The slave trade is irrelevant. The emigrants we are talking about ate
likely to have become at worst indentured servants. As some one else has
pointed out, Bristol and London were the two largest ports for colonial
trade (and the trade here will be direct trade not triangular, via Africa).
I do not see why religion should have anything to do with it.
K. Morgan, Bristol and the Atlantic Trade (1993), 124-7 discussed the
servant trade briefly. He refers to newspaper adverts. there were also
dealers, some of them unscrupulous who rounded up potential emigrants.
The emigrant was offered a 'free' passage but found himself on arrival
indentured to a settler often for seven years to pay for their passage.
Morgan cites a number of books and articles, but some of his sources are
manuscript.
Peter King
----- Original Message -----
From: Brockett <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 30 August 2001 13:53
Subject: Re: Bristol as a port of emigration 17th C
> I don't know if the emigrants were non-conformist. I was wondering whether
the port
> (Bristol as opposed to London or elsewhere) might give a clue whether they
were
> indentured servants or from the wealthier ranks of society. Thank you both
very much
> for the useful insights so far.
>
> Peter Park wrote:
>
> > >>Virginia was a tobacco growing area and there was a thriving tobacco
industry
> > in Bristol - possibly because that was the nearest port to the Americas.
> > Bristol also was a centre of the slave trade, and Virginia needed
slaves.
> > Therefore (as already pointed out) ships went to Virginia from Bristol:
for
> > trade purposes, because it was the closest port and because merchant
traders
> > financed the various expeditions. Liverpool was still undeveloped at
that time.
> >
> > I guess that it was cheaper for emigrants, too: the fewer miles you had
to go by
> > ship, the cheaper the passage.<<
> >
> > London was the other major port trading with the Americas at this time
and is
> > nearer Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Bristol was a strong Quaker
area - were
> > the emigrants in the original query Quakers or any other form of
non-conformist?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Peter Park. Walton on Thames, Surrey, UK.
> >
> > ... to know something of our ancestors, has always appeared to have been
a
> > desirable thing to me, and if any records had been handed down to me, I
should
> > have considered it as a Vallueable treasure.
> > Benjamin Shaw, 1826.
>
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