Feb. 11-17 2019 LOVE
For the Love of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2019
Forced into Indentured Servitude
by Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood
JAMESTOWN (Virginia Colony). December 1717-January 1718. Recently, Captain Andrew Tarbett delivered here about 70 illegal aliens from Germany on his ship, the “Scott.”
The voyage was delayed in London for about two months while the captain served time in debtors’ prison there. As a result, the immigrants, who had paid the captain to take them to Pennsylvania, depleted most of their supplies and money.
“These immigrants did not pay their passage money,” Captain Tarbett claims. “In order to recoup my losses, Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood has paid for them and negotiated a contract for their labor for the next seven years.”
A spokesman for the immigrants, speaking in halting English, claims that in London the captain gambled away the money they had paid for transportation to Pennsylvania, not Virginia. He also says they are being forced into indentured servitude (which they consider a form of slavery) and required to sign a contract they don’t understand and can’t read.
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| By K. Jähne - own work, using SRTM3 data, Image: Eisenbahnstrecken noerdliches aden-Wuerttemberg.svg. Kraichgau border line taken from [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7064637 |
It is believed that most, if not all, of these families came from the Rheinpfalz (Palatinate) and the Kraichgau area — the latter is a hilly region in Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany. One immigrant said he was from the village of Stetten am Heuchelberg; another is from Neuenbürg; and others are from Gemmingen. This entire region has suffered economically since the extremely harsh winter of 1708-1709 killed fruit, grape vines and trees. It also killed birds and livestock and even froze wine in the casks. Additionally, the French continued invasions into the region have left many villages in ashes.
Sources who were able to talk to some of these immigrants said they had sold everything they owned in order to pay the emigration taxes to leave, transportation and custom costs down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, a ship to London, and then for passage on the “Scott” to Pennsylvania.
“All total the cost to emigrate was about 30£ — equivalent to more than 330 days of wages for a skilled tradesman,” according to one of passengers. The occupations of these immigrants are weavers, tailors, coopers, vineyard tenders and there’s even a goose herder.
Captain Tarbett, of Glasgow, claims bad weather blew his ship off course forcing it to land in Virginia instead of Pennsylvania. However, informed sources say there was collusion between Lt. Gov. Spotswood, some associates, and the captain to deliver the immigrants to Virginia to work in naval stores owned by Spotswood, Robert Beverly, and other partners.
“They need more settlers to move onto the frontier land in order to lay claim to it,” a government official said, asking not to be identified. “Spotswood is embarked on a huge western land development program on the frontier.”
News sources say that from Jamestown these immigrants are to be transported to the fork of the Rapidon and Rappahannock Rivers to just below the future site of Fredericksburg. This is as far as a ship can go because of the falls in the river. Then they will have to take a trip over roads that were built by the First Germanna Colony (1714) up to Fort Germanna.
Once settled on the frontier, the first objective is to clear some land so they can grow food. Spotswood and his partners will supply them with cattle on a partnership basis. The Germans will be required to return the equivalent of the original.
Additionally, it was revealed that Spotswood and his partners want the Germans settled on farm-sized acreages along the north shore of the Rapidan River. Houses are to be laid out at half-mile separations along the river, with another row paralleling these, but about a half-mile back from the river.
Then, the Germans are to make naval stores. In the early 18th century, wooden ships required a flexible material, insoluble in water, to seal the spaces between planks. Pine pitch was mixed with fibers like hemp to caulk spaces and prevent leaks. Crude gum or oleoresin was collected from the wounds of living pine trees. England no longer had the resources to produce naval stores and relied heavily upon naval stores from its American colonies. As a result, naval stores were becoming an essential part of the colonial economy, and Spotswood understood their value. Moreover, this would be his justification for taking up thousands of acres of land, which he could then claim were being used to produce naval stores.
Among these immigrants, later to be known as the Second Germanna Colony of Virginia (1717), were my ancestors, Hans Michael Holt (1696-1767) and Anna Elisabeth Schieble (1700-1765), who married, by estimate, about 1719.
Today, there are many thousands of descendants of these Second Colony im-migrants. Some are actively researching their families, while others are not aware of their kinship to these ancestors who were brought to Virginia against their will in 1717 and forced to work as indentured servants for seven to eight years.
Other surnames of those believed to have arrived in 1717 and were part of the original settlers are: Amburger (Auberge, Ambergey), Ballenger, Blankenbaker (Plankenbühler), Breuel (Broyles), Clore (Klaar), Cook (Koch), Crigler (Kriegler), Fleishmann, Holt (Hold), Kaiffer (Käfer), Moyers (Myers, Mayers), Paultisch (Paulitz), Smith (Schmidt), Shively (Scheible), Snyder (Schneider), Utz, Yager (Jäger), and Zimmermann, plus possibly others.
For a list of Germanna Settlers (various years),
see: https://germanna.org/2013/09/10/list-of-original-germanna-settlers/
Story of the Second Colony: www.secondcolony.org/thestory.html
Germanna History Notes, by John Blankenbaker: https://sites.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/
The German Colony of 1717, by Arthur Leslie Keith. The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 26, No. 2 (Oct., 1917), pp. 79-95. Published by Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1914859. Accessed 7 Feb. 2019
WikiTree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Germanna_Descendants
Yes! Outstanding essay despite being elderly! Happy Birthday!
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