Hi Elizabeth, From: "Elizabeth Johnson" <elizajohn@sbcglobal.net> Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:28 PM Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Legal age > Does anyone know the legal age of an adult in New Netherlands? This is in relation to an endenture. When would a child no longer need a parent for this step? If no one knows specifically, can anyone refer me to a general source of law in the period < Are you talking about the case in which a child would be, say, apprenticed to someone for a period of years? And the situation would be covered by a contract called an indenture? I believe that the indenture would spell out the number of years: 3 years, 5 years, whatever. For example, from Black's Law Dictionary, 1st ed. (1891): "Indenture of apprenticeship. A contract in two parts, by which a person, generally a minor, is bound to serve another in his trade, art, or occupation for a stated time, on condition of being instructed in the same." I'm not sure what you mean by "no longer need a parent for this step". What step? When they reached the end of the agreed upon period, then the indenture was over. I suppose if they were not of full age then, they might still need a guardian. I agree with Peter that under the Roman-Dutch law, the age when a man had full rights was 25. But as he mentions, there some things that occured earlier. For example, to be "able to bear arms" a young man had to be only 16. Also, he could be taxed at 16, as I recall. My gut feel is that indentures of apprenticeship usually were set to run until the boy was about 21. One place to get some actual data is in the book The Burghers of New Amsterdam and the Freemen of New York. This is vol 18 of Collections of the New-York Historical Society (1885). In the back on pp. 565 to 622 are shown a large number of indentures of apprenticeship. These cover 1695 to 1708. Here's two examples: In 1703, Edward Garnum, age 10, was apprenticed to William Haywood, shipwright, for 11 years. [ibid. p. 606] In 1698, William Evans aged 14 was apprenticed to Abraham Splinter, cordwainor, tanner, and currier for 5 1/2 years. Mr. Splinter also at the end had to provide William with 2 suits of clothes and he had to be taught to read, write, and cypher as far as the Rule of three.[p. 578] Regards, Howard hswain@ix.netcom.com

Hi, In my research I have run across many indentures for children to be bound out to another person to learn a trade. This was mostly for children whose father had died and the mother could not take care of all the children. Some of them were orphans and had to be placed somewhere. The judge doing this said they were to learn the mystery of farming, blacksmithing, tanning, anything which the person taking the child had a business. They were to teach the arithmetics to three, feed and clothe and house them. When they reached the age to be freed from this indenture they were to be given a suit of clothing and several other things to get them started in their life. This gave many children help to learn a trade. The age had nothing to do with it, only the fact that the mother or father , if they were very poor or if father or mother had died and they wanted the child to be taught a trade. Donna ----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Swain" <hswain@ix.netcom.com> To: <dutch-colonies@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 8:22 PM Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Legal age > Hi Elizabeth, > > From: "Elizabeth Johnson" <elizajohn@sbcglobal.net> > Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:28 PM > Subject: Re: [DUTCH-COLONIES] Legal age > > >> Does anyone know the legal age of an adult in New Netherlands? This is in >> relation to an endenture. When would a child no longer need a parent for >> this step? If no one knows specifically, can anyone refer me to a >> general source of law in the period < > > > Are you talking about the case in which a child would be, say, apprenticed > to someone for a period of years? And the situation would be covered by > a contract called an indenture? > > I believe that the indenture would spell out the number of years: > 3 years, 5 years, whatever. For example, from Black's Law Dictionary, 1st > ed. (1891): > "Indenture of apprenticeship. A contract in two parts, by which > a person, generally a minor, is bound to serve another in his trade, art, > or occupation for a stated time, on condition of being instructed in > the same." > > I'm not sure what you mean by "no longer need a parent for this step". > What step? When they reached the end of the agreed upon period, > then the indenture was over. I suppose if they were not of full age > then, they might still need a guardian. > > I agree with Peter that under the Roman-Dutch law, the age when a > man had full rights was 25. But as he mentions, there some things > that occured earlier. For example, to be "able to bear arms" a > young man had to be only 16. Also, he could be taxed at 16, as > I recall. > > My gut feel is that indentures of apprenticeship usually were set > to run until the boy was about 21. > One place to get some actual data is in the book The Burghers > of New Amsterdam and the Freemen of New York. This is vol 18 > of Collections of the New-York Historical Society (1885). > In the back on pp. 565 to 622 are shown a large number of > indentures of apprenticeship. These cover 1695 to 1708. > > Here's two examples: In 1703, Edward Garnum, age 10, was apprenticed > to William Haywood, shipwright, for 11 years. [ibid. p. 606] > > In 1698, William Evans aged 14 was apprenticed to Abraham Splinter, > cordwainor, tanner, and currier for 5 1/2 years. Mr. Splinter also > at the end had to provide William with 2 suits of clothes and he had > to be taught to read, write, and cypher as far as the Rule of three.[p. > 578] > > Regards, > Howard > hswain@ix.netcom.com > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DUTCH-COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > >