“Oak Tree Stumps Are Just as Hard in America . . .”: A German Emigrant’s Story

Background: Though many poor Europeans were attracted to Pennsylvania, some travelers, like Gottlieb Mittelberger, warned that the vision of prosperity there was exaggerated.  Mittelberger came to America from Germany in 1750, experiencing the hardships of the Atlantic crossing and of indentured servitude in Pennsylvania. He returned home after four years and wrote a book urging his countrymen not to emigrate to America. His descriptions of shipboard conditions, the sale of servants at Philadelphia, and farm work bear strong similarities to accounts of the African slave trade.

When the ships have weighed anchor for the last time, usually off Cowes in Old England, then both the long sea voyage and misery begin in earnest. For from there the ships often take eight, nine, ten, or twelve weeks sailing to Philadelphia, if the wind is unfavorable. But even given the most favorable winds, the voyage takes seven weeks.

During the journey the ship is full of pitiful signs of distress—smells, fumes, horrors, vomiting, various kinds of sea sickness, fever, dysentery, headaches, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and similar afflictions, all of them caused by the age and the highly salted state of the food, especially of the meat, as well as by the very bad and filthy water, which brings about the miserable destruction and death of many. Add to all that shortage of food, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, fear, misery, vexation, and lamentation as well as other troubles. Thus, for example, there are so many lice, especially on the sick people, that they have to be scraped off the bodies. All this misery reaches its climax when in addition to everything else one must also suffer through two to three days and nights of storm, with everyone convinced that the ship with all aboard is bound to sink. In such misery all the people on board pray and cry pitifully together. . . . 

When the ships finally arrive in Philadelphia after the long voyage only those are let off who can pay their sea freight or can give good security. The others, who lack the money to pay, have to remain on board until they are purchased. . . . 

This is how the commerce in human beings on board ship takes place. Every day Englishmen, Dutchmen, and High Germans come from Philadelphia and other places, some of them very far away, . . . and go on board the newly arrived vessel that has brought people from Europe and offers them for sale. From among the healthy they pick out those suitable for the purposes for which they require them. Then they negotiate with them as to the length of the period for which they will go into service in order to pay off their passage, the whole amount of which they generally still owe. When an agreement has been reached, adult persons by written contract bind themselves to serve for three, four, five, or six years, according to their health and age. The very young, between the ages of 10 and 15, have to serve until they are 21, however. . . . 

Our Europeans, who are purchased, must always work hard, for new fields are constantly being laid out; and so they learn that stumps of oak-trees are in America certainly as hard as in Germany. . . . 

Source: Linda R. Monk, ed., Ordinary Americans: U.S. History Through the Eyes of Ordinary People (1994).