18/06/2006
History of New South Wales From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789G. B. Barton - 1889
PART III
Transportation to the West Indies
"THE lower order of white people [in Jamaica] are for the most part composed of artificers, indented servants, and refugees. Of the second class, great numbers used formerly to be brought from Scotland, where they were actually kidnapped by some man-traders in or near Glasgow, and shipped for this island, to be sold for four or five years' term of service. On their arrival they used to be ranged in a line, like new negroes, for the planters to pick and choose. But this traffic has ceased for some years.
"Although the gaol delivery of Newgate is not poured in upon this island, yet it is an occasional asylum for many who have deserved the gallows. .... Formerly, convict felons were transported hither, but the inconvenience attending the admission of such miscreants obtained the inhabitants a relief from them. While the traffic for Scotch servants lasted, the Legislature of the island lent their helping hand to give it encouragement, and in 1703 it was enacted that a master of any ship importing thirty white men-servants at one time should be for that voyage exempted from paying all port charges. .... Convicts are excepted out of this Act, and none have of late years been sent over, unless to the regiments, whose service here is not much advanced by such recruits.
"The indented servants, in their condition, were little better than slaves during their term of service. They were allowed yearly three shirts, as many pairs of drawers, shoes, and stockings, and a hat or cap. .... They were subjected to various penalties for misdemeanour, viz.: - For laying violent hands on their employer, twelve months' extra service; embezzling or wasting goods of above 40s. value, two years' extra service; getting a fellow-servant with child, a service of double the time the woman had to serve; marrying without the consent of their master or mistress, two years' extra service; wilfully catching the venereal or other disease, or wilfully getting broken bones, bruises, &c., to serve double the time thereby lost, and for all charges thereby occasioned at 10s. a month after the expiration of their indentures. The only material provisions in their favour were:- That they should not be whipped naked without order of a Justice of the Peace; nor be turned off when grown infirm, under pretence of giving them freedom; nor be buried until the body had been viewed by a Justice of the Peace, constable, tythingman, or two neighbours.
"But the penal clauses of these Acts have long since been extinct, and at present [1774] our white indented servants are laid under few restrictions, except so far as respects their serving out their term. The wages paid in these cases varied from £14 to £18 a year." - The History of Jamaica [anon.], London, 1774, vol. ii, p. 287.
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