historical fiction

Andrew and Molly Part 7

img_1779Master Reeve’s bondsman gestured for Andrew and Molly to follow while he bundled their order. He wrapped cord around the linsey-woolsey so it could be packed more easily.  The rest of the items went into a neat paper-wrapped bundle of a weight Molly could manage, talking to the all the while.  “I am Jeffers and bound for six more years.    Wharton seems a hard but fair man.  I hope to see you in town sometimes, or on Sunday when our time is our own.  I wish you Godspeed.”  With that, he hoisted and settled the heavy bundle of yard goods on Andrew’s back and loaded Molly’s arms with her parcels.

The two labored under their burdens as they made their way along the rutted track.  The morning sun was already hot, the air muggy.  Andrew hadn’t gone far before the weight of the pack ate into his shoulders.  He rested his weary back by leaning against a tree a time or two, knowing he’d never get the pack back on if he took it off.  Molly shifted her bundles frequently as she fatigued.  

After a half a mile, they rounded a curve to see the Wharton farm in a stump-filled clearing.  A hearty stand of tobacco took up most of the cleared ground, a patch of corn and a kitchen garden the rest. Clearly, tobacco was the major crop.  Early on, the colony had nearly perished when farmers opted to plant all their ground in tobacco, the lucrative option, rather than food crops. A law was passed requiring each farm to provide a portion of corn to the community storehouse, enabling them to feed themselves, rather than rely on England to import food.

The cabin was strictly utilitarian, a modest one-story dwelling of rough timber, a well in the dooryard.  The garden plots crowded up to the house, no cleared ground wasted.  A rough outbuilding stood to the rear of the house.  The stumps attested to farmland wrenched from the forest.  Andrew got a glimpse of his future beholding the forest eager to reclaim the cleared ground.  Master Wharton would be granted an additional fifty acres each for paying the transport his servant’s passage to the colony, a good deal indeed.  The colony was desperate for cheap labor to work the farms, relying on the indentured and enslaved.  Sadly, only about forty percent of the indentured lived to work out the terms of their service.

Master Wharton was waiting as they walked up.  A gray-haired woman and an emaciated man in his fifties stood with him.  “This is my bondsman, Bartle and his wife Aggie.  They are about to work out their time.  He will be teaching you smithing and your woman will work under Aggie.”  If he knew their names, he didn’t bother using them.  “They will show you to your quarters and get you started after supping.”

Andrew and Molly Part 6

img_1746“Come with me.”  Master Wharton led them across a dusty street to a store fronted by a long verandah.  “Caleb Reeves, I am back to do my trading.  I left off two smoked hams, a side of bacon, a bushel of yams, five pounds of nails, and that bale of tobacco over there with your man on my way in this morning. I am ready to settle up and I’ll take one hundred pounds of flour, two pounds tea, a pound of salt, a pack of needles, six spools of blue thread, and twelve yards on of blue Linsey-Woolley.  My goods ought to cover it, by my reckoning.”

“Master Wharton, that won’t cover all you ordered.  I’ll take all the nails you can bring me.  Your hams and tobacco are good.  I don’t get that much call for bacon or yams, but I’ll take them as a favor to you, anyway.  The way I figure it, I’ll need seven pounds of nails to settle your order.”  Caleb Reeves studied Master Wharton expectantly.

Wharton stared him down.  “Have you found another source for nails, then? I can get my price elsewhere if you don’t want to do business.  There will probably be a ship in from England this summer with all the nails you need.  You can pay the English price instead of mine.”  Reeves winced.  The law forbade manufacture of iron products in the colonies, so with the tariff, the English price was far too dear.  It was good to have a source who was willing to take the risk.

“No need for that.  You are beggaring me, but I’ll take your trade.  Pearson, measure up his twelve yards of the blue.  No, make it fourteen.  I’ll not be known as a miser. ”  Pearson carefully measured fourteen yards of the blue reserved for indentured servants, the same blue of his rough garments.

Master Wharton addressed Molly.  “Woman, do you knit?  If you are to have stockings, you’ll make them”

She addressed him.  “I knit well, sir.  I can make all the stockings the house needs.”

“That’s good.  Reeves, give her enough black yarn for two pair for me and two pair of blue for them.  That should outfit them as required.”

“Thank you, Sir.”  Andrew told him.

“You needn’t thank me.  It’s my duty and your due, no more and no less.”  Turning to Reeves he instructed him without introducing the two men,  “This is my new bondsman.  If I send him with an order, fill it, but keep careful count.  I’ll not be swindled by any man.”

“”I always take care in my accounts.”  Reeves appeared offended.

Master Wharton addressed Andrew.  “Load the flour behind my saddle.  You will carry the rest.  My farm is a half mile on the right.  I’ll go ahead.  You won’t be trying to escape.  There’s nowhere to go.  If you run, the Indians will get you if the swamps don’t ”  With this, he urged his horse home, leaving the two to make their way with his parcels.

“

Andrew and Molly Part 5

JAMESTOWN. Female convicts transported from English prisons arriving in Jamestown, Virginia as indentured servants, although often becoming wives in mass weddings with the male settlers: colored engraving, 19th century.

JAMESTOWN.
Female convicts transported from English prisons arriving in Jamestown, Virginia as indentured servants, although often becoming wives in mass weddings with the male settlers: colored engraving, 19th century.

Immediately upon disembarking, Andrew and Molly along with others not already engaged were escorted to warehouse lodgings and given beer and a heartening stew of squash, beans, corn, yams, and meat, their first meat in seven weeks.  

The men and women were separated and instructed to choose clothing from a pile of castoffs before bathing and delousing with some herbal concoction whose noxious odor was helpful in warding off mosquitoes. When the men were led off to be locked away for the night, Molly wept and clung to Andrew, fearing she’d never see him again.  She had no faith in the agent’s assurance that they’d be placed together.  Despite her grief, she slept hard in the deep hay that served as bedding for the exhausted women.  For the first night in months, she didn’t fear assault.

The next morning, the colonists gathered just after daybreak to choose among servants.  Molly, along with the other women, ate a hearty breakfast of beer and bread, made a hasty toilet, and prepared for selection, praying Providence would be kind. As the men turned out, Andrew hurried to Molly’s side.  

As the selection began, the agent presented the bonded, praising their health, intelligence, and skills, real or concocted on the spot.  Some were labeled distillers, others as cabinet makers, or boat-builders.  True to his word, he proclaimed Andrew and Molly must go to the same master.  To their surprise, they heard the agent confide to Master Wharton that Andrew was a skilled blacksmith and that Molly could weave and spin.  

The colonists were legally forbidden to forge their own tools and ironwork, so this would have to be a clandestine operation.  Like most forbidden practices, smithing was made more attractive.

img_1745

Encouraged to think he was engaging a blacksmith and a woman who could weave and spin, Master Wharton spoke directly to Andrew.  “You look right, enough.  My blacksmith will soon work free, but might have long enough to teach you some. Do you think you can pick it up fast?  I’ll not tolerate a slacker.  If you give me your pledge, I’ll take you and your wife.  Should you fail, I’ll sell your bond.”

“I’ll not fail if you take us both, that I swear.” Andrew asserted, looking him in the eye. “I’m no smith and my wife never learned weaving nor spinning.  I’d not have you expect that.  I know farming and she tended dairy and is skilled at butter and cheese-making, nothing more.”

“I have no need of a weaver, just a housekeeper.  I’ll bond you.  You’ll get lodging, food, and a new suit of clothes now and once a year.  You will work dawn to dusk every day with Sunday for worship and rest. Give me value and we’ll have no trouble.”  Their new master strode off to tend his business, leaving them to wait together.

images downloaded from internet

Andrew and Molly Part 4

img_1742The site of Jamestown Colony was nothing like the home they’d left. They’d felt pride in their natal farm though they’d belonged to it, not the other way around.  Born to its manicured meadows, neat hedgerows, and trim outbuildings, its upkeep had been a part of every day.  Born to thatched stone cottages in the shadow of the imposing barns and carriage house, they’d attended the chapel attached to the mossy, old manor house.  They felt pride of place by virtue of family tradition; it was their work and the work of their fathers before them that stretched behnd them.

They were often in need and sometimes Ill-treated, but they had a tie to the land.  Had not fate intervened, their children would have worked and lived as they had.

Jamestown of 1643 was not a welcoming site.  The vessel had tied to a crude wooden wharf.  At the site of the rough timber fence surrounding the town, they didn’t have to be warned not to rush to disembark.  A rutted, muddy trail led into the fort of nondescript houses.  Blazing sun beat down as men in tattered rags, both black and white, gathered to await their turn unloading cargo from below.  Mosquitoes buzzed around their heads and bore down, appreciative of the new blood.  

The humid air was thick with the smell of newly-turned earth, smoke, and manure from the enclosed animals.Instead of fields of grain butting up to hedgerows, unfamiliar plots of large-leaf tobacco stood in large patches outside the high walls.  Lesser squares of corn , beans, and squash clustered around nearby cabins built close enough that occupants could easily reach the enclosed settlement as needed.  

Enormous forests of tall trees pushed up to the farms and fields.

img_1741As they surveyed all that lay before them, the forests were most impressive.  England’s  sparse woodlands could not compare. Though the settlement was raw and unfamiliar, they realized the intimidating forest held the future for those hardy enough to wrest it out.  All they had to do was serve out their next four years to claim their portion, not thinking those same forests were home to indigenous people who’d thrived there for millennia.

 

Images pulled from internet

 

 

 

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Andrew and Molly Part 2

img_1702img_1704After filling their starving bellies with greasy stew and quarts of ale, Andrew and Molly  signed away their next four years, too sated to consider the uncertainty of the life facing them.  In fact, they were signing away the certainty of poverty, degradation, and possible imprisonment had they remained.  

In that time, people could not expect to rise above their station.  Having lost the position as farm servants to which they were born, it was unlikely they’d ever find anything more than seasonal farm employment, working mostly at planting or harvest when the workload was heavy.  Starvation would likely have been their eventual lot.  Should they stay in the city, it’s unlikely they’d find work.  Many in their situation drifted into prostitution and crime.  It is likely Molly would have dried of disease, drink, or victimization on the streets and Andrew would have ended up on the gallows or bound over as an involuntary indentured servant.   Their best chance for a better life lay with the choice they’d made.

Once they’d signed, the agent wasted no time escorting  them on board the Elizabeth Ann.  She looked imposing from without, but her charm faded as Mr. Peabody led them deep into the bowels of the ship.  Their quarters in the lowest level were dark, wet, and malodorous.  There was no provision for privacy.  They’d be relieving themselves in the communal slop jar, which would ostensibly be dumped periodically, unless it tipped over first.  

Hammocks served for sleeping.  There were no other furnishings.  Restricted below deck until after sailing to avoid defection, they got a measure of beer and weevilly biscuits three times a day.  The smell was horrendous.  After their first exhausted sleep, they awoke to find themselves a part of a growing crowd of voluntary and involuntary holdmates ranging from bonded servants like themselves to young children scooped up off the street all the way to prostitutes and hardened criminals who’d barely escaped the gallows.  The strong preyed on the weak.  Their miserable sleep was interrupted by vomiting, moaning, and the occasional fight.  Periodically, the door above opened and another unfortunate joined their miserable lot.

In truth, indentured servants were enslaved for the period of their indenture, usually four to seven years, children till the age of twenty-one.  Their bondage could be sold without their consent.  Marriage required the master’s consent.  Should women become pregnant, their period of servitude could be extended due to decreased productivity during the pregnancy.  Children of unwed mothers were born free, but subject to being placed in the care of the church.  Unlike slaves, the indentured could appeal to the courts to contest mistreatment and did receive twenty-five to fifty acres of land, some tools, seed, and clothing upon completing their service.  Like slaves, they were most often ill-treated.  Having come to the colony in this way was no impediment to their future.  

Many bonded servants prospered and got a good start to a free life.  It definitely could be a road to a better life.