The Germans, Swiss and others who traveled to America would never have been able to afford the fare of the ships travel from Germany to American if it wasn't for being indentured. The person who "purchased" their labor paid the ships Captain for their passage, it was the only way they could come and they knew this before they ever left Germany. When they had served their time, they received a suit of new clothes and some money. A good 3/4th of the German immigrants to American were indentured. Some of their employers were kind, others not so much. Their collateral was themselves. My Loch family was indentured, one working for 14 years to pay his parents fare as they were too old to do so. Many families were separated at this time, but managed to reunite at a later date. They did not all remain in the Philadelphia area, some were sent to NY, NJ, VA, MD, where ever the person who purchased their labor and paid their fare was from. While it wasn't slavery, it at least had an ending date and once they served their time, they were free to move about the country. Judy On 03/19/13, Russell Bushong<chochoruss@aol.com> wrote: Of course, I never meant for any of this to be a personal disagreement with Gloria at all. I am not interested in that, only history and genealogy. You are so right, we need to keep the personal out of the discussion. I am delighted that you have enjoyed the week and so perhaps it is time to be onto an other discussion. As mentioned, I descend from Andreas and then George, his son, so am not really up on other lines of this family, especially the Lancaster group. I am very familiar as to where they lived, however, as well as some of those in other states. The U. of PA I believe is responsible for this publication and I know that you will all enjoy it because your ancestors experience the same traveling conditions, plus it describes the portion of the journey before they get to the Ocean. Those references to sales of passengers, were those who paid the ships fare's for various passengers who were then "sold" and became Indentured Servants, as so many of our ancester's were.. [1]http://archive.org/details/gottlichmittelbe01mitt Gottlich Mittelberger's journey to Pennsylvania in the year 1750 and return to Germany in the year 1754, containing not only a description of the country according to its present condition, but also a detailed account of the sad and unfortunate circumstances of most of the Germans that have emigrated, or are emigrating to that country (1898) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks Judy. Interesting read. Guess nothing really has changed from 1750 to present day. We still have white slavery, people living in sin, children being born out of wedlock, and immigrants being taken advantage of by those who would profit be it monetary or politically. I have an account of one of my Neiger relations that kept a journal of his travels from Switzerland to America, who immigrated here in 1860 and the ship conditions were no better then 110 years before in 1750. Imagine that. Gloria ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [2]BOSCHONG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message References 1. http://archive.org/details/gottlichmittelbe01mitt 2. mailto:BOSCHONG-request@rootsweb.com