I started thinking about this today after I picked up Jane Eyre to re-read it. For, like, the 55th time.
I do read more recent books, yes, but I also love my classics!
You remember how it is: Jane, fleeing Rochester, wanders, starving, along moors and byways until she’s found by St. John Rivers, a young minister who takes her into his home with his sisters. As it turns out, they’re all her cousins, though she didn’t know she had any kin at all! And, more astounding, another unknown relative—her uncle—died and left Jane all his estate, but at the Riverses’ expense: they would’ve inherited had it not been for her.
[For those of you who, somehow, have NEVER read the book or seen one of the movies, I won’t spoil the ending. Gotta love those Brontë gals.]
The last time my daughters and I watched the 1997 movie (the one with Ciaran Hinds and Samantha Morton), we got into a deep metaphysical discussion about coincidence. This is what’s so great about having grown daughters, by the way: you can get into deep metaphysical discussions.
We talked about whether a plot device as transparent as “coincidence” was a good or bad thing. I mean, in Jane Eyre, for her to arrive at a home where she eventually discovers that the people rescuing her are, after all, her own cousins…well, as a friend of mine would say, sarcastically, “How weird is THAT?”
As I look back at family records, though, I’ve changed my mind a little, at least insofar as those older classics go. Despite what we snicker about now, maybe that sort of coincidence wouldn’t have been so unusual at one time. In the Thead blog I’ve remarked on how so many communities around the country during the Civil War were devastated by battles where one regiment might be fighting—if the battle was especially bloody, a small town back home would experience huge loss, since regiments were organized locally.
Years ago when I was researching the Civil War records of many family members, on both sides of the family, I was amazed to see that Theads, Harmons, Skinners, Culbertsons showed up in the 13th Mississippi. I talked about the “coincidence” of those men’s descendants' marrying, later; I tried to attribute a sort of deep meaning to all this.
This particular regiment became known as the “Bloody 13th,” because of the number of intense battles at which they were present.
This is a roster card showing where the peripatetic regiment fought.
In any case, the 13th was organized from the counties of Lauderdale, Winston, Wayne, Attala, Newton, Chickasaw, Kemper, and Clarke. As many of my ancestors lived in one of those areas, those who served in the Confederacy in the 13th and survived probably knew each other fairly well by the war’s end. So I shouldn’t have been so quick to use the term “coincidence” when thinking about how their sons and daughters intermarried, later. As in the book Jane Eyre, there weren’t so many people around at that time. It would be expected that the guys recruited from those counties would, after the war, have children who would pick spouses from those areas.
But, again, perhaps what SHOULD have struck me with awe was the fact that—in the case of this particular regiment—there WERE people for these families to continue their lines with, later.
On another note, Janis Boyles Wilson found some interesting information about Richard Thead, an ancestor of hers who may or may not have been one of the “original” emigrants. In a list titled “More Emigrants in Bondage”, she found, “Theed, Richard of Woodford. S for highway robbery Summer 1745 R 14 yrs Lent T Sep 1746 Mary. E.” She discovered that the “S” means “sentenced to transportation”; the “R” means “reprieved for transportation.” “T” signifies “Transported”, and “E” means Essex, a county just northeast of London. Woodford is 9.5 miles northeast of Charing Cross. In a document titled "The King's passengers to Maryland and Virginia", Richard Theed is listed as "Felons transported from London to Virginia by the Mary, Capt. John Johnstoun, in September 1746.
Jan and were trying to make sense of all this, in light of the fact that, by 1783, Richard Thead’s estate was inventoried after his death. Is this the same Richard? Odds are, yes, but who knows for sure? Anyway, we shared some thoughts about “felons” and so on; but the truth is, MANY of our ancestors from the United Kingdom area were indentured servants.
The website https://www.stratfordhall.org/educational-resources/teacher-resources/indentured-servants/ explains:
“White indentured servants came from all over Great Britain. Men, women, and sometimes children signed a contract with a master to serve a term of 4 to 7 years. In exchange for their service, the indentured servants received their passage paid from England, as well as food, clothing, and shelter once they arrived in the colonies. Some were even paid a salary. When the contract had expired, the servant was paid freedom dues of corn, tools, and clothing, and was allowed to leave the plantation. During the time of his indenture, however, the servant was considered his master’s personal property and his contract could be inherited or sold. Prices paid for indentured servants varied depending on skills.”
And, again, in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude
“…Between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants to the American colonies between the 1630s and American Revolution had come under indentures.[2] However, while almost half the European immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies were indentured servants, at any one time they were outnumbered by workers who had never been indentured, or whose indenture had expired, and thus free wage labor was the more prevalent for Europeans in the colonies.[3] ”
Those of us who’ve found the occasional wealthy ancestor, therefore, may be in the minority. So it’s possible Richard was in trouble with the law, and—to free up space in a prison, and perhaps since his crime was petty (maybe because he was poor)—he was just shipped to the New World to get him out of Dodge, so to speak. And, as Wikipedia points out, sometimes that indenture was bought by a ship’s captain (which appears to have been the case with Richard, based on that record above), who would make a deal with an employer in the Colonies and get his money back, reselling the indenture contract.
And, by the way, the practice wasn’t totally outlawed until 1917…which was a year after my mother’s birth.
I’m duplicating this particular piece on both my blogs, because of the overlap of both subjects (the 13th Mississippi and the practice of indenture) in all branches of the family.
Coincidence?
Ælfwine
That's interesting about the practice of indenture not being totally outlawed until 1917. BTW I have cousins who are Harmons. My Aunt Annette married Paul Harmon they lived in Waynesboro Mississippi, until his death
ReplyDelete