Melissa A. Roe, Lafayette College

Introduction

This study looks at the different punishments of servants and their masters in colonial courts by examining various court cases from 18th-century Pennsylvania and Maryland courts. Specifically, court dockets from Philadelphia and York Counties, Pennsylvania, and Prince Georges County, Maryland were examined. The purpose of this study is to ask what were the Òcustoms of the landÓ regarding indentured servants and their rights, why these were the customs, and whether these customs were exploitive. By exploitive we mean that the punishment meted out to the servant was greater than the economic loss to the master resulting from the Òcrime.Ó The three principal crimes involving servants were abuse/neglect of a servant by a master, running away by a servant, and pregnancy among female servants. The principal issue addressed in this thesis is whether the pattern of punishments favored masters, implying that criminal servants were exploited; whether sentences favored servants, implying that punishments under-compensated masters; or whether sentences were efficient, implying that punishments justly compensated masters for lost time and expenses, plus any deterrent effect. Although cases involving abuse and neglect were found, they could not be systematically studied. This study, therefore, examines only those cases involving runaways and pregnancies. It is possible that courts in a rural area (i.e., York County, Pennsylvania and Prince Georges County, Maryland) did not rule fairly, ruling more often in favor of the master. Because these rural counties had small and dispersed servant populations, it was more likely that the trial judge had social ties with or knew the master. It was, therefore, less likely that the judge would rule against the master in a case pitting servant against master. Given these circumstances, it is possible that servants were exploited in the sense that punishments exceeded economic costs. The evidence to be presented below, however, suggests that this was not the case. This research and the subsequent findings are important because although there has been much research in the area of indentured servitude concerning efficien