OUR FOUNDLING FATHERS
The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) was Europe’s bloodiest war. The pretext of the war was religion: Catholic vs. Protestant. A higher percentage of Germans perished in this war (20% of the entire population) than in World War I and World War II combined. Entire cities were burnt to the ground and all their adult inhabitants massacred. The result was hundreds of thousands of children orphaned and left abandoned — viz. foundlings.
American historians estimate between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants to the American colonies between 1630 and the American Revolution came as white slaves/indentured servants. And the vast majority of those didn’t come as religious refugees but rather economic — mostly young Germans left orphaned by the Thirty Years War. More white Americans today are descended from these German foundlings than from any other ethnic group.
All first-hand narratives contemporaneous to these events are collaboration. They are scarce and differ slightly but they all share a common storyline — the same underlying structure. On a side note, most source material is written primarily in German — not English — because the majority of those trapped in white slavery were Germans. Interestingly, recent source material was discovered not here but in Germany written by former indentures who subsequently were able to return to Europe. They all attest that while in America, they were given Anglicized names by their owners just as African slaves were. The narratives all detail sprawling allegations of fraud and abuse leading to enslavement.
The Old World loved the products from the New World but the New World for Old World products — not so much. Cargo ships were built to carry cargo. Without cargo they rode too high in the water and sailed poorly. So, ships’ captains would send out agents to “recruit” passengers to the New World. The agents would use any means necessary to convince, lure, trick, dupe or dope these young orphans of the war to board a ship. If that didn’t work, they would seize, threaten or beat them into submission. Once captive aboard ship, it was both physically and psychologically impossible to leave. Trapped, they could not trust their own decision-making process. Once docked in the New World, the ship’s captain would auction them off stripped naked — both men and women alike — to the highest bidder. The ship’s captain had complete discretion as to what period the indenture would be. The only restriction was that it could not be “for life”.
Make no mistake, indentured servantry is slavery. The legal definition of slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to persons, allowing individuals to own, buy, and sell other individuals as a (de jure) form of property. Moreover, a slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without renumeration. Indentured servitude was often more brutal than slavery with a high percent of servants dying prior to the expiration of indentures. And white woman were especially maltreated since unlike with slaves whose children were bonded for life, an indenture’s children were “free” and therefore garnered less economic benefit to their title holders.
The facts about indentured servitude in the colonies doesn’t fit the politically prescribed narrative — not for Blacks nor for whites. White indentures were worked and beaten more mercilessly than Black slaves. This is because their overseers knew they could only be kept in bondage for a pre-determined number of years vs. a lifetime for Blacks. This is cold calculated logic. Most people are more likely to abuse a rent-a-car more than one which they own. It is well-known that George Washington freed his slaves after his death. What is far less known is that he did not free any of his white indentures after his death. Furthermore, there exists no documentation that George Washington went after any of his escaped Black slaves but we do have documentation that he sent the dogs/blood hounds after and put a bounty on his white indentures — mostly Germans — when they escaped. And indentured servitude continued well past the Civil War. The idea that Africans were brought here as slaves but most whites came here as free persons is a complete and total fabrication. Its purpose was to reinforce the American ideal as the land of the free. U.S. historians estimate between 3/4 and 4/5 of white Americans are descendants of those early arrivals who came here as white slaves.
In one week, on December 18, 2020, we will be commemorating the 400th anniversary — the quadricentennial — of the landing of the Mayflower. But quit acting like your ancestors arrived on the Mayflower or were Founding Fathers. They didn’t and they weren’t. And if they did — all that means is that they participated in suffocating, drowning or burning alive old women whose property they wished to confiscate. In fact, if you cannot trace your ancestry to Europe, you are far and away more likely to have an indenture as a direct ancestor. But take heart, these foundlings and their descendants had more to do with shaping the American character — warts and all — than descendants of the Mayflower or Founding Fathers did. And the one thing that binds the vast majority of American is that their immigrant ancestors almost all came over in some form of bonded servitude — white, Black, Hispanic, Asian. ALL!
