SOURCE

Pioneers in Service - The German Society of Maryland 1783 - 1981

By KLAUS G. WUST

Published by THE GERMAN SOCIETY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, U.S.A. 1981

The following is an excerpt from the the above paper - link to the source for more discussion.

It is to the credit of these early German inhabitants of Baltimore and other Maryland communities that they did not content themselves with having achieved a secure and prosperous home for themselves and their families, but envisaged a broad program of aiding those who would follow them into the new country after the war and of protecting them from exploitation and abuse. They still remembered the vicissitudes of immigrant life. Those who were fortunate enough to have at their disposal sufficient means to pay for their ocean passage and to buy a homestead and maybe even to keep a little reserve for the first lean months in the unknown land, knew only the struggle of readjustment among strangers. But even for them the memory of the first years spelled hardship and insecurity.

Some of the Germans, however, like many of their fellow immigrants from the British Isles, had come to America completely penniless. The owners and captains of vessels were willing to take such persons across the Atlantic, if the emigrants (or in the case of minors, the parents or guardians for them) would sign a contract stipulating that upon their arrival they would pay for the passage by letting the captain hire them out as servants for a term of years to masters willing to advance the amount of the passage money. Emigrants who entered into such a contract were called "redemptioners" because by binding themselves for service for a certain number of years they "redeemed" themselves of their debt for the passage. They also became known as "indentured servants," a term stemming from the fact that the contract forms were indentures.

For several years the redemptioners had come mainly from the British Isles. The growing abuses of this system having become known in Britain, rigorous laws and measures were adopted and enforced for their better protection. Letters and articles abounded in English newspapers warning poor people from entering into such contracts. Public opinion was successfully aroused against the "emigrant runners." Now the latter turned toward the continent in search of a continuation of their lucrative trade. In the decades before the Revolutionary War they induced many Germans and Swiss desiring to go to America to bind themselves for the passage.

Little did the emigrants know or suspect what was in store for them after they went aboard. The contracts which the redemptioners had to sign in the Dutch or Northern German ports, and which few of them fully understood, contained the proviso, that if any passenger died during the voyage, the surviving members of the family, or the other redemptioner passengers would make good his loss. Thus, a wife who had lost her husband at sea, or her children, on her arrival would be sold for five years for her own passage and for an additional five years for the fare of each of her dead relatives, although they may have died in the very beginning of the voyage. If there was no member of the family surviving, it was common practice to add the time of the deceased to the term of service of the surviving fellow passengers. The captain usually confiscated and kept for himself the effects of the dead. This meant that the shipping merchant and the captain would gain by the death of a part of their cargo. Records of the emigrant trade in the 18th century seem to substantiate the assumption that many a captain kept this additional source of profit well in mind. Once in an American port, the redemptioners were not allowed to choose their masters nor the kind of service most suitable to them. Some were fortunate in being acquired by humane masters or finding interested parties who would use them in the trade they had learned at home. But frequently the penniless newcomers were brutally taken advantage of. They were often separated from their families, the wife from the husband, and children from their parents, and were disposed of for the term of years, often at public sale to masters living far apart, and always to the greatest advantage of the shipper. Contemporary sources cite many examples of inhuman treatment, how they were literally worked to death, receiving insufficient food, castaway clothing and pitiful lodging. Cruel punishments were inflicted on them for the slightest offense by merciless and brutal masters.

While a certain number of German redemptioners arrived at Annapolis and Baltimore prior to the Revolution, this practice had not reached alarming proportions in Maryland ports. Most of the German redemptioners were landed at Philadelphia where such a large number of brutal offenses became known that prominent German citizens banded together in 1764 to found the first German Society in North America for the protection of the newcomers. Already during the first year of its existence, the Society procured laws for the protection and aid of German immigrants from the Pennsylvania legislature. In 1766 the German Friendly Society of Charleston, South Carolina, was founded for the same purpose. While the war years had brought the Atlantic migration to a standstill, a new wave of immigrants was to be expected, particularly from Germany and Switzerland, once the peace on the seas was restored. Being the only large port near Philadelphia and being without any protective society for the redemptioners, Baltimore would invariable be the next gateway for this abuse. With wise foresight the leaders of the German community in Baltimore anticipated such a development.