十七世紀中葉の西ミッドランドの農村 : 年季奉公人の故郷の一例

概要

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Indentured servants were an important labour force in colonial British America, particularly during the seventeenth century. However, the social origins of these servants have not been investigated until now. The aim of this paper is to describe the socio-economic structure of the society in which they were born and brought up. The rural area located along the Wye in Herefordshire in the West Midlands in the mid-seventeenth century has been selected as a case study. Population growth in this area proceeded only very slowly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. However, the natural increase in population was so great that it generated a large amount of emigration. Emigrants may have come mainly from the lower echelons. It seems that they always felt under pressure to emigrate because they had few opportunities to improve their standard of living within their own communities. Their economy was based on agriculture, specifically corn and sheep, mainly cultivated in open fields under the control of the manorial system. It was therefore difficult for poorer inhabitants to obtain enough land to ensure subsistence. On the other hand, the rural industries which might have generated some employment opportunities did not exist. The consequence was that many inhabitants, particularly young people looking for employment, left in search of a better land, which in some cases might well have been an American colony.
社会経済史学会の論文
1998-11-25