Hart, Albert Bushnell with Blanche E. Hazard . Colonial Children
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60. London Children in Virginia217
BY THE VIRGINIA COMPANY (1619)

   IT is asked what land the children are to have in return for their going over to Virginia. The answer is that they are not to have any; but at the end of their apprenticeship they are to be tenants of the common land. It is thought that the council of the company would then allow twenty-five acres apiece, for every one of them. For the good of these same children it is ordered by the council that every one of the children who are now living at the expense of the Virginia Company shall be educated and brought up in some good trade and profession.

   By this means they will be able to get their living and support themselves, when they have reached the ages of four-and-twenty years, or are out of their apprenticeships. Their apprenticeships are to last at least seven years, if they live so long.218

   Further it is ordered that all of these children when they become of age, or marry, whichever shall happen first, shall have freely given and made over to them fifty acres of land apiece. This land is to be in Virginia within the limits of the English plantation.

   It is fully intended that this next spring one hundred children more shall be sent and carried by the Virginia Company out of the city of London to Virginia. During their voyage they shall have their food sweet and good. They shall also be well dressed and have all other things necessary for the voyage.

   Every one of these children shall there be placed as apprentices with holiest and good masters. The


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boys shall serve for seven years, or until they are twenty-one years old or more. The girls shall serve for seven years, that is, until they are twenty-one or married.

   Their masters during that time must educate them and bring them up in some good trade or business. In this way they will be able to get their living and support themselves when their apprenticeships are over.

   During their terms of labor, they shall have all things necessary provided for them, such as food drink, and clothing. At the end of their apprenticeships, every one of these children shall have freely given to them by the Virginia Company enough corn to serve for food for a whole year.

   They shall also each have a house ready built to live in, and shall be placed as tenant in some convenient place upon as much land as they can manage. Each of these children shall, at this time, have one cow, and as much corn as he or she will plant. Each shall have suitable clothing, convenient weapons, and armor for defence in war.219

AN OLD DOLL.


   Every one shall have the necessary implements and utensils for the household, and enough working


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tools for his trade. Every one who has thus served the apprenticeship shall be bound to be tenant or farmer for seven years after his apprenticeship end.

   During that time of their labor and care they shall have one half of all the profits that shall arise from the management of their farms. At the end of the last seven years every one of the young men and women is to be at liberty to remain as farmer on the same land if he will, or to provide for himself elsewhere.



[217] The city of London had agreed to furnish one hundred children for Virginia, and to pay the Virginia Company a premium of twenty-five dollars apiece for each child, partly to pay for the passage to Virginia, and partly for the children's clothes.

[218] Apprenticeship. The custom of the time as to draw up agreements for boys and girls who were going into trades or service, by which their parents or guardians put children under the legal control of masters who had a right to their services for a term of years, usually seven.

[219] Virginia wanted as many farmers or planters as she could get. The first apprenticeship has to he followed in each case by a second, upon easier terms, or at least terms better suited to the age of the apprentice. After a man had worked as a farmer for fourteen years, he would be likely to continue in that occupation.