History Of Colonial America

Submitted By openate
Words: 334
Pages: 2

"[Most] indentured servants or redemptioners... were brought under compulsion; the others came voluntarily. The former consisted of convicted criminals and kidnaped persons... Boys and girls of the poorer classes were hustled on board ships and virtually sold into slavery for a term of years. Kidnaping or 'spiriting' became a fine art under Charles II. Slums and alleys were raked for material to stock the plantations... About 1670 no fewer than ten thousand persons were 'spirited' away from England in one year. One kidnaper testified in 1671 that he had sent five hundred persons a year to the colonies for twelve years and another testified that he had sent 840 in one year. The government was slow to strike at this infamous traffic... Ship masters made an enormous profit from tIn 1700, nearly a century after Jamestown, only about 250,000 white and black inhabitants populated the colonies... The vast majority of the white inhabitants were either born in England or descended from English immigrants. Only about 11 percent [27,500] of the non-Native American population were black." "Colonial immigration laws... set precedents that were followed in subsequent national legislation. Colonial Americans, who viewed strangers as legitimate objects of suspicion, cautiously allowed sttlers but were wary of those of religious difference (i.e., Catholics/Jesuits) or those who might become public charges. The influx of Germans and Quakers in the early 1700s led to specific provincial