Скачать с ютуб Early Welsh Settlers in America - Part 3 в хорошем качестве

Early Welsh Settlers in America - Part 3

#wales #welsh #welshandproud #welshness #history #welshhistory #welshdescent #americanhistory #welshhistory The title of this video is: Early Welsh Settlers in America - Part 3 Today, we will discuss how many Welsh emigrants arrived in America as Indentured Servants and how they continued to settle deeper into America as they gained personal freedom. So how much did it cost as a free emigrant to travel from England to Boston around the year 1625? Records show the Massachusetts Bay Company had a rule setting out some costs and the limits on the number of passengers that ships could carry. A ship of two hundred tons should not carry more than one hundred passengers. The cost of passage was 5 pounds sterling for an adult (and 4 pounds for a ton of goods). This is also comparable with the cost of passage of 5 pounds for an adult on the Mayflower in 1620. That was a very large amount of money at the time, and few could afford it. It is difficult to equate what 5 pounds sterling would equal today… due to the length of time and currency reevaluations over 500 years. According to the measuringworth.com site a possible guestament is that the relative income value of that income of “5 pounds” or wealth today is £27,700.00 or more. Let’s not get caught up in financial details but, it is safe to say… that in 1625… 5 pounds sterling was more that a year’s wages for a tenant farmer of laborer. Some researchers believe that one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies between the 1630s and the American Revolution arrived as indentured servants. Approximately 300,000 European workers immigrated to the American colonies in the 1600s as indentured servants, and indentured servitude continued throughout much of the 1700s. Since so many Welsh emigrants came to North America to escape poverty, it is important that we know about this type of contract. Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. This contract, called an "indenture", and was often entered "voluntarily" for three main reasons. #1. It could be a mutual agreement for one to receive an eventual compensation for one’s physical labor. #2. it was part of a debt repayment agreement. For example, if you were poor and couldn’t afford to emigrate. The total travel cost including transportation and food would be paid for you “in advance” in exchange for an agreement you would perform manual labor for a specified number of years. #3. it was sometimes imposed as a judicial punishment. At first, some crimes that had the penalty of capital punishment in Britain, were commuted to the individual being transported out of Britain as a form of punishment. Great Britain used indentured servitude as a punishment for captured prisoners of war in rebellions, and civil wars. In time, this was also done to individuals who committed even minor crimes. Indentured servitude in the U.S. began in the early 1600s in Virginia, not long after the settlement of Jamestown. Many early American settlers sought cheap labor to help manage their large estates and farms, and commonly agreed to fund the passage of European immigrants to Virginia in exchange for their labor. Virginia and Maryland operated under the “head-land” or "headright system" where incentives, such as 50 acres of land, were provided for planters to import workers. For each laborer brought across the Atlantic, the master was rewarded with 50 acres of land. Only about 40 percent of indentured servants lived to complete the terms of their contracts. Early in the 1600’s, some servants were able to gain good land as free men. But by 1660, much of the best land was claimed by the large landowners. The former servants were pushed westward, where the mountainous land was less arable and the threat from Indians was constant. This was the case with some of the Welsh emigrants who would leave the original Welsh tracts in Pennsylvania and move westward. Many migrated to South Carolina for religious and economic reasons. In the early years of the settlement, the upper Pee Dee River community had a Welsh identity that was well-known in Charles Town and throughout the province of South Carolina. On October 22, 1744, Robert Williams, a planter who resided near Charles Town, advertised a reward in the South Carolina Gazette for the capture of a runaway Welsh indentured servant named Thomas Edwards. Williams believed the servant, who spoke bad English, "had gone up the path towards the Welsh Settlement or on board a ship." In conclusion… it is important to realize that individual Welsh emigrants were continually arriving by ship to Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia during this time. Records of their lives are limited, and that is why we have focused on Welsh communities or tracts. Early Welsh Settlers in America - Part 3