Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/24

10 last century, the prepayment of the passage was the exception, and its subsequent discharge by compulsory labor the rule. The ship owners and ship merchants derived enormous profits from the sale of the bodies of emigrants, as they charged very high rates for the passage, to which they added a heavy percentage—often more than a hundred per cent.—for their risks. But the emigrants suffered bitterly from this traffic in human flesh. Old people, widows, and cripples would not sell well, while healthy parents with healthy children, and young people of both sexes, always found a ready market. If the parents were too old to work, their children had to serve so much longer to make up the difference. When one or both parents died on the voyage, their children had to serve for them. The expenses for the whole family were summed up and charged upon the survivor or survivors. Adults had to serve from three to six years, children from ten to fifteen years, till they became of age; smaller children were, without charge, surrendered to masters, who had to raise and board them. As all servants signed indentures, they were called "indented servants." Whenever a vessel arrived at Philadelphia or New York, its passengers were offered at public sale. The ship was the market-place, and the servants were struck off to the highest bidder. The country people either came themselves or sent agents or friends to procure what they wanted, be it a girl or a "likely" boy, or an old housekeeper, or a whole family. Among the records of this traffic there is a characteristic anecdote, about the wife of Sir William Johnson, the Indian agent, and most prominent man of Western New York, in the middle of the eighteenth century. Catharine Weisenberg had arrived in New York a poor German orphan girl, and had been sold as an indented servant to two brothers, Alexander and Herman Philipps, farmers in the Mohawk Valley. Catharine soon became the belle of the settlement, and was courted by a great many swains; but none of them was rich enough to buy her. Johnson, when passing by, saw her, and at once resolved to make her his wife. He offered one of the Philippses five pounds, threatening at the same time to give him a sound thrashing if he did not voluntarily part with the girl. Philipps knew that Johnson was the man to