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From: Paul Willing <>
Subject: Re: Indentured Servant records
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 01:39:11 -0700

wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I'm working on an indentured servant, Peter GILSTRAP, who signed a service
> slip in London in 1726 (the complete record is lost). Peter signed on with
> agent John Taylor who did much business in Maryland and Jamaica. Peter
> GILSTRAP was supposed to go to Jamaica, but I am wondering if he really did.
> According to Peter Coldham's "Book of Emigrants", many of these servitude
> slips have the wrong destination.
>
> My questions are really:
> 1. If Peter GILSTRAP went to Jamaica in 1726, could he really have been a free man in Maryland in 1731 (he's in the Somerset Co tax list with the AYDELOTT family into which he married)?
> 2. If Peter GILSTRAP really came to Maryland as a servant, are the any records I might search for that are specific to indentured servants and their purchase?
>
> Thanks for any ideas!
> Nancy Gilstrap Mann
>
> Indentured servants weren't necessarily (if ever) sold, as were slaves. 1. Some were prisoners/felons who were shipped out of England, Scotland or whereever, and some signed on voluntarily to come to "The New World" for adventure and opportunity. They served an indentureship of usually 5 to 7 years and were then given a grant or patent of land, usually 50 acres, their bedding and some tools, sometimes a horse or livestick, and then they were on their own.
2. Many of the ships bringing indentured servants from England/Scotland came by
way of Jamaica and/or Barbados, and maybe some of the other Caribbean islands.
3. If you find such records, I would like to know. There must be some
somewhere, but I haven't seen or heard of any.

Paul Willing

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