Is anyone willing to write my essay for US History

“Our Plantation Is Very Weak”: The Experiences of an

Indentured Servant in Virginia, 1623

Planters in early seventeenth-century Virginia had bountiful amounts of land and a profitable

crop in tobacco, but they needed labor to till their fields. They faced resistance from the local

Indian people and were unable to enslave them, so they recruited poor English adults as servants.

These young men and women signed indentures, or contracts, for four to seven year terms of

work in exchange for their passage to North America. Richard Frethorne came to Jamestown

colony in 1623 as an indentured servant. In this letter dated March 20, 1623, written just three

months after his entry into the colony, he described the death and disease all around him. Two

thirds of his fellow shipmates had died since their arrival. Those without capital suffered

particularly precarious situations with the lack of supplies and loss of leaders. Frethorne pleaded

with his parents to redeem (buy out) his indenture.

Richard Frethorne:

LOVING AND KIND FATHER AND MOTHER:

My most humble duty remembered to you, hoping in god of your good health, as I myself am at

the making hereof. This is to let you understand that I your child am in a most heavy case by

reason of the country, [which] is such that it causeth much sickness, [such] as the scurvy and the

bloody flux and diverse other diseases, which maketh the body very poor and weak. And when

we are sick there is nothing to comfort us; for since I came out of the ship I never ate anything

but peas, and loblollie (that is, water gruel). As for deer or venison I never saw any since I came

into this land. There is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work

hard both early and late for a mess of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef. A mouthful

of bread for a penny loaf must serve for four men which is most pitiful. [You would be grieved]

if you did know as much as I [do], when people cry out day and night – Oh! That they were in

England without their limbs – and would not care to lose any limb to be in England again, yea,

though they beg from door to door. For we live in fear of the enemy every hour, yet we have had

a combat with them … and we took two alive and made slaves of them. But it was by policy, for

we are in great danger; for our plantation is very weak by reason of the death and sickness of our

company. For we came but twenty for the merchants, and they are half dead just; and we look

every hour when two more should go. Yet there came some four other men yet to live with us, of

which there is but one alive; and our Lieutenant is dead, and [also] his father and his brother.

And there was some five or six of the last year’s twenty, of which there is but three left, so that

we are fain to get other men to plant with us; and yet we are but 32 to fight against 3000 if they

should come. And the nighest help that we have is ten mile of us, and when the rogues overcame

this place [the] last [time] they slew 80 persons. How then shall we do, for we lie even in their

teeth? They may easily take us, but [for the fact] that God is merciful and can save with few as

well as with many, as he showed to Gilead. And like Gilead’s soldiers, if they lapped water, we

drink water which is but weak.

And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death,

except [in the event] that one had money to lay out in some things for profit. But I have nothing

at all–no, not a shirt to my back but two rags (2), nor clothes but one poor suit, nor but one pair

of shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap, [and] but two bands [collars]. My cloak is stolen

by one of my fellows, and to his dying hour [he] would not tell me what he did with it; but some

of my fellows saw him have butter and beef out of a ship, which my cloak, I doubt [not], paid

for. So that I have not a penny, nor a penny worth, to help me too either spice or sugar or strong

waters, without the which one cannot live here. For as strong beer in England doth fatten and

strengthen them, so water here doth wash and weaken these here [and] only keeps [their] life and

soul together. But I am not half [of] a quarter so strong as I was in England, and all is for want of

victuals; for I do protest unto you that I have eaten more in [one] day at home than I have

allowed me here for a week. You have given more than my day’s allowance to a beggar at the

door; and if Mr. Jackson had not relieved me, I should be in a poor case. But he like a father and

she like a loving mother doth still help me.

For when we go to Jamestown (that is 10 miles of us) there lie all the ships that come to land,

and there they must deliver their goods. And when we went up to town [we would go], as it may

be, on Monday at noon, and come there by night, [and] then load the next day by noon, and go

home in the afternoon, and unload, and then away again in the night, and [we would] be up about

midnight. Then if it rained or blowed never so hard, we must lie in the boat on the water and

have nothing but a little bread. For when we go into the boat we [would] have a loaf allowed to

two men, and it is all [we would get] if we stayed there two days, which is hard; and [we] must

lie all that while in the boat. But that Goodman Jackson pitied me and made me a cabin to lie in

always when I [would] come up, and he would give me some poor jacks [fish] [to take] home

with me, which comforted me more than peas or water gruel. Oh, they be very godly folks, and

love me very well, and will do anything for me. And he much marvelled that you would send me

a servant to the Company; he saith I had been better knocked on the head. And indeed so I find it

now, to my great grief and misery; and [I] saith that if you love me you will redeem me

suddenly, for which I do entreat and beg. And if you cannot get the merchants to redeem me for

some little money, then for God’s sake get a gathering or entreat some good folks to lay out

some little sum of money in meal and cheese and butter and beef. Any eating meat will yield

great profit. Oil and vinegar is very good; but, father, there is great loss in leaking. But for God’s

sake send beef and cheese and butter, or the more of one sort and none of another. But if you

send cheese, it must be very old cheese; and at the cheesemonger’s you may buy very food

cheese for twopence farthing or halfpenny, that will be liked very well. But if you send cheese,

you must have a care how you pack it in barrels; and you must put cooper’s chips between every

cheese, or else the heat of the hold will rot them. And look whatsoever you send me – be in never

so much–look, what[ever] I make of it, I will deal truly with you. I will send it over and beg the

profit to redeem me; and if I die before it come, I have entreated Goodman Jackson to send you

the worth of it, who hath promised he will. If you send, you must direct your letters to Goodman

Jackson, at Jamestown, a gunsmith. (You must set down his freight, because there be more of his

name there.) Good father, do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable case. I know

if you did but see me, you would weep to see me; for I have but one suit. (But [though] it is a

strange one, it is very well guarded.) Wherefore, for God’s sake, pity me. I pray you to remember

my love to all my friends and kindred. I hope all my brothers and sisters are in good health, and

as for my part I have set down my resolution that certainly will be; that is, that the answer of this

letter will be life or death to me. Therefore, good father, send as soon as you can; and if you send

me any thing let this be the mark.

ROT

RICHARD FRETHORNE,

MARTIN’S HUNDRED .

Source: Richard Frethorne, letter to his father and mother, March 20, April 2 & 3, 1623, in Susan

Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London (Washington, D.C.:

Government Printing Office, 1935), 4: 58–62