“Pity Your Distressed Daughter”: Inequality in the 18th Century South

Background:  In this 1756 letter to her parents in England, Elizabeth Sprigs, a female servant in Maryland, describes the harsh conditions of her life and labor.  Well into the eighteenth century, many women committed themselves to indentured servitude in exchange for passage to the North American colonies.

Honored Father

My being forever banished from your sight will I hope pardon the boldness I now take of troubling you with these [words]. . . . O Dear Father, believe that I am going to relate the words of truth and sincerity, and balance my former bad conduct [to] my sufferings here, and then I am sure you’ll pity your distressed daughter. What we unfortunate English people suffer here is beyond the probability of you in England to conceive. Let it suffice that I, one of the unhappy number, am toiling almost day and night, and very often in the horses’ drudgery, with only this comfort that “you bitch you do not half enough,” and then tied up and whipped to that degree that you’d not serve an animal. Scarce anything but Indian corn and salt to eat and that even begrudged nay many Negroes are better used, almost naked no shoes nor stockings to wear, and the comfort after slaving during Master’s pleasure, what rest we can get is to wrap ourselves up in an blanket and lay upon the ground. This is the deplorable condition your poor Betty endures, and now I beg if you have any bowels of compassion left show it by sending me some relief, clothing is the principal thing wanting, which if you should condescend to, may easily send them to me by any ships bound to Baltimore Town, Patapsco River, Maryland, and give me leave to conclude in duty to you and Uncles and Aunts, and respect to all friends, Honored Father 

Your undutiful and disobedient child
ELIZABETH SPRIGS

Source: Elizabeth Sprigs, "Letter to Mr. John Sprigs in White Cross Street near Cripple Gate, London, September 22, 1756," in Isabel Calder, ed., Colonial Captivities, Marches, and Journeys (New York: MacMillan Company, 1935), 151-152.