negroes. The institution did not flourish, probably on account of unhealthy location. The writer of Itinerant Observations in America visited the establishment soon after its foundation. He says:

They were at dinner when we arrived, the whole family at one table, and sure never was a more orderly pretty sight: If I recollect right, besides Mr. Barber the school-master, and some women, there were near forty young persons of both sexes dressd very neatly and decently. After dinner they retired, the boys to school and the girls to their spinning and knitting: I was told, their vacant hours were employed in the garden and plantation work.

This visit to the Orphan House removed his prejudices against it. Habersham said that many of the best orphans were removed from the orphan house by justices and bound as servants.

It is evident from the foregoing pages how great a burden was imposed upon colonial enterprises (especially in Georgia) by the presence of dependent women and children. After the industrial life of a colony was under way the labor of such could be utilized; but at first they were a drag. Thus West wrote to Lord Ashley (with reference to Carolina) in 1670:

Arrived the Carolina frigate with about 70 passengers

and six servants

viz. two men and woeman and three

small children, which wilbe a great charge to the plantation, wee having nothing yet but what is brought.

A letter of Lord Ashley in 1671 warned against inviting the poorer sort, as yet, to Carolina. It is substantial men and their families that are needed. "Others relye and eate upon us.'

A freeholders' petition to the Georgia trustees in 1738

says:

None of all those who have planted their land have been able to raise sufficient produce to maintain their families in bread

kind only, even though as much application and industry have been exerted to bring it about, as could be done by men engaged in an affair on which they believed the welfare of themselves and posterity so much depended, and which they imagined required more than ordinary pains to make succeed. . . Your honors, we imagine, are not insensible of the numbers that have left this province, not being able to support themselves and families any longer. . . [This paper is signed by one hundred seventeen freeholders.] We did not allow widows and orphans to subscribe [i.e., sign].

Habersham wrote to Oglethorpe in 1741:

What must a poor friendless man do, with his wife and children settled upon fifty acres of land, perhaps pine barren, but suppose it the best, without either servants to help clear or steers to plow the ground?

Planters' extravagance sometimes forced a resort to the frontier. In colonial Virginia the father sometimes left his son expensive habits, a depleted plantation, and a heavy debt. Then degrading poverty, untimely death, or migration to the West were the alternatives. Many families carried to the wilderness their social refinement and dear-bought experience and commenced life afresh on a less splendid scale.

XIX. SERVITUDE AND SEXUALITY IN THE

SOUTHERN COLONIES

The problem of sex morals in the colonial South was very largely an economic question and was so regarded by the authorities. Sexual morality was at a low ebb. Very early, laws had to be passed on this point.

By a Maryland act of 1650, renewed in 1654, adultery and fornication were to be censured and punished as the governor and council or authorized officials should think fit, "not extending to life or member." In 1658 an act was passed as follows:

Whereas divers women servants within this Province not haveing husbands living with them, have bene gotten with child in the tyme of their servitude to the great dishonour of God and the apparent damage to the masters. . . For remedy whereof bee it enacted that every such mother of a bastard child not able sufficiently to prove the party charged to be the begetter of such child, in every such case the mother of such child shall only be lyable to satisfy the damages soe sustained by servitude, or other wayes provided that when the mother of any such child as aforesaid shalbe able to prove her charge either by sufficient testimony of wittnesses or confession, then the party charged, if a servant to satisfie half the said damages, if a freeman then the whole damages by servitude or otherwise as aforesaid. And if any such mother be able to prove that the said party charged (being a single person and a freeman) did before the begitting of such child promise her marriage, that then hee shall performe his promise to her, or recompense her abuse, as the court before whom such matter is brought shall see convenient, the quality and condition of the persons considered.

This act was to continue for three years or to the end

of the next General Assembly. According to Maryland law, polygamy, sodomy, and rape were capital offences. The author of Leah and Rachel notes regarding Virginia that "if any be known

mit whoredome

to

com

severe

and wholesome laws." An act of 1657-1658 deprived males guilty of bastardy of the right to testify in court or hold office- a severe penalty when everyone wanted some office. But the colony could not afford to support illegitimates! An act was passed giving the master an additional time of service if a bastard was born to his servant. This law put a premium on immorality and there seem to have been masters base enough to profit by it. The evil was restrained by an act of 1662 which provided that the maid servant should be sold away from her master in such cases without compensation to him for the loss of her time. By a law of 1705 "every person not a servant or slave, convicted of adultery or fornication by the oaths of two or more credible witnesses, or confession, shall, for every offense of adultery, pay 1000 lbs. of tobacco and cost; and of fornication, 500 to be recovered by churchwardens of parish where offense was committed." In default of payment he should receive twenty-five lashes. By an act of 1727 the mother of a bastard was subject to fine or flogging. The person in whose house the birth occurred was responsible for giving notice. A servant woman had to serve an extra year or pay her owner one thousand pounds of tobacco. The reputed father, if free, had to give security to maintain the child. If he was a servant he had to render satisfaction to the parish, after expiration of his term, for keeping the child. If the master was the father he could claim no extra serv

ice but the parish could sell the mother for one extra year.

North Carolina bastardy laws were similar to Virginia's. A law of 1715 provided that a woman servant bearing a bastard was liable to two years extra servitude besides punishment for fornication. If she came into the province with child she was not liable. If with child by the master she was to be sold for two years after expiration of her time; the money to go to the parish. The act left the master unpunished except as he lost her service or was liable for fornication or adultery. The act of 1741 was milder. "Whereas many women are begotten with child by free men or servants, to the great prejudice of their master or mistress" such must serve one year extra. If the master is the father the woman should be sold by the church wardens for one year. There was no punishment for the seducing master. Instructions to Governor Dobbs in 1754 directed that laws against adultery, fornication, polygamy, and incest were to be enforced and extended.

A recent writer says that the sanctity of the marriage vow was inviolable in early Maryland. Citations that might be given for the period between 1650 and 1657 convey a quite different impression; the extant record of fornication and adultery is appalling.

Alsop in his Character of Maryland suggests that while male immigrants had less luck than female in getting mates unless they were good talkers and persuaders, this fluent sort stood a chance of injecting "themselves in the time of their servitude into the private and reserved favor of their mistress, if age speak their master deficient." An Episcopal rector in 1676 wrote of Maryland: "All notorious vices are committed; so that it is