols. 252, 255 (1768). See S.C. Gazette, passim, for regular lists of those committed to the workhouse. See also M. W. Jernegan, Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America (Chicago, 1931), pp. 201 et seq.

59 N.Y. Col. Laws, III, 645.

60 Mary Atkinson's case is doubtless typical of many friendless laboring people and vagrants. She was committed to gaol by the following mittimus made up by a justice of the peace:

City of New York

To the Keeper of the House of Correction or Brideswell

You are hereby Required and Commanded to take into the Bridewell the Body [of] Mary Atkins [sic] and her keep to Hard Labour During the Space of Forty Days given Under my Hand and Seal this 19 Day of December in the thirteenth year of His Majesty Reign A:D 1772

John Dykeman

Mary's mother petitioned the attorney-general that her daughter had been sent to the Bridewell "without any Crime," and that Alderman Brewerton had accordingly obtained her release. Whereupon the justice had her recommitted. As a result, her mother charged, "she's hindred from her Service besides hurting her Caracter which is tender to those that Live by their Labour." Kempe MSS, A-B, N.Y. Hist. Soc; see also Ibid., W-Y, order regarding vagrants John Willson et al. (1774).

61 The undertakers of such a project in Boston in 1768 disclaimed any profit motive, stating that their design was solely to employ "the many Poor we have in the Town and giving them a Livelihood." Boston Town Rec., XVI, 226, 227, 230-232, 249. As unemployment increased, the responsibilities of the entrepreneurs were enhanced. In April, 1769 it was reported that over 200 unemployed in Boston were desirous of securing work at spinning and carding and that "their Numbers are dayly increasing." Funds were provided for setting up spinning schools to train children and for securing machinery, etc., to take care of the unemployed. This, it was reported by the committee, would not only reduce the numbers in the almshouses but would "habituate the People to Industry, and preserve their Morals who instead of their continuing a burden to society will become some of its most useful Members." Ibid., pp. 272-276. For other similar Boston projects, see Ibid., XVIII, 70, 71 (spinning wool, 1772; building ships and wharves and paving streets to care for unemployed sufferers from the Port Bill, 1774). Peter Curtenius of New York City made a series of remarkable proposals to the Boston committee responsible for this program. His idea was that these work projects should be self-sustaining, that the ships built by the ship carpenters be sold and the proceeds used again; similarly with house carpenters, who should be employed "to keep them in a good humour." Set the unemployed blacksmiths to work making nails which were assured a profitable market, he recommended. Sell the yarn and thread made by the poor and unemployed women spinners, or have the material woven and sell the cloth. Peter Curtenius to William Cooper, August 26, 1774, N.Y. Pub. Lib.

The sum of £1,000 voted by the New York Provincial Congress in 1775 for the relief of the poor was placed in the hands of John Ramsey, a woolen merchant, to employ them in making linen and tow cloth. His own fee was five per cent of all moneys turned over to him. A further sum of £1,000 was granted him in March, 1776. J. N.Y. Prov. Cong., I, 231; Cal. Hist. MSS Rel. to the War of the Revol. (Albany, 1868), I, 311; Schneider, op. cit., pp. 97, 98.

The Continental Congress officially encouraged the formation of societies throughout the colonies for the promotion of manufactures. See John Adams, Works, ed. C. F. Adams (Boston, 1850-56), II, 487; VI, 235, 252.

A venture for the production of coarse linen was established in Philadelphia in 1764 with the ostensible object of relieving unemployment. Buildings were erected and more than 100 persons employed. The House of Employment eventually ran into financial difficulties. J. T. Scharf and T. Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 (Philadelphia, 1884), III, 2309, 2310; Pa. Col. Rec., IX, 567; M.C.C., Phila., p. 799.