After the Journal editorialized about the Governor’s unpopular activities, Cosby decided to have the paper silenced by charging seditious libel and libel. He ordered Zenger’s paper burned, and his Justices issued a bench warrant for Zenger’s arrest. On November 17, 1734, Zenger was arrested and jailed under brutal conditions for eight months.
The unreasonably huge bail set for Zenger combined with his many “letters” from prison resulted in an outpouring of public sympathy for his cause. Added this to the fact, while her husband was in jail, Zenger’s wife Anna, although busy with their six young children, managed to keep the New York Weekly Journal publishing, missing only one issue, building broad public support for Zenger’s cause.
On August 5, 1735, Andrew Hamilton had to convince twelve New York jurors to ignore the instructions of Governor Cosby’s hand-picked judges and returned a verdict of “Not Guilty” on the charge of publishing “seditious libels.” Cosby further tried tampering with the jury but failed.
Hamilton argued the defense brilliantly and the jury deliberated just a short time before returning with a “not guilty” verdict. Shouts of joy rang from the crowd of spectators.Although the Zenger trial did not establish new law with respect to seditious libel, it gave birth to a free and open press in America and within a half-century members of the First Congress debated the proposed Bill of Rights. Not all indentured servants had so glorious a life as Zenger, however.
The Dutch Ship owners, growing wealthy from this large emigration, did all they could to keep it up. They sent “Newlanders,” people who had been in the “New Land,” to travel through the Palatinate luring the people under all kinds of false pretenses to leave their homes. They promised free transportation, money and clothing for the journey. The profit was greatest with the poor, for by not paying in advance for their transportation, they were charged so much in America after landing that they were compelled to work it off.
After the contract was signed, the victims were brought on the ship and stowed away in crowded, miserable steerage. Eventually, many letters of emigrants and pamphlets came to Germany describing the suffering both during their journeys and after arrival in the New World. Gottlieb Mittelberger, a teacher, published a report of his experiences. Mittelberger came to Pennsylvania from Germany in 1750. He served as a schoolmaster and organist in Philadelphia for three years and returned to Germany in 1754.
Everything is examined there and the custom-duties paid, whence it comes that the ships ride there 8, 10 to 14 days and even longer at anchor, till they have taken in their full cargoes. During that time every one is compelled to spend his last remaining money and to consume his little stock of provisions which had been reserved for the sea; so that most passengers, finding themselves on the ocean where they would be in greater need of them, must greatly suffer from hunger and want. Many suffer want already on the water between Holland and Old England.
When the ships have for the last time weighed their anchors near the city of Kaupp [Cowes] in Old England, the real misery begins with the long voyage. For from there the ships, unless they have good wind, must often sail 8, 9, 10 to 12 weeks before they reach Philadelphia. But even with the best wind the voyage lasts 7 weeks. But during the voyage there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably. Add to this want of provisions, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, anxiety, want, afflictions and lamentations, together with other trouble, as the lice abound so frightfully, especially on sick people, that they can be scraped off the body.
The misery reaches the climax when a gale rages for 2 or 3 nights and days, so that every one believes that the ship will go to the bottom with all human beings on board. In such a visitation the people cry and pray most piteously. When in such a gale the sea rages and surges, so that the waves rise often like high mountains one above the other, and often tumble over the ship, so that one fears to go down with the ship; when the ship is constantly tossed from side to side by the storm and waves, so that no one can either walk, or sit, or lie, and the closely packed people in the berths are thereby tumbled over each other, both the sick and the well – it will be readily understood that many of these people, none of whom had been prepared for hardships, suffer so terribly from them that they do not survive it.
I myself had to pass through a severe illness at sea, and I best know how I felt at the time. These poor people often long for consolation, and I often entertained and comforted them with singing, praying and exhorting; and whenever it was possible and the winds and waves permitted it, I kept daily prayer meetings with them on deck. Besides, I baptized five children in distress, because we had no ordained minister on board. I also held divine service every Sunday by reading sermons to the people; and when the dead were sunk in the water, I commended them and our souls to the mercy of God. Among the healthy, impatience sometimes grows so great and cruel that one curses the other, or himself and the day of his birth, and sometimes come near killing each other.
Misery and malice join each other, so that they cheat and rob one another. One always reproaches the other with having persuaded him to undertake the journey. Frequently children cry out against their parents, husbands against their wives and wives against their husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances against each other. But most against the soul-traffickers.
Many sigh and cry: “Oh, that I were at home again, and if I had to lie in my pig-sty!” Or they say: “O God, if I only had a piece of good bread, or a good fresh drop of water.” Many people whimper, sigh and cry piteously for their homes; most of them get home-sick. Many hundred people necessarily die and perish in such misery, and must be cast into the sea, which drives their relatives, or those who persuaded them to undertake the journey, to such despair that it is almost impossible to pacify and console them. No one can have an idea of the sufferings which women in confinement have to bear with their innocent children on board these ships. Few of this class escape with their lives; many a mother is cast into the water with her child as soon as she is dead. One day, just as we had a heavy gale, a woman in our ship, who was to give birth and could not give birth under the circumstances, was pushed through a loop-hole [port-hole] in the ship and dropped into the sea, because she was far in the rear of the ship and could not be brought forward.
Children from 1 to 7 years rarely survive the voyage. I witnessed misery in no less than 32 children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea. The parents grieve all the more since their children find no resting-place in the earth, but are devoured by the monsters of the sea.
That most of the people get sick is not surprising, because, in addition to all other trials and hardships, warm food is served only three times a week, the rations being very poor and very little. Such meals can hardly be eaten, on account of being so unclean. The water which is served out on the ships is often very black, thick and full of worms, so that one cannot drink it without loathing, even with the greatest thirst. Toward the end we were compelled to eat the ship’s biscuit which had been spoiled long ago; though in a whole biscuit there was scarcely a, piece the size of a dollar that had not been full of red worms and spiders nests. At length, when, after a long and tedious voyage, the ships come in sight of land, so that the promontories can be seen, which the people were so eager and anxious to see, all creep from below on deck to see the land from afar, and they weep for joy, and pray and sing, thanking and praising God.
The sight of the land makes the people on board the ship, especially the sick and the half dead, alive again, so that their hearts leap within them; they shout and rejoice, and are content to bear their misery in patience, in the hope that they may soon reach the land in safety. But alas! When the ships have landed at Philadelphia after their long voyage, no one is permitted to leave them except those who pay for their passage or can give good security; the others, who cannot pay, must remain on board the ships till they are purchased, and are released from the ships by their purchasers. The sick always fare the worst, for the healthy are naturally preferred and purchased first; and so the sick and wretched must often remain on board in front of the city for 2 or 3 weeks, and frequently die, whereas many a one, if he could pay his debt and were permitted to leave the ship immediately, might recover and remain alive.
The sale of human beings in the market on board the ship is carried on thus: Every day Englishmen, Dutchmen and High German people come from the city of Philadelphia and other places, in part from a great distance, say 20, 30, or 40 hours away, and go on board the newly arrived ship that has brought and offers for sale passengers from Europe, and select among the healthy persons such as they deem suitable for their business, and bargain with them how long they will serve for their passage money, which most of them are still in debt for. When they have come to an agreement, it happens that adult persons bind themselves in writing to serve 3, 4, 5 or 6 years for the amount due by them, according to their age and strength.
But very young people, from 10 to 15 years, must serve till they are 21 years old. Many parents must sell and trade away their children like so many head of cattle; for if their children take the debt upon themselves, the parents can leave the ship free and unrestrained; but as the parents often do not know where and to what people their children are going, it often happens that such parents and children, after leaving the ship, do not see each other again for many years, perhaps no more in all their lives.
It often happens that whole families, husband, wife, and children, are separated by being sold to different purchasers, especially when they have not paid any part of their passage money. When a husband or wife has died at sea, when the ship has made more than half of her trip, the survivor must pay or serve not only for himself or herself, but also for the deceased. When both parents have died over half-way at sea, their children, especially when they are young and have nothing to pawn or to pay, must stand for their own and their parents’ passage, and serve till they are 21 years old. When one has served his or her term, he or she is entitled to a new suit of clothes at parting; and if it has been so stipulated, a man gets in addition a horse, a woman, a cow.
When a serf has an opportunity to marry in this country, he or she must pay for each year which he or she would have yet to serve, 5 to 6 pounds. But many a one who has thus purchased and paid for his bride, has subsequently repented his bargain, so that he would gladly have returned his exorbitantly dear ware, and lost the money besides. If some one in this country runs away from his master, who has treated him harshly, he cannot get far. Good provision has been made for such cases, so that a runaway is soon recovered. He who detains or returns a deserter receives a good reward. If such a runaway has been away from his master one day, he must serve for it as a punishment a week, for a week a month, and for a month half a year.”
As colonization accelerated in the eastern provinces, defensive struggles against the marauding Slavs ensured a stronger more powerful concentration of aristocrats and demanded more rigorous treatment of serfs. In complete serfdom, one’s very body belonged to his lord (Leibeigenschaft) while other serfs were only bound to perform certain duties and were not further oppressed by the landowners on whose soil they were settled. Social evolution brought about emancipation, chiefly by governmental measures, for example through reforms in Prussia. Personal serfdom (Leibeigenschaft) was abolished first, hereditary subjection (Erbunterthanigkeit) followed next.
In the 18th century Leibeigenschaft, or personal servitude, took on a slightly different meaning, but was still the legal status of up to 10 percent of the population in southwestern Germany. Although not a slave and able to work his own land, the subject still had financial obligations, usually in the form of an annual recognition fee. In this system, the restrictions of marriage stirred up the most displeasure and were an important cause for the farmer wars. Few Leibeigene had enough money to buy their freedom, and in order to relocate, one had to purchase the right.
Under the Leibeigenschaft, which was inherited only through the mother, women paid more than men for their freedom. Anyone wishing to emigrate would have to not only pay a fee called a manumission and a percentage of the value of their property for their Ledigzehlung, or release from servitude, they had to also fork out a local emigration tax, all of which could end up consuming half of an emigrant’s assets. Therefore, many saved themselves the money and left secretly.