true throughout the colonial period. In 1755 Governor Sharpe of Maryland
wrote, “The Planters Fortunes here consist in the number of their Servants
(who are purchased at high Rates) much as the Estates of an English Farmer
do in the Multitude of Cattle.”
With few Indian or black slaves and with free labor at such a premium,
animals should have been avidly sought; yet in 1616 only six horses were
reported in the colony at Jamestown. A few years later, the colonists asked
that twenty mares be sent over from England. Horses remained so rare and
so valuable that the government in 1626 mandated the death penalty for
stealing one. Other than horses, colonists in Virginia initially had few
domesticated animals. Ships’ crews and passengers customarily carried
some animals on voyages, to eat along the way. They favored small ani-
mals—pigs, goats, chickens, or geese—since cattle and horses were difficult
to keep on the tiny sailing ships and would often suffer broken legs in
storms. Gradually, however, the survivors multiplied. Usually they were
allowed to roam free in the forest surrounding settlements until the
colonists found the time and energy to build “snake” fences—interlaced
logs—around their plots both to protect the crops and control the animals.
What made indentured servants so attractive was that they could be
obtained for about 10 pounds—it cost only about 6 or 7 pounds to bring
them over—and an individual laborer could produce 49 or 50 pounds’
worth of tobacco yearly. The economics were compelling: colonists knew
that unskilled workers in England earned what seemed to them a fair wage
of about a shilling a day. But free laborers in America expected two or three
times that rate, and skilled craftsmen might demand eight or nine times as
much. To feed an indentured servant cost only about a penny a day. Also
attractive to employers was the fact that whereas free laborers were likely to
strike out on their own as soon as they had a small amount of capital,
indentured servants were bound by their contracts. If these servants tried
to flee, an employer could call on the colonial government to have them
hunted down.
Employers in the southern colonies often complained about the quality
of the servants they got from England, particularly exiled criminals; but
they needed labor so urgently that they took whatever was sent. In New
England, where plantation agriculture was less common than in the South,
160 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA