An Analysis of Life in Jamestown As An Indentured Servant Far from the land of opportunity many imagined, colonial Virginia recruited numerous men and women for its tobacco crops in 1623. One such individual, Richard Frethorne, a young indentured servant, arrived in Jamestown only to encounter relentless suffering and despair. Hoping to convince his parents to purchase his indenture, he detailed his experiences to them in a letter. Surrounded by disease and death, his time there was unbearable, as evident in the lack of resources he described, the continual devolution of order in the colony, and the distressing tone of his writing. Frethorne’s depiction of life in Jamestown was altogether grim, recounting several times how limited resources …show more content…
Frethorne expressed that he was becoming significantly weaker, claiming he was now “not half [of] a quarter so strong as [he] was in England”. His diminishing strength reflects the dire conditions and the impossibility of fulfilling his duties without sufficient nutrition. Without proper food, he was both physically and mentally worn down, making survival even more difficult. His desperation for food was so consuming that he even included detailed instructions on how to preserve it for transport, as spoilage was a common issue. Ultimately, the value of food goes beyond sustenance–it represents a path to freedom. Because of this, he intended to sell any food his parents might send at a high price to escape his indenture. Such restricted access to this fundamental human need was a major contributor to the suffering Frethorne, and many other indentured servants, experienced in Jamestown. Frethorne also dealt with the continual degradation of order in the colony due to diminishing population, lack of leadership, theft, and threat of …show more content…
Evidently, Frethorne’s predicament was quite gruesome, but his tone throughout the letter truly underscores the distressing nature of his experience. For example, after mentioning rampant disease in the plantation, he begins a series of rambling sentences, “And they are half dead.and our Lieutenant is dead, and his father and his brother. And there were some.And yet we are but 32.” Reading through this evokes a feeling of breathlessness, eliciting a shared sense of anxiety. The fragmented sentences mirror his frantic state of mind, amplifying the sense of isolation and fear that permeated daily life in the colony. This style of prose appears again in the following paragraph, arousing urgency when discussing his need for clothes, “But I have nothing.no, not a shirt to my back.nor clothes.nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stockings, but one cap, [and] but two bands.” Frethorne emphasizes the scarcity of resources through repetition and establishes a tone of desperation. Through his tone, Frethorne doesn’t merely describe his suffering—he makes his parents feel the immediacy of his distress, effectively demonstrating the severity of his circumstances in his attempt to persuade his
Indentured Servants Indentured servitude was the institutional arrangement devised to increase labor mobility from Europe (particularly England) to America, and it was the labor system that preceded American slavery. Its emergence in Virginia in the seventeenth century can be seen as a development expedient to the circumstances surrounding the colony. Indentured servitude was practically the only way in which a poor person could get to the colonies and planters could be supplied with cheap
In my report, I will discussing one of the three letters in which an indentured servant had sent to his parents. This servant name is Richard Frethorne, a young Englishmen who had came to settled down near Virginia. Few months after he came to Jamestown in 1623, he writes this letter to his parents discussing the poor life he is living now, and comparing to life in England.. Frethorne had hope to plead with his parents to redeem his indenture, buying him out of his contract. Other than this letter
Indentured Servitude in Colonial America During American colonization, the economy of the south became predominantly dependent on the tobacco plant. As the south continued to develop, they shifted their focus to cotton. Indentured servants as well as African slaves were used for these labor-intensive crops because their labor was decent and cheap (Shi and Tindall 39). Young British men were promised a life of freedom in America if they agreed to an exchange between a free voyage and labor for a
The Struggle of an Indentured Servant The experiences that Richard Frethorne endured were in a lot of ways similar to those of James Revel. Both suffered from sickness and disease, lack of resources such as clothes and shelter, and most unfortunately limited access to food. The big distinction between these two, however, is that Frethorne was shipped to the New World on his own accord in hopes of a free and better life. While Revel was forcibly shipped as a felon, sent in punishment to serve
Between 1606 and 1700, the settlers sponsored by the London Company sailed to Virginia in hopes of getting rich and obtaining land. These people became known as the settlers of England’s Virginia Colony. What the settlers experienced was nothing like the success that was imagined for “Virginia, Earth’s only paradise! (Doc A)” to hold. The challenges of Virginia can be illustrated by these 3 things: the lust for gold, tobacco, and the first few winters. The lust for gold was a big problem for the